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BigDave
Jul 14, 2009

Taste the High Country

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Yahoo! is actually not all that evil. They are, however, staggeringly and bafflingly incompetent.

Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.

:eng101: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Yahoo! may not be a scam, but Theranos certainly was: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-exclusive

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Bogan King
Jan 21, 2013

I'm not racist, I'm mates with Bangladesh, the guy who sells me kebabs. No, I don't know his real name.

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Yahoo! is actually not all that evil. They are, however, staggeringly and bafflingly incompetent.

Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.

many johnnys
May 17, 2015

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Yahoo! is actually not all that evil. They are, however, staggeringly and bafflingly incompetent.

Ars recently wrote a bit of a retrospective on yahoo, it's funny and informative: https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/03/how-is-babby-formed-the-meme-that-will-define-yahoo-forever/

Special attention should be paid to the first paragraph after the lil YouTube gag, describing all the different properties yahoo acquired and then destroyed. Each link leads to a different and expensive mistake - I read the Flickr one and Yahoo is a loving mess.

chemosh6969
Jul 3, 2004

code:
cat /dev/null > /etc/professionalism

I am in fact a massive asswagon.
Do not let me touch computer.

many johnnys posted:

Ars recently wrote a bit of a retrospective on yahoo, it's funny and informative: https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/03/how-is-babby-formed-the-meme-that-will-define-yahoo-forever/


I wouldn't say Ars really wrote anything, it's a blogger that did the usual thing of linking to a bunch of articles written by actual writers, and throwing a few words out about what someone else wrote. At least Forbes has the decency to put crap like this in a blog section.

Timby
Dec 23, 2006

Your mother!

chemosh6969 posted:

I wouldn't say Ars really wrote anything, it's a blogger that did the usual thing of linking to a bunch of articles written by actual writers, and throwing a few words out about what someone else wrote. At least Forbes has the decency to put crap like this in a blog section.

That particular Ars writer, Annalee Newitz, is an unabashed hack.

She founded io9, which should give you some semblance of what she considers "good writing" to be.

Lutha Mahtin
Oct 10, 2010

Your brokebrain sin is absolved...go and shitpost no more!

oh right, it's that article where she examines the downfall of Yahoo through the prism of a Schmorky cartoon

many johnnys
May 17, 2015

The Yahoo stuff is still good and the company is a mess. Pretend I posted a wall of the links from that page about their failed properties instead of one link if that helps.

Sheep
Jul 24, 2003
The weird thing about Yahoo is that it is still widely used in Japan. Tons of people use Yahoo auctions and poo poo there, but for no apparent reason other than inertia.

It's even more popular as a search engine there than Google which is all the more baffling.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



many johnnys posted:

The Yahoo stuff is still good and the company is a mess

They massively hosed up Flickr.

And of course, their security appears to be an afterthought and is horrific.

Lutha Mahtin
Oct 10, 2010

Your brokebrain sin is absolved...go and shitpost no more!

i remember laughing when the :nsa: stuff first came to light about snooping on the internal connections that search engines had between different data centers. yahoo released a statement back then saying they were unable to protect against it because the way their systems were designed, it wasn't possible to change their links between data centers to use encrypted connections. so like, all that a spy agency would have to do is find a backwater spot where the Yahoo fiber was buried and dig it up to splice in some equipment :pseudo:

Watermelon Daiquiri
Jul 10, 2010
I TRIED TO BAIT THE TXPOL THREAD WITH THE WORLD'S WORST POSSIBLE TAKE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID AVATAR.

Lutha Mahtin posted:

i remember laughing when the :nsa: stuff first came to light about snooping on the internal connections that search engines had between different data centers. yahoo released a statement back then saying they were unable to protect against it because the way their systems were designed, it wasn't possible to change their links between data centers to use encrypted connections. so like, all that a spy agency would have to do is find a backwater spot where the Yahoo fiber was buried and dig it up to splice in some equipment :pseudo:

oh i remember that episode

Living Image
Apr 24, 2010

HORSE'S ASS

Sheep posted:

The weird thing about Yahoo is that it is still widely used in Japan. Tons of people use Yahoo auctions and poo poo there, but for no apparent reason other than inertia.

