I just received a call from an indian microsoft technician. He informed me that my PC is sending a ton of error messages to microsoft. Most likely it has been hacked, and he would help me by remoting in and fixing the problem for me. I just wonder… Is it my PopOs or my Manjaro PC that sends all this info to microsoft?
If it’s sending information to Microsoft then it has clearly been hacked. Likely by Microsoft. It was very nice of that young man to break protocol and blow the whistle on this whole thing. You should send him an itunes gift card as a thank you.
But I’ve sent all those to the CIA!
These are the same people - CIA just outsourced their call center to India & they have to send all gift cards back to the CIA, you just cut out the middleman.
“Why did you redeem? You’re ending my life SIR! Whyyyyyy?”
I will never tire of reading/hearing that line.
Link?
There are many. But for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m8Ln1yqeJE
One time I kept a guy on the phone for about ten minutes just playing dumb. Then he’s like, sir, what version of Windows do you have?"
I say, I’m not sure but it’s the one with the little penguin icon.
We actually had a good laugh about it together
Lmao
I won free airline tickets once and was shocked and appalled when they said I COULDNT use them to go to the moon. I fought long and hard for the right to use those tickets the way I wanted but alas.
Set up a fake Windows VM to fuck with them
There was a very custom theme for Gnome 2 that made it look like Windows XP…
That might be even funnier, but there’s still a chance they’re proficient enough that they could cause problems once they realized what was happening. A VM would help mitigate the chances of that.
Obvious answer is to do both: A VM of a Linux desktop skinned to look like Windows XP
All that malware should be running without problems. Wine’s gotten pretty good by now.
I still chuckle about the fact that WannaCry the ransomware software has a WineHQ entry
Ah yes, I remember back in the day we had to build WINE with unofficial patches to get malware to work. How times have changed.
But how’s Siddhartha going to find the Event Viewer!?
Can someone confirm if syskeying works on Wine?
You reminded me of those YouTube vigilantes that troll Indian scammers. One installed the remote desktop app they use and let them access a honeypot linux machine just to mock their incompetence and confusion. Then proceeded to take control of their machine steal their data and wipe out their computers. Their reactions are hilarious. It’s sad that a lot of very smart people are dragged into it by thugs that leverage debt and physical threats to force them into the scam call centers.
I ended up on a massive Whatsapp group populated primarily by Indian women after I took a content writing class a few years ago. Made several very good friends. I’ve asked them about the whole Indian scammer thing. One of them said she knows a few, and they do it because they literally don’t have other options for employment. Which makes sense. Rampant, unfettered capitalism forces people to make decisions that go against their conscience for the sake of survival. I feel bad for scammers sometimes, other times I feel less charitable when they’re scamming my dad…
Whole situation just fucking sucks.
If I had the opportunity, I’d still wipe the scammers computer.
You absolutely should.
Scammers escaping poverty by putting a bunch of others into poverty is the very definition of a capitalist and cancer.
Eat the rich just as you would zap cancer.
It’s always an excuse that criminals make - that they don’t have any other options for employment. It’s a shitty excuse when 95% of the country is employed and don’t scam people. It’s easy money for them, nothing more.
To be fair, India has about a 10% unemployment rate as of 2023.
I once played along just to waste their time. Got to the point where I had to go to a site and get my IP address.
I told him it was 127.0.0.1, and he just said “I think you be messing with me now sir” and hung up. :D
You could’ve told him your local IP (192.168.(1…255).(1…255)), is completely useless outside your home network but looks real enough.
Anybody with a bit of technical knowledge will recognize a local IP address
I once looked in Event Viewer and was gobsmacked by the number of wiruses and hackers in my compyooder.
Microsoft are NEVER, repeat NEVER, going to call you about your computer.
