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How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

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Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#181

Post by ButlerianJihad »

mcast wrote: post #72

When you search "us passport" or "tsa precheck" on Google, you constantly see promoted ad results impersonating government sites (ie passportvisarush.com or easegov.com) extracting and selling your PII (social security number, etc) from your application. I've reported the ads multiple times, but new ones still end up being promoted. I'm sure these companies have mined and sold thousands of SSN/address/DOB info from u…

I hope you realize that there are legitimate third-party services which assist with passport applications and filing paperwork, generally in the capacity as a courier. Similarly, in my state and others, there are third-party services which operate as storefronts in under-served communities, that provide services as the DMV office would.

So it is unclear how you determine that they are definitely scams, unless you have attempted to trace each one through referrals or official links from the government office they are representing. Some don't have any link, though: the passport assistance services may be operating independently as middlemen. Is it worth paying someone to assist you with paperwork? Do you only speak Laotian?

In general, for any government service, there are usually middlemen who'll assist you in filling out paperwork and getting approved. That includes Medicaid and the IRS and Social Security. Of course, some of those assistors have licenses, or represent a facility. The passport agencies may not need any bona fides like that.

On the other hand, if a service is advertising "TSA PreCheck" services (and not simply intercepting your keywords to advertise unrelated stuff) then there are only three authorized partners: IDEMIA, CLEAR, or Telos. But I bet you that your keywords are simply triggering some adspam.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#182

Post by [deleted] »

delegate wrote: post #48

Interestingly how everyone is talking about 'Google', this faceless entity.. but in essence there are humans who work there, employees not doing their job properly. Lazy, detached, disinterested .. with no consequences for coasting.. Or are badly organized/managed, have the wrong incentives, are burned out, going through a divorce, performance review, whatever.. People are people, life happens, job happens, but unfor…

[deleted]

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#183

Post by ben_w »

matkoniecz wrote: post #139
ryandrake wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These companies have correctly figured out that customers will still give them money, even if they provide no customer support, are actively hostile to their customers, and only respond to lawsuits. Such a weird timeline we are on! People willingly do business with companies who are actively against them.

Ryanair admittedly wins on price and regulatory setup in EU provides guarantees that planes are safe. Yes, Ryanair stole 100 euro from me once, but if next flight is 50 to 250 euro cheaper than competition... I did some big projects motivated entirely by spite (project was overall helpful, but I would not do this if someone would be less nasty). But I still would use Ryanair.

> Yes, Ryanair stole 100 euro from me once, but if next flight is 50 to 250 euro cheaper than competition...

I swore off them a few years ago.

Plane started boarding around when it was due to land. We got on, seeing about 3cm of snow around. It went to the runway, whereupon the weather wasn't good enough so the plane waited. And waited. And waited. And then the pilot turned off internal power because we were waiting so long. And then the airspace was closed for the night and every Ryanair plane did what we did and taxied back to the airport and deplaned all of us, creating a queue at the help desk that didn't clear until 8am the next morning, or at least that was when I got to the front having stood up all night.

I was supposed to be back in the office and working by this point.

They told us to check online for rebookings: couldn't do that, their website was overloaded, though I could sometimes get as far as the schedule before it failed on me, and the next official opening was about 5 days later at the start of the queue and 7 days later when I reached the end. Other airlines were now charging £1000 for next-day flights.

Got a standby ticket for a few hours later. Went through security again. It was also cancelled.

At this point I went to my brother's place near Portsmouth, slept enough to recover, took the ferry to France, and took the train from Caen to Berlin, and this was still both cheaper than any replacement flight and faster than waiting for Ryanair to offer another flight that would also be subject to the same general climate.

If the plane had landed on time before it got to us, it would've taken off before the weather got so bad.

Had a very understanding boss at the time. I miss working with him.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#184

Post by macintux »

carlosjobim wrote: post #142
0xbrayo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Maps maybe?

They are absolutely awful and won't accept even a correction of opening hours - when you are the owner of the business and registered as such with Apple.

I just changed the hours on a business nearby, took ~3 days. Your experience is not universal, but definitely frustrating.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#185

Post by shevy-java »

The thing is: I don't see any ads. So I won't see his advertised malicious ad either, nor the software. All gets blocked. All must be blocked. That's why everyone needs hero blockers such as Ublock origin and other solutions here.