It's even more popular as a search engine there than Google which is all the more baffling.

Japan is the same country which still uses fax machines heavily though.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Corrode posted:

Japan is the same country which still uses fax machines heavily though.

Anyone who thinks fax machines are dead in the west has never worked in government or education.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Cyrano4747 posted:

Anyone who thinks fax machines are dead in the west has never worked in government or education.

Or interacted with lawyers.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

flosofl posted:

Or interacted with lawyers.

Financial services too. There are a whole poo poo ton of instances where a signed, faxed document is considered legally binding and an email isn't, or where email isn't considered secure enough.

Collateral Damage
Jun 13, 2009

Cyrano4747 posted:

Anyone who thinks fax machines are dead in the west has never worked in government or education.
Or finance. efb.

Lemon
May 22, 2003

Or the construction industry in the UK. There are a lot of old fucks still out there in various sectors who really don't want to use email.

Zamboni Apocalypse
Dec 29, 2009
Chiming in for medical - which also overlaps into finance (for paying the bills, or disallowing) and legal (since I work in behavioral health and lawyers and judges are always contacting us).

Wikipedia posted:

Scottish inventor Alexander Bain worked on chemical mechanical fax type devices and in 1846 was able to reproduce graphic signs in laboratory experiments. He received British patent 9745 on May 27, 1843 for his "Electric Printing Telegraph."[2] Frederick Bakewell made several improvements on Bain's design and demonstrated a telefax machine. The Pantelegraph was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli. He introduced the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the telephone.[

150+ years of fax - must be an Illuminati plot.

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

Zamboni Apocalypse posted:

Chiming in for medical - which also overlaps into finance (for paying the bills, or disallowing) and legal (since I work in behavioral health and lawyers and judges are always contacting us).


150+ years of fax - must be an Illuminati plot.

Just the fax, Ma'am.

Xlorp
Jan 23, 2008


Zamboni Apocalypse posted:

150+ years of fax - must be an Illuminati plot.
We've never wanted anything but the fax

Lutha Mahtin
Oct 10, 2010

Your brokebrain sin is absolved...go and shitpost no more!

Zamboni Apocalypse posted:

Chiming in for medical - which also overlaps into finance (for paying the bills, or disallowing) and legal (since I work in behavioral health and lawyers and judges are always contacting us).

yeah, i work in humans services (mostly DD/SPMI) and its the same thing. things are beginning to shift to the point where sometimes email is OK, but after several years of being taught "put little/no client information as possible on email/texts/phone" it freaks me out a little

1000 Brown M and Ms
Oct 22, 2008

F:\DL>quickfli 4-clowns.fli

Sheep posted:

The weird thing about Yahoo is that it is still widely used in Japan. Tons of people use Yahoo auctions and poo poo there, but for no apparent reason other than inertia.

It's even more popular as a search engine there than Google which is all the more baffling.

Japan is surprisingly backward with a lot of their infrastructure. Most official stuff is still done by hand on paper rather than anything electronic. Banking is a bit of a pain in the rear end as well. Cash is mostly used for any transaction, even things like rent and insurance. I even knew an old guy over there that refused to use anything but cash. I'm not sure he even had a bank account. Very few ATMs outside of the post office will accept foreign cards (Cirrus/Maestro etc), and even then it's a crapshoot as to whether a card will work. I think a lot of it is because Japan is a very old country and they're very set in their ways, for better or worse.



Anyway, scams. I ran into a few when I visited Hong Kong, but at least I only really fell for one.

