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The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

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41–50 of 161 posts

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#41
post #17

One of the things I like about Plant money is that they have transcripts for all their podcasts. I used to listen when I was a driver, but now I don't I can just read the transcript in a few minutes instead of spending 20 minutes or so listening.

A thousand times this. I wish more podcasts would have transcripts. I much prefer it to listening to podcasts as I can read at my own speed, which would often be quicker than the audio.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#42

The victims didn't come forward because they felt so ashamed about falling for the con. This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. I remember tracking down a phone scam that caught my grandmother once (based out of Montreal) and I eventually got to a point where I discovered that my grandmother had provided a verbal consent over the phone that had kept it just this side…

I found it so interesting to hear that finding victims was the top impediment to prosecution. The amount of pain and anguish these scammers inflict upon some of our most vulnerable citizens is almost unbearable to think about.

I couldn’t help but wonder why the FCC hasn’t required CallerID Verification years ago.

Especially in this age where we are all being forced to get RealID cards so that our every move can be monitored...

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#43

Great story but a little anticlimactic. It's like yadda-yadda-yadda, he gets arrested and goes to prison. That's it? The story is just an IT guy that tells US authorities before he takes on a job with scammers and is then a mole? It's neat and all, but not a totally captivating tale. If you haven't heard it, this is a good one: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nh3wk

> We found these guys who live in Bradford, England who are setting up websites and companies so that they can process money for Accostings in the UK.

I'm from Bradford - this is not at all surprising.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#44
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increase playback speed. You'd be surprised how your hearing can adjust. Just work your way up in small increments. Just be prepared that if you ever go back to 1x speed, it sounds really weird.

Up to 1.4 is not a big deal, somewhere around 1.5 or starts to get a little strange. Since I generally have technical or industry related podcasts going while doing other things too high a speed becomes a hindrance.

With the exception for CarTalk, which I run at 1x because it's more about the joy of listening than the information, I tend to playback at between 1.6x-2x depending on the podcast. Occasionally listening to a podcast at 1x, live or whatever, sounds like the hosts are stoned :D

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe the disk filled up?

That would cause any disk-write-dependent service to crash, yeah, but the kernel isn't one of those. Syslog will stop and a bunch of things will complain, but I've always been able to SSH in and free up some disk.

Did you read/listen to the story? A non-tech person called him and said "the server crashed." I am pretty sure they would say that in case of "any disk-write-dependent-services crashed, but you could ssh in and free up some disk." The criminal boss wasn't gonna "ssh in and free up some disk", that's why he had an IT guy!

Anyway none of this is particularly important for the story, but I don't think the guy telling it is lying for dramatic effect, I think he's probably being honest that the boss saying "the server crashed" made him suspicious cause that server never crashed, and I too found it amusing for this to be included in the story (as a sort of by-the-by advertisement for linux). (Also, though: it turned out the server really did "crash" in some way).

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#46

The victims didn't come forward because they felt so ashamed about falling for the con. This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. I remember tracking down a phone scam that caught my grandmother once (based out of Montreal) and I eventually got to a point where I discovered that my grandmother had provided a verbal consent over the phone that had kept it just this side…

Long time (maybe twenty years) ago I read about a fascinating scam. The scammers were announcing a totally cool sex toy (maybe early VR, don't remember), but they never intended to deliver. Through clever marketing they managed to find enough potential customers who were asked to prepay a certain amount to finance production of the product (comparable to crowdfunding). When delivery day arrived, the scammers sent out letters to the customers with an apology that something went horribly wrong and the product could not be delivered. The letters included a bank cheque with a full refund, but the cheque said: "Refund for Sex Toy XYZ". As planned from the beginning, most customers were too ashamed to cash the cheque, so the scammers kept most of the money. Legally (?).

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe the disk filled up?

That would cause any disk-write-dependent service to crash, yeah, but the kernel isn't one of those. Syslog will stop and a bunch of things will complain, but I've always been able to SSH in and free up some disk.

Non-IT people may say it's a crash no matter what actually happen. "Crashed" "Freezed" "app not working" "can't print" is the same thing for them often.

BTW I've seen an error where app server couldn't write files to a directory but only for specific filenames (that wasn't already created). Turns out if you have dozen thousands of files in one directory the hash table has collisions and some files you can create while some other names you cannot. It was lot of fun to discover that :)

And customers described it as "server doesn't work" but when we connected the randomly generated names it was trying to write were different and it worked.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#48
post #46

The victims didn't come forward because they felt so ashamed about falling for the con. This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. I remember tracking down a phone scam that caught my grandmother once (based out of Montreal) and I eventually got to a point where I discovered that my grandmother had provided a verbal consent over the phone that had kept it just this side…

Long time (maybe twenty years) ago I read about a fascinating scam. The scammers were announcing a totally cool sex toy (maybe early VR, don't remember), but they never intended to deliver. Through clever marketing they managed to find enough potential customers who were asked to prepay a certain amount to finance production of the product (comparable to crowdfunding). When delivery day arrived, the scammers sent out…

Sounds like a bit from Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=379784

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#49
post #46

The victims didn't come forward because they felt so ashamed about falling for the con. This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. I remember tracking down a phone scam that caught my grandmother once (based out of Montreal) and I eventually got to a point where I discovered that my grandmother had provided a verbal consent over the phone that had kept it just this side…

Long time (maybe twenty years) ago I read about a fascinating scam. The scammers were announcing a totally cool sex toy (maybe early VR, don't remember), but they never intended to deliver. Through clever marketing they managed to find enough potential customers who were asked to prepay a certain amount to finance production of the product (comparable to crowdfunding). When delivery day arrived, the scammers sent out…

This is something which is discussed in Guy Ritchie's _Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels_ anyway.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#50
post #46

The victims didn't come forward because they felt so ashamed about falling for the con. This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. I remember tracking down a phone scam that caught my grandmother once (based out of Montreal) and I eventually got to a point where I discovered that my grandmother had provided a verbal consent over the phone that had kept it just this side…

Long time (maybe twenty years) ago I read about a fascinating scam. The scammers were announcing a totally cool sex toy (maybe early VR, don't remember), but they never intended to deliver. Through clever marketing they managed to find enough potential customers who were asked to prepay a certain amount to finance production of the product (comparable to crowdfunding). When delivery day arrived, the scammers sent out…

I don't know if that was a real scam. It was a bit of a throw away joke from the movie, 'Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels'.

The guys need to raise money to repay a debt, and one of them presents this idea, which gets tossed out because it's gonna take too long for them to receive the checks.

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