mobile spam voice · 150 words · Viewed ~494 times
Like most of you, I'm inundated with spam calls. So I have a new solution. When an unknown number calls me, they get routed to this audio file. 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. This was created with Amazon Polly which is free for casual use. I was pretty impressed with the voice quality. Although there are limits to how well you can control the speed and intonation. While there are a nu…
Continue reading →android mobile phone sip spam voip · 3 comments · 300 words · Viewed ~248 times
Like many of you, I'm inundated with spam calls. I've suffered endless car accidents, my National Insurance Number has been suspended multiple times, and my broadband will be cut off imminently. Wouldn't be nice to screen out all the fraudsters? So I've set up a Bananaphone. When people ring me, they get 30 seconds of my favourite song. Then the call is passed to me. The theory being that my…
Continue reading →fraud phishing SMS spam · 16 comments · 800 words · Viewed ~5,704 times
The UK is facing an epidemic of SMS fraud. Scammers know that we're all at home eagerly waiting for deliveries. So they send out phishing messages saying "Sorry we missed you" or "You need to pay a delivery fee". If you click on the link they send, you'll go to a very convincing website which looks identical to the courier's page. Whereupon the fraudsters will ask for your bank details, credit…
Continue reading →spam twitter · 8 comments · 500 words · Viewed ~1,055 times
Twitter has never really solved its spam problem. It is a constant irritation that ordinary people get booted off the service for minor infractions, while large spam rings go unpunished. For the past few months, some of my old tweets have been getting liked by random women. I'm sure you've see something similar. The idea is, I suppose, to arouse your curiosity. "Who is this young woman…
Continue reading →badvertising email marketing rail spam · 17 comments · 400 words · Viewed ~2,935 times
Marketing really is crap. Recently, SE Railways sent this piece of email drivel to my wife: We don't have any kids, thankfully - and are not having any in the future. My wife was literally recovering from a sterilisation procedure when the email arrived. So it seemed a bit weird that they'd send her a message like that. My wife has never booked a child's fare. She's done nothing to indicate to …
Continue reading →DNS GDPR HowTo spam virgin · 9 comments · 950 words · Viewed ~2,110 times
tl;dr you have to keep complaining to Virgin for several months and then take them to the Communication & Internet Services Adjudication Scheme then complain to their Data Protection team by contacting them on LinkedIn. Background Virgin have a spammy DNS hijacking service. If you accidentally misspell a domain - for example example.coom - Virgin will pretend that the domain exists and serve…
Continue reading →phishing scam spam · 26 comments · 300 words · Viewed ~27,919 times
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 . is where a / should be? A quick look at the URl shows a trusted domain at the…
Continue reading →badvertising spam twitter · 2 comments · 850 words · Viewed ~3,556 times
It seems that Twitter has lost control of its advertising system. This blog post will show you why it is dangerous to click on any Twitter advertising. Twitter ads have always been a bit crap, but I've seen a recent influx in outright scams. Let me step you through a couple of examples. A typical click-bait headline. What has our favourite celeb done this time? In a moment of weakness,…
Continue reading →advertising spam twitter · 1 comment · 550 words · Viewed ~1,324 times
Twitter has a problem with scam advertising. Rather than having humans manually check adverts for acceptability and authenticity, they let almost anyone promote anything. Whatever meagre protections they build in are rapidly evaded by the scammers. Let's take a look at an example of a promoted crypto-scam about Singapore. I'd say it was obviously a fake, but Twitter says this story comes from…
Continue reading →google spam · 1 comment · 250 words · Viewed ~898 times
Blogging - because Google don't offer a bug bounty for spam reports... Back in 2007, Google introduced "My Maps": Easily create custom maps with the places that matter to you. Allow friends to see and edit your maps, or publish them to the whole world. Like most Google products, it was effectively abandoned after launch - receiving a superficial update in 2014. Now it is a haven for spammers …
Continue reading →phishing spam twitter · 4 comments · 450 words · Viewed ~943 times
Ever had a moan at your bank on Twitter? You're not alone - it's one of the most popular ways to interact with large companies. But how can you be sure that you're actually talking to the real customer services team? There's been a worrying rise in the number of fake accounts which attempt to trick people into handing over their banking details. Let's take a look at one of them. Here we see…
Continue reading →email phishing scam security spam · 5 comments · 500 words · Viewed ~2,552 times
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 doesn't look like someone hijacking his email so far. I don't put much stock by "Protected…
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