I was down at the waterfront and an Indian dude started talking to me. Seemed legit at first, but then he did a routing about being a yogi and giving him money for luck. I gave him $10HKD (~$1USD) so he would shut up, but he kept pressuring me so I walked away. I also went across the border to Shenzhen and while I was there bought a MicroSD card from a dude on the street, but it didn't work. Looked real legit though. Only cost about $10 so I wasn't too miffed.

Worst was when I went to Wan Chai with a dude I met at the hostel I was staying at. We were walking past a bar and some girls literally dragged us inside. They really wanted us to spend money on a strip show or to gently caress them, but all we did was buy them a drink. Sounds fine, until they gave us the bill when we left. Our drinks were about $40HKD each, but theirs were $400HKD each. That pissed us off, but we thought it would be a good idea to pay in case there were some dudes out the back that would gently caress us up if we bailed. Honestly, it could have been much worse but we really shouldn't have stayed in the first place.

I also remember a ton of Indian or Arab guys offering me drugs, and people collecting donations for some disaster in the Philippines. I have no idea if they were legit or not, but I wasn't interested in finding out. There's also all the markets with tons of knockoff merchandise, but I'm not sure I'd consider that a scam because of how open they are.

DizzyBum
Apr 16, 2007


1000 Brown M and Ms posted:

Anyway, scams. I ran into a few when I visited Hong Kong, but at least I only really fell for one.

I was down at the waterfront and an Indian dude started talking to me. Seemed legit at first, but then he did a routing about being a yogi and giving him money for luck. I gave him $10HKD (~$1USD) so he would shut up, but he kept pressuring me so I walked away. I also went across the border to Shenzhen and while I was there bought a MicroSD card from a dude on the street, but it didn't work. Looked real legit though. Only cost about $10 so I wasn't too miffed.

Worst was when I went to Wan Chai with a dude I met at the hostel I was staying at. We were walking past a bar and some girls literally dragged us inside. They really wanted us to spend money on a strip show or to gently caress them, but all we did was buy them a drink. Sounds fine, until they gave us the bill when we left. Our drinks were about $40HKD each, but theirs were $400HKD each. That pissed us off, but we thought it would be a good idea to pay in case there were some dudes out the back that would gently caress us up if we bailed. Honestly, it could have been much worse but we really shouldn't have stayed in the first place.

I also remember a ton of Indian or Arab guys offering me drugs, and people collecting donations for some disaster in the Philippines. I have no idea if they were legit or not, but I wasn't interested in finding out. There's also all the markets with tons of knockoff merchandise, but I'm not sure I'd consider that a scam because of how open they are.

:stare: Yeah, uhh, sounds like you fell for more than one there.

I feel it's a general rule that if someone is physically forcing you into something then you probably shouldn't stay there. I'm sure you realized that in hindsight, though.

Haifisch
Nov 13, 2010

Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!



Taco Defender

DizzyBum posted:

:stare: Yeah, uhh, sounds like you fell for more than one there.
I'm trying to figure out which one is the scam he thought he fell for. The "attractive girls/taxi drivers/etc hustling you into a bar with insanely expensive drinks" thing is a well known travel scam, buying electronics off random dudes in the street is just dumb, and so is giving money to talkative weirdos to make them go away. Although that last one is less 'scam' and more 'panhandlers taking advantage of people who don't want to be rude or make a scene'.

Maybe a basic test of street smarts should be required before getting a passport. (:goonsay:, hindsight, etc)

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug
Well looks like I got targeted for my first CD scam a few days ago.

I was just walking down a sidewalk in a main street and this guy just randomly says "hey, good music here!" and hands me a CD from a stack of mismatched, random stuff. He then said "hey what's your name?" while getting out a bright pink marker and taking the cap off.

I just handed it back and walked away. I forget what he said but it was a throw away comment that basically meant "well guess I can't scam this guy."

My assumption was that he was going to write my name on the case and then demand I pay for it because he couldn't sell it to anybody else and I'd be the jerk for accepting it and not paying for it.

chemosh6969
Jul 3, 2004

code:
cat /dev/null > /etc/professionalism

I am in fact a massive asswagon.
Do not let me touch computer.

