Ubuntu thwarts phisher phone call!

[coffee412]

<ring, ring, ring...>

My Girlfriend: Hello?
Person: Hello, My name is <blah> and I am calling to see if you use windows.
My Girlfriend: Nope.
Person: You dont? Are you sure? Im talking about your computer at home.
My Girlfriend: No, I use Ubuntu Linux.

<click!>

My Girlfriend: Hello? Are you there?


Thanks Ubuntu and linux in general for such a great experience. Soon, We will own the world!!

coffee:P

[uRock]

That's awesome. :D

[sammiev]

It's a scam at that. lol People have been doing this for a while and it has been on the news.

[coffee412]

Never had it happen to me before. Wish it would:). My Girlfriend called me via cell and told me about it.

Had to share it!

coffee

[3rdalbum]

They called me the other day claiming to be from "Windows Support", saying that my computer had been sending them error messages.

I told them that I use Linux on all my computers and they hung up before I could tell them what scumbag scammers they are.

However, later I thought of something better I could have done. They open an RDP connection to your computer and install something, don't they? Well I should have opened up some images from famous shock sites on my desktop before letting them in with RDP. Would have been funny to hear their reaction.

[Ji Ruo]

Yes this scam has been quite active across Australia too. Telling them you're an IT student specialising in security also brings on a quick disconnection.

[Lucradia]

Never happened here either. Good thing I put myself on the no-call list.

[Metallion]

Awesome story. It would have been even better though, if somebody led them into a honey pot, found out who they are and got those bastards arrested.

[BeRoot ReBoot]

You should have gotten them to incriminate themselves and record the whole thing, than forward it to the police.

[ve4cib]

I got a call like that a while ago, only they didn't even both to ask if I used Windows. They just dove in telling me that they'd been receiving error messages.

Feeling somewhat bored at the time, I decided to play along as long as I could, looking up screenshots of Windows process managers so I could tell them what I was seeing.

I managed to keep them busy for about 10 minutes before he hung up on me out of frustration at my apparent computer illiteracy. I found that to be hilarious.

The way I see it, I only lost 10 minutes of my time, and during that time I hopefully prevented at least one gullible person from being scammed. Yay unintended public service!

[leclerc65]

http://www.bitterwallet.com/microsoft-phone-scam-being-run-from-indian-call-centres/32278

[kaldor]

http://www.bitterwallet.com/microsoft-phone-scam-being-run-from-indian-call-centres/32278

The comments are sad.

[coffee412]

This has got to be the funniest line I have read so far of the testimonials of the scammers calls:


When i noticed he wanted money from me i told him to get lost and then was in a fight to control the mouse.

Can you imagine sitting there infront of your computer fighting for control over your mouse?? (LOL!).

:D

[Thewhistlingwind]

This has got to be the funniest line I have read so far of the testimonials of the scammers calls:



Can you imagine sitting there infront of your computer fighting for control over your mouse?? (LOL!).

:D

control-alt-f2/f3

Problem fixed.

[Simian Man]

control-alt-f2/f3

Problem fixed.

That wouldn't stop other parties from being able to use the VT with X running on it. If this happened to me, I'd just pull out the ethernet cable (or disable the wireless switch on a laptop).

[Maheriano]

I would love for this to happen to me. I don't know why people dislike telemarketers, they must have no sense of humour. Telemarketing and scammer calls are the best part of my day. So entertaining.

My bank called me once to give me a large loan and I told them I'm going to spend it on hookers and blow. They never called me again.

[and1bskbl72]

According to comments posted by others on bitterwallet.com
they are being directed to support.me which then goes to another site

The information for the site where they are gaining access is coming up as this

https://secure.logmeinrescue.com/Customer/Code.aspx


Registrant:
LogMeIn, Inc

500 Unicorn Park Drive
Woburn, Massachusetts 01801
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: LOGMEINRESCUE.COM
Created on: 12-Jan-05
Expires on: 12-Jan-15
Last Updated on: 15-Aug-07

Administrative Contact:
Operations, Network noc@logmein.com
LogMeIn, Inc
500 Unicorn Park Drive
Woburn, Massachusetts 01801
United States
+1.8009931790

Technical Contact:
Operations, Network noc@logmein.com
LogMeIn, Inc
500 Unicorn Park Drive
Woburn, Massachusetts 01801
United States
+1.8009931790

