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. 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?
Last edited by Paddy Landau; August 19th, 2011 at 11:00 AM.
Always make regular backups of your data (and test them).
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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.
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...
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.)
Life is an extraordinarily long concatenation of luck and coincidence.
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.
Always make regular backups of your data (and test them).
Visit Full Circle Magazine for beginners and seasoned Linux enthusiasts.
Uhh... What is tubgirl... I don't want to Google it.
Everything that has a Beginning, has an End
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