Re: Beating back the telephone virus scammers
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Paddy Landau
I've just Googled tubgirl.
http://wtfhub.com/wp-content/uploads...e-tub-girl.jpg
Re: Beating back the telephone virus scammers
Quote:
Originally Posted by
speedwell68
... playing the tuba
ROFL
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Grenage
I'm so sorry; you've now joined the ranks of the visually violated. ;)
How do people even think of doing things like this? Weird! I'm lucky I'm not squeamish. But I definitely will consider doing this, if I can get hold of a legal copy of Win 95 or 98 (I don't think my machine will run XP or higher in a virtual box).
It would definitely make my day...
So, let's see. So far, we have the following ideas (including some of mine):
- Load Windows in a virtual box where he can't do any damage. Load tubgirl as the desktop wallpaper (if you can stand it). Snapshot the installation. EDIT: Don't bother about the wallpaper, as the remote software (TeamViewer, LogMeIn, whatever) temporarily disables it anyway.
- Ensure that the windows box runs very slowly, so as to elicit maximum frustration from the scammer. (Does Virtual Box allow for such niceties?) EDIT: Yes, it does. You can restrict disk bandwidth, although that is complicated to set up. You can also restrict CPU access ("Execution Cap" in the settings).
- When the scammer calls, get him to hold for a long time, perhaps by coming back every minute to say, "Please hold, I'll be with you shortly, I'm just trying to reboot my computer."
- Finally, relent and engage him in pointless distracting conversation; see if you get the 100 points. Even more points if he keeps making mistakes.
- When he wants to reboot the computer, revert to the snapshot, and delay the reboot for at least ten minutes, claiming that your computer always takes 10 minutes to boot. Play some irritating old rap music clip to him repeatedly during the reboot, repeatedly asking, "Don't you love this music?"
- Repeat steps 4-5 several times until he's beating his head against the computer screen.
Any further ideas?
Re: Beating back the telephone virus scammers
When you set up vbox you can tell it how much ram to use when running,
Just give it an insanely low amount, just enough to work.
Re: Beating back the telephone virus scammers
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Paddy Landau
ROFL
How do people even think of doing things like this? Weird! I'm lucky I'm not squeamish. But I definitely will consider doing this, if I can get hold of a legal copy of Win 95 or 98 (I don't think my machine will run XP or higher in a virtual box).
It would definitely make my day...
So, let's see. So far, we have the following ideas (including some of mine):
- Load Windows in a virtual box where he can't do any damage. Load tubgirl as the desktop wallpaper (if you can stand it). Snapshot the installation.
- Ensure that the windows box runs very slowly, so as to elicit maximum frustration from the scammer. (Does Virtual Box allow for such niceties?)
- When the scammer calls, get him to hold for a long time, perhaps by coming back every minute to say, "Please hold, I'll be with you shortly, I'm just trying to reboot my computer."
- Finally, relent and engage him in pointless distracting conversation; see if you get the 100 points. Even more points if he keeps making mistakes.
- When he wants to reboot the computer, revert to the snapshot, and delay the reboot for at least ten minutes, claiming that your computer always takes 10 minutes to boot. Play some irritating old rap music clip to him repeatedly during the reboot, repeatedly asking, "Don't you love this music?"
- Repeat steps 4-5 several times until he's beating his head against the computer screen.
Any further ideas?
reverse h4x
Re: Beating back the telephone virus scammers
Let him SSH into a virtual Linux install. Won't slow him down any, but the reaction should be priceless.
(Honestly though, your current plan is pretty amazing.)
Re: Beating back the telephone virus scammers
I saw a story somewhere of some guy who replied to emails from scammers, and convinced them (it wasn't very hard) that he worked for a company that paid some ridiculous amount ($14 per page?) for peoples handwritten copies of books (Harry Potter in the story) for research analysis of handwriting. And they accepted only a minimum of 100 pages ;)
This sounded like easy money from crazy Americans to the Nigerian scammer, so he wrote, scanned and emailed these pages to the "research company" (there were actual copies of the handwritten pages shown in the story I read). The "researcher" kept stringing him along as long as he could, stalling, and asking for more, while the scammer complained that he hadn't been paid yet! Great stuff...
Re: Beating back the telephone virus scammers
Quote:
Originally Posted by
PhillyPhil
I saw a story somewhere of some guy who replied to emails from scammers, and convinced them (it wasn't very hard) that he worked for a company that paid some ridiculous amount ($14 per page?) for peoples handwritten copies of books (Harry Potter in the story) for research analysis of handwriting. And they accepted only a minimum of 100 pages ;)
This sounded like easy money from crazy Americans to the Nigerian scammer, so he wrote, scanned and emailed these pages to the "research company" (there were actual copies of the handwritten pages shown in the story I read). The "researcher" kept stringing him along as long as he could, stalling, and asking for more, while the scammer complained that he hadn't been paid yet! Great stuff...
Now that is good, lol.
Re: Beating back the telephone virus scammers
Quote:
Originally Posted by
stealth.
reverse h4x
Even if I knew how, then what? According to the Guardian article (post #8), they did track him down and they closed down his website. It made no difference; he's still working, opening new websites and scamming new victims. And I'll bet there are others.
Re: Beating back the telephone virus scammers
Uhh... What is tubgirl... I don't want to Google it.
Re: Beating back the telephone virus scammers
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Grenage
My personal record was 42 minutes on hold, with a cold caller; I almost started to feel guilty when I came back from lunch and the light was still on the phone.
I know of someone who'd had enough, made out that the intended recipient of the call had been murdered, and that the caller had to stay on the line for the purposes of the investigation. That's probably taking it a bit far.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvJQxgtJW94
:lol: