Earlier this week, my holiday was interrupted by a sophisticated SMS scam. Rude! Let's take a look at it. Let's take a look at all the ways we can tell it is a scam. Firstly, and most obviously, I am not a customer of Lloyds Bank! But these scammers send out to multiple people hoping…
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Many moons ago, when I was very young and you were even younger... London was in full bloom of tech-startups. I was running my own consultancy. Dashing from business to business, trying to pick up work as an expert in this new-fangled "Mobile Internet" thing. Some of the companies I worked with were great. Some…
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Messaging app Signal is launching a payment service in the UK. This will allow users to send each other money cryptocurrency. Many people have written about why this is a daft idea. But they've mostly talked about why cryptocoins corrupt everything they touch. I want to talk about why this is a shitty idea from…
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(A hastily written and grumpy post.) Another day, another Blockchain Bullshit project. Alright, I got this Lady_Crypt0. The NFT (Non Fungible Tweet) is headed your way. https://t.co/JVgGFmUhrD — NFT Tweets Transfer (@tweet_nfts) February 14, 2021 Someone "claimed" one of my Tweets and added it to the Blockchain. I'm not particularly happy about that. Nor am…
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My mate Dom was moaning to his ISP on Twitter. They sent him a private message so they could look into his account. Blimey! Thankfully, that was a pretty brazen and inept attempt at phishing. Anyone asking for all your card details like that should set the alarm bells ringing. Of course, phishers often target…
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Another day, another phone scam. Yesterday, I received a call from +442085044434 by someone trying to get me to "invest" in BitCoin and other Cryptocurrencies. I managed to drag the call out for 6 minutes - have a listen: The caller admits the trading and advice isn't regulated. That they don't need permission to make…
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*sigh* These scams are really common. And pretty easy to pull off. Renting an expensive sports car for a day is relatively cheap. Drive it to some fancy locations, wear a couple of rented designer clothes, perhaps pay for a pretty model to pose as your girlfriend, take a load of photos and you can…
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Yesterday, January 2nd, my wife received a billing alert from her phone provider. Luckily, she's not with EE - because it's a pretty convincing text. That domain name is specifically designed to include the day's date. If you're stood up on a crowded train, with your phone screen cracked, would you notice that a .…
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Another day, another scam caller. Would you fall for this fraud? You'd probably realise that this was a (crap) text-to-voice system and that the tax authorities are more likely to send a letter than a phone call. But not everyone is so switched-on. If you've not had many dealings with HMRC, would you know how…
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Gmail is usually pretty good at stopping spam from reaching my inbox. When it slips up, it reminds me of just how terrifying the modern internet is. Early one morning, I received this email from someone I know (details redacted by me). It came from his email, it has his signature at the bottom. This…
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