I just received a call from an indian microsoft technician. He informed me that my PC is sending a ton of error messages to microsoft. Most likely it has been hacked, and he would help me by remoting in and fixing the problem for me. I just wonder… Is it my PopOs or my Manjaro PC that sends all this info to microsoft?

  • dustyData@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    You reminded me of those YouTube vigilantes that troll Indian scammers. One installed the remote desktop app they use and let them access a honeypot linux machine just to mock their incompetence and confusion. Then proceeded to take control of their machine steal their data and wipe out their computers. Their reactions are hilarious. It’s sad that a lot of very smart people are dragged into it by thugs that leverage debt and physical threats to force them into the scam call centers.

    • Dharma Curious@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      I ended up on a massive Whatsapp group populated primarily by Indian women after I took a content writing class a few years ago. Made several very good friends. I’ve asked them about the whole Indian scammer thing. One of them said she knows a few, and they do it because they literally don’t have other options for employment. Which makes sense. Rampant, unfettered capitalism forces people to make decisions that go against their conscience for the sake of survival. I feel bad for scammers sometimes, other times I feel less charitable when they’re scamming my dad…

      Whole situation just fucking sucks.

      • M500@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        If I had the opportunity, I’d still wipe the scammers computer.

        • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You absolutely should.

          Scammers escaping poverty by putting a bunch of others into poverty is the very definition of a capitalist and cancer.

          Eat the rich just as you would zap cancer.

      • Maalus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s always an excuse that criminals make - that they don’t have any other options for employment. It’s a shitty excuse when 95% of the country is employed and don’t scam people. It’s easy money for them, nothing more.

  • peto (he/him)@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    If it’s sending information to Microsoft then it has clearly been hacked. Likely by Microsoft. It was very nice of that young man to break protocol and blow the whistle on this whole thing. You should send him an itunes gift card as a thank you.

      • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        These are the same people - CIA just outsourced their call center to India & they have to send all gift cards back to the CIA, you just cut out the middleman.

    • XEAL@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      There was a very custom theme for Gnome 2 that made it look like Windows XP…

      • FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That might be even funnier, but there’s still a chance they’re proficient enough that they could cause problems once they realized what was happening. A VM would help mitigate the chances of that.

    • dan@upvote.au
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      1 year ago

      Ah yes, I remember back in the day we had to build WINE with unofficial patches to get malware to work. How times have changed.

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I still chuckle about the fact that WannaCry the ransomware software has a WineHQ entry

  • Jayb151@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    One time I kept a guy on the phone for about ten minutes just playing dumb. Then he’s like, sir, what version of Windows do you have?"

    I say, I’m not sure but it’s the one with the little penguin icon.

    We actually had a good laugh about it together

    • Fungah@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I won free airline tickets once and was shocked and appalled when they said I COULDNT use them to go to the moon. I fought long and hard for the right to use those tickets the way I wanted but alas.