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PhazonLink posted:Does Apple not care that their giftcards are such a common medium for scams? Probably about as much as P&G cares about Tide as being a de-facto black market currency.
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Jul 25, 2018 09:47
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How does the tide thing even work? If I was desperate for money working a job under the table, would the boss hand me a hug of tide at the end of my shift?
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Jul 25, 2018 12:19
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Initio posted:How does the tide thing even work? They change a lot hands (usually in drug deals) and/or they’re sold to stores that don’t ask questions. They’ll sell a bottle that retails at $15 for $5. The ones who lose out are usually just the store or warehouse the Tide was stolen from. Apparently liquid detergent is preferred over powdered and pods.
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Jul 25, 2018 12:27
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It's reasonably easy to grab and everybody needs detergent, so it's easy to sell to whatever random person who doesn't mind buying stolen detergent.
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Jul 25, 2018 12:28
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Initio posted:How does the tide thing even work? Suds for Drugs Tide detergent: Works on tough stains. Can now also be traded for crack. A case study in American ingenuity, legal and otherwise. http://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent-drugs-2013-1/
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Jul 25, 2018 12:54
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That’s a really cool read. It’s crazy how it all fits together: Tide has a big enough market share that everyone wants to buy it, so there’s legitimate demand. Tide has a low enough cost that shoplifting it won’t result in felony charges. Tide has enough of a manufacturing cost that shady wholesalers and retailers will buy the cheap stuff. The whole thing would fall apart if Gain picked up market share or someone invented a cheaper way to produce it.
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Jul 25, 2018 17:07
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Initio posted:That’s a really cool read. I think I've also seen a story where someone was counterfeiting Tide, but evaded arrest because he forgot to put the labels on or something. And the article also implies that retailers will also buy stolen Tide, because their own supply is being shoplifted too. Madness.
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Jul 25, 2018 17:31
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It's not because they are being shoplifted. If you can get legit Tide for $10 from your distributor or the exact same bottle from a crackhead for $5, and you already give zero fucks, you're going to go with $5.
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Jul 26, 2018 03:05
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goatsestretchgoals posted:It's not because they are being shoplifted. If you can get legit Tide for $10 from your distributor or the exact same bottle from a crackhead for $5, and you already give zero fucks, you're going to go with $5. quote:When a bottle of Tide is taken from a store without being rung up, a crucial step [from the re-ordering process] gets skipped, leading to shipment delays. And when that happens, some store managers place stopgap orders with local wholesalers who may be less than rigorous about where they obtain their products or from fencing rings that employ their own sales teams and maintain legitimate-looking websites. I assumed the first sentence was implying that they're losing it to shoplifting. Apologies if I'm reading it wrong.
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Jul 26, 2018 12:30
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Just came up on my Facebook feed: Sure, this doesn't at all look extremely suspicious and scammy.
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Jul 27, 2018 06:08
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Just came up on my Facebook feed: The commercials I've seen on TV are so loving sketchy looking.
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Jul 27, 2018 06:15
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A streamer I watch does “destructions” of usually Windows OS and often by downloading every sketchy “anti-virus” and “PC cleaner” software out there. I’ve always wondered what exactly do those free programs really do, especially these days.
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Jul 27, 2018 15:10
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:A streamer I watch does “destructions” of usually Windows OS and often by downloading every sketchy “anti-virus” and “PC cleaner” software out there. I’ve always wondered what exactly do those free programs really do, especially these days. If memory serves it isn't much beyond "nothing actually." They'll show you a progress bar then say your computer has quintuple computer ebolaids and if you don't send them money it will explode or something oh and your identity has been stolen already but don't worry for $500 we'll fix it.
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Jul 27, 2018 17:22
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One that I know of is excellent (MalwareBytes Anti Malware is the gold standard here), some do nothing useful (CCleaner comes to mind), some are scams in the 'look at all the stuff we found, pay $50 to unlock premium to fix it' sense, and some are actual malware that primarily displays ads for their 'cleanup' service. E: Oh and the 'anti spyware' from most of the big AV providers are so poorly written that, despite not being a scam, they are still a net loss for your computer because the program itself will slow everything down. goatsestretchgoals fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Jul 27, 2018 |
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Jul 27, 2018 17:32
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Bitdefender Free is all I care to use these days, but then again my Windows install is basically just a dumb Steam console anyway.
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Jul 27, 2018 17:48
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KozmoNaut posted:Bitdefender Free is all I care to use these days, but then again my Windows install is basically just a dumb Steam console anyway. I just use whatever comes with Windows. Commercial antivirus increases the attack surface, and I'm pretty good about what I click on. For my dad, yeah I make sure he has decent anti-malware software, he at least knows that if something pops up there to cancel what he was doing and have me remote in to make sure everything is copacetic. Windows has a decent baked in anti-malware system these days, it's no worse than most of what's out there.
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Jul 27, 2018 18:13
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Windows Defender (and Security Essentials before it) were by far my favorite AVs. Non-intrusive, doesn't kill your performance, and completely free. My opinion has always been that since AV software has to get down into the guts of the OS to do it's job, who better to write it than the people who wrote your OS?
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Jul 27, 2018 18:16
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On the subject, what happens if you -do- cave in and buy the fake anti virus so it stops bugging you? I've seen a video where a guy did so with a cracked activation code and it calmed down, but that was only at the very end of it. I assume it's something like "Hey, thanks for buying the best AV software ever so we can eliminate all 5,091 threats we found!" but it doesn't actually do anything now that it has your money.
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Jul 27, 2018 18:22
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Probably cancel your credit card.  E for seriousness: I'm not sure specifically about the fake AV scams but paying off the Cryptolocker scammers typically did work; they knew that if they took your money and didn't unlock your files, word would get out, and no one would pay to unlock. goatsestretchgoals fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jul 27, 2018 |
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Jul 27, 2018 18:23
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^^^ Almost none of them want CC info or anything part of the global financial system, it is too easy to trace. They want crypto currency or iTunes gift cards and the like. Crypto attacks usually come with instructions on how to buy and transfer Bitcoin to the attackers.EorayMel posted:On the subject, what happens if you -do- cave in and buy the fake anti virus so it stops bugging you? I've seen a video where a guy did so with a cracked activation code and it calmed down, but that was only at the very end of it. I assume it's something like "Hey, thanks for buying the best AV software ever so we can eliminate all 5,091 threats we found!" but it doesn't actually do anything now that it has your money. Most of them don't completely remove themselves, but they do stop loving with your machine if you pay. The objective of the software is to make money, if word gets out that paying doesn't do anything, a lot of people may stop paying (this is true of most crypto attacks as well). Some part of the software almost certainly hangs around if you don't have someone clean up the machine properly (or just reimage it), the chance to add your machine to a botnet or some other form of shadowy remote access is just too appealing. A huge number of PCs have some kind of malicious software on them that the user is completely unaware of. Hell, these days it may just be Bitcoin miners. Corsair Pool Boy fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Jul 27, 2018 |
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Jul 27, 2018 18:27
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Corsair Pool Boy posted:Hell, these days it may just be Bitcoin miners. They don't have even install those anymore. Just run a miner using JavaScript on a 6 patches behind webserver with high traffic stats.
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Jul 27, 2018 18:30
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goatsestretchgoals posted:Windows Defender (and Security Essentials before it) were by far my favorite AVs. Non-intrusive, doesn't kill your performance, and completely free. My opinion has always been that since AV software has to get down into the guts of the OS to do it's job, who better to write it than the people who wrote your OS? Yeah the windows one is really the best right now. Honorable mention to malwarebytes, though. I think it was part of the anti trust stuff that Microsoft isn't allowed to advertise their security stuff but the big anti virus software of the past basically went insane, performed like rear end, was too aggressive, a bit porous, or all of the above. The Microsoft stuff used to be garbage but now is really the best.
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Jul 27, 2018 21:35
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Bitcoin mining hasn't been viable on general purpose PCs for years. People are building mining farms using purpose built hardware in places where power is cheap, spending millions of dollars to get everything set up.
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Jul 27, 2018 21:53
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ToxicSlurpee posted:the big anti virus software of the past basically went insane, performed like rear end, was too aggressive, a bit porous, or all of the above. You have given an accurate description of John McAfee's person in addition to his works. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/the-obscure-legal-drug-that-fuels-john-mcafee.html quote:Men’s Journal writer Stephen Rodrick visited McAfee at his home in Tennessee, where McAfee dragged him outside to show him proof that he was being shadowed by hit men from a Mexican cartel. “All they eat is cream cheese,” McAfee told him, scanning the leaf litter in the woods. “I find cream cheese packets everywhere. If there’s cream cheese, I know the cartel has been here.” shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Jul 27, 2018 |
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Jul 27, 2018 21:59
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Konstantin posted:Bitcoin mining hasn't been viable on general purpose PCs for years. People are building mining farms using purpose built hardware in places where power is cheap, spending millions of dollars to get everything set up. Aren't there a bunch of alt coins that can still be mined this way? Or have they become almost worthless since the last bubble popped?
