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Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

#21

Post by attqqq »

HTMIOA wrote: post #9
unsupp0rted wrote: post #2

Could this be schizophrenia or another mental condition? If you’re certain you avoided 2 kidnapping attempts, can you get access to nearby security camera footage as evidence? Spending 5 months following you without overtly trying to extort you doesn’t sound typical for a criminal gang. Not impossible, given the sums involved, but patience and caution aren’t their hallmarks. Consider whether you are in the common age…

No camera evidence, I just realized what is going on and bolted. Once in the hotel, once through bribed security guards. Apparently they thried to get me while I sleep. 5 months, unlikely, that's what everyone says. These people are not common criminals, patience and caution are their hallmarks, they just don't want any witness and thus the police being involved, just waiting for the opportunity. They are proffesiona…

If there is no tangible evidence of this you can legitimately point to and hand the police, then there is no thing indicating it exists outside of your own head (delusion). How do you know guards are bribed, your devices are hacked? Robocalls and rando messages on Skype are a dime a dozen, but if they’re incriminating threats, take it to police. Do not rely on your own instinct or intuition to make deductions about reality, rely on tangible evidence that 3rd parties can appreciate ; This era of cameras and recorders leaves no excuse. There is no organization so professional they can make demands, negotiations, or attempts at your life via telepathy.

Your close friends and relatives can gauge your personality more accurately than you can. If your family thinks you’re psychotic, I’d trust that more than some random walk in psych.

Re: Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

#22

Post by mbnull »

I had a different, but similar, experience for years and overcame it eventually this month. It is real to some degree, but not in the way you think.

All I can recommend is to meditate, get in touch with your spirituality and reading up on the ancient concept of a hero's journey might help you.

Hang in there, don't be afraid, do nothing drastic, live healthy and go into nature!

Re: Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

#23

Post by gorfot »

How have you been intimidated? Have you had direct contact with them? I'm asking this because I don't see any mention of an 'explicit' threat or contact. Did your 'friend' tell you that he sold your information or is involved in this gang?

what did the private detective tell you?

Also the thread you linked does not show any evidence of hacking or malware - also doesnt rule it out.

Next to this is all real /or you are paranoia, there is also the possiblity;

something 'bad' did happen, for example your friend 'doxed' you (on a forum with bad actors for example). There might be hacking attempts. But what if you are extrapolating.. that you are taking non-related signals as proof - whether or not there are actual threats / signals.. like a confirmation bias?

I don't have a solution for you but i think what you can conclude is; In either case it is best to;

1. do nothing rash. with your money, confronting people etc. 2. accept that your loved ones want the best for you but dont understand you at the moment. 3. focus on your health; exercise, get vitamin d supplements etc. 4. try to center and neutralize your thoughts, instead of going on a rant. Constantly Identifiying things as threats or evidence is not going to help you if you have false positives or no proof 5. get some social life going. And DONT talk about this shit. 6. treat yourself like you would treat a real friend of who you are not sure if he is having mental problems or gang problems or both. You would be kind and understanding but also try to rationalize.

Re: Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

#24

Post by ksaj »

This sounds very familiar to me.

A couple years ago I helped someone in a situation incredibly similar to this. I'm in infosec, and have forensics in my background.

He used to "talk" to the hackers by writing text the phone's notepad, but when I saw this, I only saw his side of the apparent conversations. He said also that they usually only converse by writing a couple random letters and then deleting them... so apparently kb meant "keyboard," for example. These apparent hackers were totally on him, having infected all the systems in his home, and continually appearing on even brand new phones he purchased to lose the trail.

The person sent me their devices, and I found zero evidence. Then one day he told me they were back and hacking his Android phone and installing stuff on it. He took video (as I had asked him to do) because he had fallen asleep and woke up to witness this hacking going on.

I immediately remembered the footage I saw of a person who installed windows 1.0 and then updated and updated etc through all the versions to see if he could update it to modern Windows (he did).

That's what was on his phone. That very video. And still no hackers, because there wasn't anything unusual on his devices at all, save for that one-sided conversation on his phone. I believe he fell asleep while watching a playlist, and woke up when that video came on. That video is also several hours long, so he could have just started it, fell asleep, then woke to see this.

But there was nothing being installed on his phone. Besides, windows cannot be installed on Android.

So I dropped the case (like the investigators mentioned here.) because I definitely don't feel good about taking money from someone only to repeatedly find that they had triggered the things that were frightening them, or that the things were simply imaginary.

I'm not saying this is the case here. But I will say that everything about it is so very similar. I'm almost ready to convince myself you're the same person because this story is so similar. Only this one wasn't in Germany.

Re: Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

#25

Post by amrangaye »

HTMIOA wrote: post #20
nathanaldensr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should listen to them. Family is a critical component to getting appropriate care when one is having an episode of psychosis.