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.3AMLABS.COM
NS3.3AMLABS.COM
NS2.3AMLABS.COM


Registry Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Status: clientRenewProhibited
Registry Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registry Status: clientUpdateProhibited

[hoppipolla]

lol that's amazing ^^

[IWantFroyo]

LOL. I half wish they would call me so I could mess with them :)

Give 'em a heart attack by asking if you can trace their calls for a college course ;)

[t0p]

Strange, I thought Logmein.com was a reputable service. I'm sure I've heard their product being touted on podcasts. Maybe by Leo Laporte, but I wouldn't swear to that...

[jerenept]

control-alt-f2/f3

Problem fixed.

You mean ctrl-alt-backspace?

[Bandit]

Or just Power Button.. No power, no problem..

[Paddy Landau]

It would have been even better though, if somebody led them into a honey pot, found out who they are and got those bastards arrested.
See my thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1753968) where we discussed creating a honeypot and wasting their time.

Unfortunately, they have been found (see the thread) but they are basically untouchable, the swine.


LogMeIn...
LogMeIn is an innocent party in this. The scanners happen to use LogMeIn's software for their nefarious purposes.

[Linuxratty]

http://www.bitterwallet.com/microsoft-phone-scam-being-run-from-indian-call-centres/32278

If Microsoft takes this so seriously,why has it gone on since 2008?

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I haven't gotten one of those calls. It would be fun to see how long I could keep them on the phone before they realized something was wrong. If I voiced my opinion of the people that make these calls, I would probably get an infraction. Most of the regulars posting in the Community Cafe probably would not fall victim to the scam; however, there must be some number of people that do or they probably wouldn't be doing it.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

I haven't had this kind of call, but I did get targeted by scammers, a few years ago. The (now) well known "you won the lottery without playing" scam.
I gave the guys the runaround for about 10 days. Even had them send me a check (stolen) for $3900, that I was supposed to cash, and send the money to them. When they called me a few days later, to see if I had cashed the check, I told them I had given the check, a hard copy of every email they had sent me, and the phone numbers they had called me from (they failed to block the numbers a couple of times) to the Miami office of the FBI.
For some reason, they never called me again...:lolflag:

[doorknob60]

Strange, I thought Logmein.com was a reputable service. I'm sure I've heard their product being touted on podcasts. Maybe by Leo Laporte, but I wouldn't swear to that...
Logmein is a reputable service, it's just I bet the scammers are using the logmein software in order to gain access to your computer (that's what Logmein does, kinda like VNC).

[3rdalbum]

Interesting piece of information from the comments in the article: If you DON'T hang up, then they can't dial out anymore. Even if they hang up, as soon as they try to dial again they'll still be connected to you.

Like on Stargate SG-1.

Apparently it's because they usually use mobile networks, and I can confirm that mobiles stay connected if one person doesn't hang up (happened once when someone's phone called me while it was still in their pocket).

[Thewhistlingwind]

That wouldn't stop other parties from being able to use the VT with X running on it. If this happened to me, I'd just pull out the ethernet cable (or disable the wireless switch on a laptop).

Huh. Thought that killed the X process for all users. (Which, in retrospect, makes no sense on a multiuser system.)

The idea was to just shutdown the computer from tty.

Either way, the logical next step would be to remove the ethernet cable, yes.


Or just Power Button.. No power, no problem..

The idea was to avoid a potentially dangerous (Read: File corrupting) shutdown.

[jtarin]

Strange, I thought Logmein.com was a reputable service. I'm sure I've heard their product being touted on podcasts. Maybe by Leo Laporte, but I wouldn't swear to that...It is a reputable service. The perpetrators of these scams are using logmein to gain access to your computer.Maybe something that logmein should trace and block.

[3rdalbum]

You mean ctrl-alt-backspace?

2009 called.

It wants to politely inform you that the key combination has changed to Alt-SysRq-K.

:-)

[Metallion]

Fortunately I've never had any of those calls. The closest would probably be some bank mailing me to offer loans. I printed one of those "Every time you send spam, god kills a kitten" images, put it in their return envelope and posted it.

I'd really hate to be phone up in my home though. Stuff like this is why I'm not in the book.