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Jul 27, 2018 22:28
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Konstantin posted:Bitcoin mining hasn't been viable on general purpose PCs for years. People are building mining farms using purpose built hardware in places where power is cheap, spending millions of dollars to get everything set up. And then hopefully committing suicide once the bubble bursts.
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Jul 27, 2018 22:47
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Konstantin posted:Bitcoin mining hasn't been viable on general purpose PCs for years. People are building mining farms using purpose built hardware in places where power is cheap, spending millions of dollars to get everything set up. Doesn't matter if it's free. Doesn't earn much but a botnet or embedded JavaScript miner on a web page will add up the penny shavings over time.
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Jul 27, 2018 22:52
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It's takes effort to infect PCs, and some quick math and googling shows an income of $0.0002 per 24 hours for mining using a PC with a high end gaming card and zero power costs. Granted, the numbers may be different with altcoins, but I doubt it would be worth the effort compared to stealing power and mining the coins yourself, or doing one of a bunch of other scams with your compromised PCs.
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Jul 28, 2018 00:06
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No mention of MacKeeper in this discussion? Because Jesus Christ the amount of people I know who fall for that poo poo is crazy. My Mom almost installed it on my Imac that i let her use because some game she was playing told her I had a virus. Thank god i set her up as a separate user.
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Jul 28, 2018 00:57
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Lol cream cheese
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Jul 28, 2018 01:11
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Corsair Pool Boy posted:^^^ Almost none of them want CC info or anything part of the global financial system, it is too easy to trace. They want crypto currency or iTunes gift cards and the like. Crypto attacks usually come with instructions on how to buy and transfer Bitcoin to the attackers. I've been wondering this. How do scmamers turn ituned giftcards to profit? What's the payout/laundering scheme?
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Jul 28, 2018 02:53
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TheParadigm posted:I've been wondering this. How do scmamers turn ituned giftcards to profit? What's the payout/laundering scheme? Sell for cash at a discount.
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Jul 28, 2018 03:22
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PhazonLink posted:Does Apple not care that their giftcards are such a common medium for scams? i don't think there's any public or political pressure on big companies to clamp down on gift card abuse. it's probably something that people should be raising more hell about, since the people who fall for this stuff are often people who are elderly or who have a disability and don't understand that they're being screwed over also i think there are plenty of other good laundry monies around
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Jul 28, 2018 04:34
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TheParadigm posted:I've been wondering this. How do scmamers turn ituned giftcards to profit? What's the payout/laundering scheme? You know how once in awhile people will say something like “hey I found this site selling cheap iTunes and PlayStation cards, anyone know if they’re legit?”
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Jul 28, 2018 05:03
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Hey this guy is selling steaks and speakers out the back of his van at the transit center! Should I get in on this? E: I use the 'cheap speakers' thing with my family. IDK what it is, but the olds seem to turn their brains off when it comes to 'the cyber' and a good analogy will help bring them back into not-stupidity.
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Jul 28, 2018 05:56
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I think that retail stores have a role to play. Cashiers can typically tell if someone is getting scammed, and giving them the authority to refuse the sale would help.
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Jul 28, 2018 06:05
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I get where you're coming from, but how does the minimum wage checkout person a) discern between grandma being scammed and grandma being hilariously awesome on kiddos birthday? and b) how does minimum wage checkout person tell their boss, who is paid largely on sales bonuses, that they think this old lady might be being scammed but there's no proof?
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Jul 28, 2018 06:31
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Konstantin posted:It's takes effort to infect PCs, and some quick math and googling shows an income of $0.0002 per 24 hours for mining using a PC with a high end gaming card and zero power costs. Granted, the numbers may be different with altcoins, but I doubt it would be worth the effort compared to stealing power and mining the coins yourself, or doing one of a bunch of other scams with your compromised PCs.
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Jul 28, 2018 06:32
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Zereth posted:Not when you open a webpage and it uses a javascript exploit to make you start mining it. Doesn't even need to install something. Sure, the setup takes some effort, but then you let it run. One computer doesn't get much, but that's why the scammer sneaks their compromised ad into something with major traffic and now they've got 30,000 people doing it for them. That's what he's saying. If the number he gives is right, that's $6 a day by running the thing on 30,000 machines. There are better ways to steal money.
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Jul 28, 2018 06:35
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$6 per 30k hits adds up quick when all you had to do was submit an ad to one of the many ad aggregators, and nothing is stopping you from submitting more than one.
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Jul 28, 2018 06:40
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