I don't havre a psychosis. I know what I had seen, my electronic equipment was hacked, I had been itimidated, the psychiatrist ruled out schizophrenia and psychosis. This is bloody real.

I’m sorry - but if you ARE psychotic this is exactly what you would believe. I don’t know you at all so sorry for assuming, but I think you need to listen to your family and get some help. Posting on online forums for advise from strangers is not the best option for you right now - esp since you’re only agreeing with posts that agree with your diagnosis of the situation, but getting frustrated at ones that done. Just think you should get help - in the most non-patronizing way possible, as I have seen a friend fall down the same rabbit hole and he didn’t come out of it until he got medical help. All the best.

Re: Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

#26

Post by mtmail »

ksaj wrote: post #24

This sounds very familiar to me. A couple years ago I helped someone in a situation incredibly similar to this. I'm in infosec, and have forensics in my background. He used to "talk" to the hackers by writing text the phone's notepad, but when I saw this, I only saw his side of the apparent conversations. He said also that they usually only converse by writing a couple random letters and then deleting them... so appa…

I have a friend (in Germany) which diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia and it was similar. He refused to use MS Windows because it was bugged, any error message would start a new fear. He used Tails but later didn't trust that either. He installed Linux but only from a CD he ordered as downloading anything might have been tempered with. "They" were after him. "They" also had a secret hiding place in his walls and tried to kill him several times. He's better now but I have cache of old emails, one crazier than the next.

Re: Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

#27

Post by mikewarot »

Given the random glitchy nature of technology these days, all of the "unusual" behavior of your hardware falls within the "normal" things I see.

In the last day I found out that there is a setting called "route to voicemail" that can be set with one accidental tap in a contact, and from that point forward, you'll never hear from people again. (It was my Mom.... and I was pissed once I figured out what the fsck was happening, who in their right mind builds in a function like that? And doesn't make a way to manage them collectively, and doesn't show them as a "on/off" flag... just an undecorated bit of status that looks totally like normal text)

But anyway... your beliefs are unfalsifiable. There's no way anyone could prove you right or wrong. All we have are hunches. You state that your family thinks you're imagining it... they are in a far better place to judge you than anyone else in the world, you should weigh their opinion highly.

Re: Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

#28

Post by unsupp0rted »

mtmail wrote: post #26
ksaj wrote: post #24

This sounds very familiar to me. A couple years ago I helped someone in a situation incredibly similar to this. I'm in infosec, and have forensics in my background. He used to "talk" to the hackers by writing text the phone's notepad, but when I saw this, I only saw his side of the apparent conversations. He said also that they usually only converse by writing a couple random letters and then deleting them... so appa…

I have a friend (in Germany) which diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia and it was similar. He refused to use MS Windows because it was bugged, any error message would start a new fear. He used Tails but later didn't trust that either. He installed Linux but only from a CD he ordered as downloading anything might have been tempered with. "They" were after him. "They" also had a secret hiding place in his walls and tried…

2023 is hard. Taken in isolation everything really is “bugged” and “tampered with”.

You can only get so many “oops security incident” emails from various providers in a row before you get more paranoid.

Then if you have a predilection for paranoid schizophrenia, it’s not faeries and demons that haunt you, it’s 23andMe hacks and Windows rootkits.

Re: Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

#29

Post by wruza »

If I give up and give them the money, they will kill me to erase the trace and the threat, in case I changed my mind later.

High-scale ransomware, drug dealers, etc aren’t afraid of receiving BTC. But these guys for some reason are, and the only way out of it is to add murder on top of it? That’s absurd.

Also, if all your devices were hacked, wouldn’t they already have at least read-access to everything? Did your friend tell someone and they just believed him and your vague emails without looking at your accounts first? This puts them in a “sophisticated dumb” category which makes no sense.

I’d seek better help, but I know I wouldn’t, cause that’s how it works. If help doesn’t help immediately and you’re on the edge, at least get rid of crypto and invest in some property. If “they” will stalk you still, while you’re indistinguishable from millions of people they could stalk, you’ll have a better look at the problem. Discuss this route with your family.

Good luck either way!

Re: Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

#30

Post by HTMIOA »

wruza wrote: post #29

If I give up and give them the money, they will kill me to erase the trace and the threat, in case I changed my mind later. High-scale ransomware, drug dealers, etc aren’t afraid of receiving BTC. But these guys for some reason are, and the only way out of it is to add murder on top of it? That’s absurd. Also, if all your devices were hacked, wouldn’t they already have at least read-access to everything? Did your fri…

The criminals you mention are anonymous, or operate within own kind. Because I had been followed and stalked, I had seen these people, and because they are so careful not to leave a trace or provide the evidence, I pressume they will kill me if they get what they want, to erase the threat.

Yes, they had read access to everything, emails, data, and that includes my wallet address, but not the keys.

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