1000 Brown M and Ms posted:

We were walking past a bar and some girls literally dragged us inside. They really wanted us to spend money on a strip show or to gently caress them, but all we did was buy them a drink.

No, you did what they wanted. They made you think they wanted one thing but all they wanted was for you to buy drinks. Find a military base in Asia and then go the bars around the gates. That's what most of them are.

A couple of us went to meet a co-worker's fiance at the place she worked. So we walk out from the base and start going downtown. Then we start going in the direction where all the bars are. Yep, that's where she worked. Best part was when she was on stage, he got up, went to the stage, got down on one knee and pulled out a ring.

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

chemosh6969 posted:

No, you did what they wanted. They made you think they wanted one thing but all they wanted was for you to buy drinks. Find a military base in Asia and then go the bars around the gates. That's what most of them are.

A couple of us went to meet a co-worker's fiance at the place she worked. So we walk out from the base and start going downtown. Then we start going in the direction where all the bars are. Yep, that's where she worked. Best part was when she was on stage, he got up, went to the stage, got down on one knee and pulled out a ring.

Aww, that's so romantic. :kimchi:

Blackchamber
Jan 25, 2005

1000 Brown M and Ms posted:

I also went across the border to Shenzhen and while I was there bought a MicroSD card from a dude on the street, but it didn't work. Looked real legit though. Only cost about $10 so I wasn't too miffed.

I bought a flashdrive at ladies market (popular street market in Hong Kong for people unfamiliar) because I liked the design of the shell and it was supposed to be 4gb, and when you plugged it in it showed that much space was available but when you actually loaded files on it it was less than 1gb. I just took it apart and stuffed the innards of a different flashdrive into it though, and its the shell that I liked anyways.

Pharmaskittle
Dec 17, 2007

arf arf put the money in the fuckin bag

I'd be more worried about buying a memory card off the street and blithely jamming it into my computer than its capacity.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug

Pharmaskittle posted:

I'd be more worried about buying a memory card off the street and blithely jamming it into my computer than its capacity.

A disturbingly effective hacking tactic is to just leave thumb drives in parking lots outside of whatever building contains computers you want to hack. There's always that one dumbass who will be all like "hey lol it might be celebrity nudes!" and plug it in.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

Yeah, strongest system only being as strong as the weakest guy on the team, etc

1000 Brown M and Ms
Oct 22, 2008

F:\DL>quickfli 4-clowns.fli

Haifisch posted:

I'm trying to figure out which one is the scam he thought he fell for. The "attractive girls/taxi drivers/etc hustling you into a bar with insanely expensive drinks" thing is a well known travel scam, buying electronics off random dudes in the street is just dumb, and so is giving money to talkative weirdos to make them go away. Although that last one is less 'scam' and more 'panhandlers taking advantage of people who don't want to be rude or make a scene'.

Well, I did admit I fell for all of them, but the girls in the bar was the one I really fell for. As I said, the other two were less than $10 each which to me is annoying, but no big deal.

quote:

Maybe a basic test of street smarts should be required before getting a passport. (:goonsay:, hindsight, etc)


I can certainly tell you that I'll be a lot more careful if I ever go back to Hong Kong. Anyway, what happened to me is pretty minor compared to a lot of the scams talked about in this thread.

BogDew
Jun 14, 2006

E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli
You hit tourist scam bingo. Being dragged into a pub scam is an old one, namely they rake in the cash as they charge for the "company" of the person who took you there. Another variation are students wanting to practice their English so they lead you into a bar and then quietly vanish leaving you with a surprise bill.

The yogi/monk scam is common as hell as it plays big on Westerners's assuming everything is mystical in the east. They can also throw in the fun one of giving you a "free item" then demand you pay for it.

Taxies are a big one to watch out for as well, either being completely fake, having a broken meter or giving you a random tour of the city to pad out the time.