By the way - which company removed ublock origin from Chrome? Could it have been a certain adCompany that does daily deeds of Evil?

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#186

Post by macintux »

nellophonic wrote: post #47
OptionX wrote: post #10

Google is the worst offender, but a lot of companies are increasingly hiding themselves behind a wall of automated systems to completely neuter users ability to challenge any decision unilaterally taken by the them. The LLM-age has worsen the situation but it started well before it. At some point it may be necessary to add the requirement for large companies to have a both human contact point and perhaps a requiremen…

Funny you should say that. I'm not a big Instagram user, but have had an account for years. The company I work for has just started an Instagram campaign, and asked anyone who wanted to, to check out their campaign and give it a like. I did so, and a minute later received this email: "Your Instagram account has been suspended. This is because your account, or activity on it, doesn't follow our Community Standards on…

> I've now uploaded my drivers licence, a photo of my passport and still apparently that's not good enough for them.

After the recent news about >150 million drivers' license photos being stolen from an ID verification service, I'd be very hesitant to do this for anything I didn't absolutely need. ID theft is a lot easier when someone has a photo of your sensitive documents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49561320

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#187

Post by RobRivera »

nhecker wrote: post #115
Vinnl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, editing OpenStreetMap is very straightforward*, and with that, you're actually contributing to an open data set that everyone is allowed to use, rather than just propping up Google. (To be fair, on a laptop - I'm sure Google Maps is more straightforward on a phone. But for someone already prepared to invest this much effort, editing OSM should be well within range. And if you just enjoy contributing to maps, fo…

Between the streetcomplete and everydoor apps, it is very very easy to do almost any OSM map editing on a mobile. Osmand (the offline map & nav app) is also useful for some edits when I don't want to leave that app. Oh, for the simpler days when not everything required an app.

You would enjoy the Always Sunny episode 'mental health day'

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#188

Post by leni536 »

matkoniecz wrote: post #134
Chris2048 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you might not have permission to use the data Isn't it fair use, like training data?

OpenStreetMap commmunity, for variety of reasons, avoids questionable or very novel approaches to intellectual property. I guess that some may be calling it overdoing in direction opposite than Internet Archive did. It is at least partially caused by fact that OpenStreetMap Foundation budget is laughably small.

Another reason might be that modifications of the map are entangled and can be hard to revert in case of a dispute. It's much easier for the Internet Archive to just drop snapshots of websites/pages (and they do so, AFAIK).

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#189

Post by asdff »

trainingonme wrote: post #30
Someone1234 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that if you attach any pictures at all: rejected. So what I've taken to doing is adding the business without photos (almost always accepted), and then trying to attach the photos later after that goes live (mostly works). But I agree, their process is completely broken, and I doubt they have any incentive to fix it.

Question here then, is when will we see a competitor enter the market who both cares about getting it right and is actually able to compete with google maps

It isn't about making a better product at this point. It is about cracking into the mindshare that makes people reach for software like google maps reflexively in the first place. That is far harder than the technological challenge. Almost impossible in the current era, arguably, with all the astroturfing.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#190

Post by asdff »

tomjen3 wrote: post #104
Toutouxc wrote: post #25

That’s surprising, because in my opinion Google doesn’t care about malicious anything. The other day I had to look for something on YouTube on my dad’s computer with a disabled ad-blocker. I saw like 30 ads in 15 minutes, every single one of them was a scam, literally not a single non-fraudulent ad. Google is full cartoon villain evil at this point.

Sometimes I am convinced that there are no good products and so all advertising must happen for bad products. I mean how often do you see an ad for a product, buy it (not even from the ad itself, maybe from a recommendation from a friend) and you are happy with the product and think the ad was truthful?

Advertising stopped really working on me as an adult. You just get burned too often with overly advertised products in the past and you get cynical with all of them going forward. I guess I just don't really buy stuff much at this stage of my life beyond necessities. I got hobbies with gear, but I already have all my gear, and know what I am looking for already with any new gear and have a good sense of enshittification.
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