Heads up - suspected hacker calling people

[Russ]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/eur...an/8392303.stm

Something we need to be aware of.

[bopdude]

50 odd views, I'll say it, if anyone is dumb enough to give access to someone they don't know, they deserve what they get......... IMVHO that is.

[Peter_]

Anyone stupid enough to allow that to happen deserves to be done over and ripped off, but then again they do say that the is one born every minute.

[NoKnowledge]

I cannot believe people are saying stupid people deserve things like this,.......so other people shouldn't help "stupid" people then?

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by NoKnowledge

I cannot believe people are saying stupid people deserve things like this, so other people shouldn't help "stupid" people then?

The kind of person who falls for this kind of thing is past help and will only ask for help when it is to late.

Even if they read that link or were sat watching the news and that item was on when this guy actually rang they would still grant him full access because he would have asked nicely.

I call that beyond help.

[NoKnowledge]

So are you saying the type of people who you described above will fall for this scam only and nobody else.

[Maggy J]

Bit of a harsh attitude from a 'help' site folks...

[Raistlin]

Originally Posted by bopdude

50 odd views, I'll say it, if anyone is dumb enough to give access to someone they don't know, they deserve what they get......... IMVHO that is.

QFT.....

<RANT>

You know what REALLY gets on my mamories about this story though? The fact that the person perpetrating this is referred to as a 'hacker'.

Why is it that any time anybody does anything remotely criminal in relation to a computer or the Internet they're branded a 'hacker'. The person doing this probably wouldn't know a real hack if I wrote all the details down on paper (in big capital letters) and rammed it down his throat. The same goes for the media, the sooner they get their damn facts straight and start labelling people properly the better. Sometimes I'd dearly love to take this laptop and beat these feckless morons repeatedly around the head with it until they understood.

Not everybody that comits a crime using or against a computer is a hacker. They're cyber criminals, crackers, whatever, but they're certainly not all sodding hackers. The term 'hacker' used to be a badge of honor amongst the first hackers, those men (and one or two women) that were more interested in the way that things work than they were in lining their own pockets. Unfortunately it's been misappropriated by idiots in the media and government who use it as a general label for anybody engaged in any sort of computer crime, this has all but driven the 'real' hackers out of sight.

People phoning you up and talking you into giving them information isn't 'hacking', it's damn stupidity on your part (so shame on you for being a moron) and it's social engineering on their part. People modifying/cloning Cable Modems and STBs aren't 'hackers', they're (at best) crackers and (at worst) thieves. Spotty 14 year olds who're bored and decide to send out malicious payloads to their mates, or to guess at their facebook passwords and deface their pages, aren't 'hackers'. They're just stupid kids.

I've got news for you, if you fall for this sort of thing (or if you send money to an Arab prince, or if you buy that 'too good to be true' item from eBay, or if you open the attachment in an email from someone you don't know that says 'I Love You') then guess what.....you're too damn stupid to own a computer and you should put it back in the box and take it back to where you bought it.

The Internet connects you to the world, the world is full of bad people, bad people do bad things.

</RANT>

---------- Post added at 20:58 ---------- Previous post was at 20:57 ----------

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Bit of a harsh attitude from a 'help' site folks...

Perhaps.

But we see stories like this all the time in the news, people are forever being warned about giving out information over the phone and about the dangers of people trying to get at their stuff - and yet they still pay no attention.

Darwin was wrong, natural selection isn't working, the idiots keep breeding.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Moldova

Anyone stupid enough to allow that to happen deserves to be done over and ripped off,

What an obnoxious and unpleasant thing to say. I hope no elderly relative of yours ever gets caught out by any sort of confidence trick, I would shudder to think of the verbal abuse they'd have to suffer off you.

[Paul M]

Everyone is free to have thier own opinion Chris.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Chris

What an obnoxious and unpleasant thing to say. I hope no elderly relative of yours ever gets caught out by any sort of confidence trick, I would shudder to think of the verbal abuse they'd have to suffer off you.

The are 2 posters with a similar vein in this thread, and the last thing you do is give anyone access to your equipment just because they request it without any proof of identity.

The kind of person that would get taken in here is the same type who answer those nigerian scam emails and supply full bank details and and means of identity to the scammers and then complain about being ripped off and in the same breath say they also never received a penny from it.

So what I said may have been harsh but basically has a base in fact as usually only the gullible and the stupid get ripped off by these scams.

Also I am not making comments about anyone posting on here but general comments about the kind of people who by virtue of their own stupidity allow themselves to be ripped off.

I would not call that being obnoxious, I would call that being forthright and honest in my opinion on this matter.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Moldova

Also I am not making comments about anyone posting on here but general comments about the kind of people who by virtue of their own stupidity allow themselves to be ripped off.

I would not call that being obnoxious, I would call that being forthright and honest in my opinion on this matter.

Well I most certainly would call it obnoxious, as well as impatient and condescending. Plenty of people get taken in by confidence tricks every day of the week, and not all of them are stupid. Unless you think the often quite elderly people who feature on programmes such as Watchdog each week are stupid, rather than merely suffering the inevitable slowing that comes with old age?

Laying out your views honestly and in a forthright manner doesn't make them any less disgraceful.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Chris

Well I most certainly would call it obnoxious, as well as impatient and condescending. Plenty of people get taken in by confidence tricks every day of the week, and not all of them are stupid. Unless you think the often quite elderly people who feature on programmes such as Watchdog each week are stupid, rather than merely suffering the inevitable slowing that comes with old age?

Laying out your views honestly and in a forthright manner doesn't make them any less disgraceful.

I am talking about people who let someone use a Logmein program to give that completely unknown person full access to their computer with all the risks that entails.

I see nothing wrong in having an opinion on those people and that is that is why I thought it was very stupid of them which it obviously is and will only ever end in one way with them being ripped off.

I am also of the opinion that if they actually managed to catch the person responsible that he should quite rightly be jailed for his crimes.

I feel I am making a valid point here unlike the many religious threads that tend to end in petty sniping and bickering between the members posting.

Maybe you did not like my opinion on this item because you know someone that has been conned before, but I felt that this was in a different vein to most other conns.

[Chris]

As a matter of fact, while I don't have any friends or family who have been had by a confidence trickster, I have worked with Trading Standards people to highlight the way some cons work. In the course of that project I met and interviewed a number of victims of various scams. So I can say from experience that ordinary people can and do fall victim to these things. All it takes is for them to be caught outside their sphere of experience, by someone with the psychological skills to convince them that he is 'on their side' whilst taking them for a ride.

What you don't seem able to do is to put yourself in the shoes of someone who uses a computer but doesn't have the vast understanding of them that you seem to have. You assume everyone has access to this understanding and so anyone who doesn't use it is an idiot.

That, IMO, simply shows how little empathy you have with your fellow man, which is a very sad state for you to be in. It doesn't matter how many times you repeat your opinion and it doesn't matter how many times you protest that it's your honest view and it doesn't matter how valid you think it is. What it boils down to is, you think people who don't understand issues that are second nature to you are simply 'stupid'. That's dismissive, unfair, impatient, condescending and a dozen similar words.

And what the blazes has religion got to do with anything?

[martyh]

I don't consider myself stupid ,but when i started using computers a few years back it would have been easy for me to be taken in by anybody who simply talked as if they new what they were talking about
Chris is absolutely correct in what he says ,it is easy for some people to be taken in or conned by people especially were modern technology is concerned and that doesn't just include oap's but other experts can get conned aswell
i have an example here of just such a case ,i saw this program on Blighty yesterday so for any who thinks they are clever enough to avoid being conned ..think again

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...m-forgeries.do