You kind of have to be a bit of a prick when travelling and ignore anyone who comes up to you on the street at random and get used to saying no alot.

1000 Brown M and Ms
Oct 22, 2008

F:\DL>quickfli 4-clowns.fli
Yeah, it sucks but I know for next time.

I never got the people wanting to practice English scam, but since Hong Kong used to be a UK territory I'm not sure you could get away with it. I'm sure it's common in other Asian countries though.

I knew about Buddhist monks before I went, and how if they ask for money it's a scam, but the Yogi guy caught me out.

I never used a taxi over there because I know they can be scams.

Original_Z
Jun 14, 2005
Z so good

WebDog posted:

You kind of have to be a bit of a prick when travelling and ignore anyone who comes up to you on the street at random and get used to saying no alot.

Yeah, it's like that line from the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie, " You knew something was wrong but you came back into the house. Did I force you, did I drag you in? No. All I had to do was offer you a drink. It's hard to believe that the fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain. But you know what? It is. And they always come willingly." Even if you think something is off, a lot of us want to give other's the benefit of the doubt and not appear rude, and the scammers know how to work your emotions like that.

Original_Z fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Apr 9, 2017

Anil Dikshit
Apr 11, 2007
My folks fell for the water softener scam. They came out to my job to tell me about it, so I started pointing out that A: no one testing water for the city is going to make work for themselves by calling you at home, b: they're not going to try to sell you poo poo, c: you won't have a water softener that they have priced at $5k paid off in 24 payments of 25 dollars, so if they're telling you that, you'll have a hell of a final payment, d: that model of water softener they have listed goes for 250 bucks at lowes, so if you really want a water softener, I'll buy it, and give it to you. Also, I don't care if you committed to the purchase, in our state, you can back out of a purchase within 3 days if they came to sell it to you at your house

Mom gave me some major pushback, so I left the proof up on their computer and left. I didn't see them for a week, and when I did, the first thing they told me was that I was right and they cancelled.

Redrum and Coke
Feb 25, 2006

wAstIng 10 bUcks ON an aVaTar iS StUpid

The Sexual Shiite posted:

My folks fell for the water softener scam. They came out to my job to tell me about it, so I started pointing out that A: no one testing water for the city is going to make work for themselves by calling you at home, b: they're not going to try to sell you poo poo, c: you won't have a water softener that they have priced at $5k paid off in 24 payments of 25 dollars, so if they're telling you that, you'll have a hell of a final payment, d: that model of water softener they have listed goes for 250 bucks at lowes, so if you really want a water softener, I'll buy it, and give it to you. Also, I don't care if you committed to the purchase, in our state, you can back out of a purchase within 3 days if they came to sell it to you at your house

Mom gave me some major pushback, so I left the proof up on their computer and left. I didn't see them for a week, and when I did, the first thing they told me was that I was right and they cancelled.

Can you elaborate on the scam? I don't think I've heard of it.

Anil Dikshit
Apr 11, 2007

Non Serviam posted:

Can you elaborate on the scam? I don't think I've heard of it.

You get a cold call.
"We're working with your local water department to check water quality in your area. Can we come by to test it? It'll take half an hour!"
You say yes, they set up an appointment.
They come "test" your water, and throw you some bullshit about how their test shows your water is dangerous, and the chlorine in it is poison, etc. if you buy their filter, though, it'll totally fix it! By this point, they've been at your house for hours.

Here's a ten minute video on the scam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axSkJa6IGes

GoodluckJonathan
Oct 31, 2003

There is a guy in D.C. that's been pulling this "20 for two 10's" scam for over 5 years

http://www.popville.com/2016/12/twenty-for-two-tens-scam-artist-dc/

Sorry to say I fell for it a few months ago and then looked it up because the interaction seemed weird to me and I realized I'd been had.

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Lutha Mahtin
Oct 10, 2010

Your brokebrain sin is absolved...go and shitpost no more!

is it a fake 20?

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