181–190 of 227 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same with Robocallers... Also call them what they are. Call them terrorist and you block off the countries enabling these terrorist groups. Sanction them too
Hang on, how are robocallers terrorists?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lately I’ve been wondering if a niche search engine popular with hackers and not the general public could run circles around Google search results just because scammers and content farms wouldn’t be incentivized to game it like they are Google. It frustrates me a lot. I don’t even know how to find useful information online anymore for everyday things like “how hot is too hot outside for a cat?” I invariably land on a…
> I don’t even know how to find useful information online anymore for everyday things like “how hot is too hot outside for a cat?” Maybe this wasn't a real example, but searching exactly this (quotes not included) returned the answer in a knowledge box at the top of the page and the first several organic results had the answer very clearly in the text.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How will you prosecute them? Not only most scammers are nameless, but most are from countries where government needs to fix lot of things before they are effective against scammers.
That's easy. Those scams operate because the countries/players have access to the US financial system. You provide the incentives to the countries to fix their problem by cutting them completely off. If someone using a bank in Cyprus did it, you tell Cyprus government that in 48 hours the Fed will block all transactions with that bank and you block it. They move to another bank, you repeat it. Eventually Cyprus gover…
I have a hard time trying to understand why governments don’t address these scams more proactively. There is a related issue when you register a new company here in Germany: As soon as the new entity is added to the company house (called “Handelsregister”), you will start to receive fake invoices from scam companies. These invoice look very similar to official ones and some even use the official seal of the state (se…
This does not seem be a problem in the UK, searches topics that might be prone to this all seem to give the correct .gov.uk site as the first result with no ads that could be described as misleading. I wonder if the UK government, advertising standards agencies and trading standards authorities have put more pressure on google? Or perhaps the legal landscape here makes it untenable to operate such a scam business.
My first attempt, “tv license”, brings back a form-filling service above the real one too. I think Google has really increased the number of in-search ads recently. It used to be that they were obvious and at the top/side, now they look like regular results and often fill up the whole first page. IMO they know they are dominant enough in the market now that they can get away with providing garbage results for some sh…
Sure, once those find a way around Googles licensing crime against free and open markets built on top of Android and Google Play. Don't have to compete as default search engine provider if hardware providers are prohibited from changing the default.
I fell prey to this. Might have been the exact same website, too. Had had a drink with dinner, thought heck why not file for my EIN for an independent consulting LLC I was creating? Was using a fresh OS install where I hadn't yet installed Firefox with an adblocker. Usual defenses were weakened. Boom, $250 down the drain before I really thought it all through. Fortunately I was able to get it refunded by initiating a…
People think I'm paranoid checking domains, certificates, and bank numbers but it's a small price to pay as you found out. You lost $250, some lose thousands. This stuff needs to be regulated, companies like Google need to be held accountable for what they serve up to users. No more hiding behind this shield of "we're just a platform" when they damn well know they're the platform. It's all fun and games until your (g…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hang on, how are robocallers terrorists?
There are different types of terrorism. It falls under the cyberterrorism and critical infrastructure category.
Don't get me wrong; I'd love to see them picking up trash on the side of the highway for next twenty years of their life, or worse. But calling everything "terrorism" really reminds me of the years following 2001.
The one that got me was USPS mail forwarding. I am very privy to these things but I must have just misread the URL. 1. Googled “mail forwarding” 2. Must have clicked one of the ads like: https://www.unitedaddressupdate.com 3. Quickly used the autocomplete to fill out all the forms including my credit card information The brilliant part of this scam is that mail forwarding for a year in the US costs $0.99 so the expec…
I was so confused the wehn I went to fill out a change of address form when moving recently. Not only do I have to pay USPS, but they sell my new address and I can't opt out? I don't get any mail that's important enough to put up with that nonsense. Surely it's in the USPS's best interest to encourage people to complete a change of address and yet they seem to do exactly the opposite. Hope whoever moved into my old a…
For some reason, some people in our government believe that the USPS must be run as a business instead of as a service to citizens. This is one of the manifestations of that belief. Selling your personal information so you get flooded with advertisements is one of the most business-like moves I can think of.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
there are adblockers for ios too, for example here's a good one: https://1blocker.com
Ehh, I'm a pretty die-hard iOS person but ad blocking on iOS is a steaming pile of BS, to put it mildly. They flat-out don't work for 99% of ads. They're not ad blockers, they're domain filters, nothing more than a big hosts file, and they block absolutely nothing at the page/element level. The ad industry runs circles around 'ad blockers' on iOS. The lack of functioning ad blocking is by far the biggest downside to…