Recognizing A Scam Text

Thursday, May 8th, 2025 01:48 pm
jesse_the_k: Cartoon of original Mac with screen displaying the "happy Mac" smile indicating successful boot (old Mac)

I want to believe that I can outwit scammers, but even true cybersecurity experts like Troy Hunt have been fooled. I'm tech support for some of my age-mates, so I needed to write this anyway, so I'm sharing it.

Just got an SMS/text in Messages on my iPhone

screenshot )

which claimed

1-727-241-1788
Text Message • SMS Apple Notice: A charge of $157.89 was deducted from your Apple ID via Apple Pay. If this was not done by you, Call support now 1-833-869-3310.

This failed the “smell test” five ways

  1. SMS not iMessage. Apple invented the iMessage protocol to provide Apple-specific features, including fun visuals. All other platforms now have fun visuals, and Messages can send via other protocols, but when Apple contacts me, iMessage appears above the text.
  2. Lacked official Apple info. When Apple contacts me via Messages, I see an official Apple Badge such as the white and gray items with Apple logos in the image.
  3. Message via wrong channel. Apple emails me receipts; I didn't find the dollar amount in my email. I have my Credit Union push a notification whenever my Apple Pay–credit card gets charged, and I didn’t receive any notice from them.
  4. No Apple Pay charges at official site https://support.apple.com/en-us/118212 explains how to check all Apple Pay charges from the web with any device, as well as specific instructions from an Apple device. No charge appears there.
  5. Wrong terminology. Apple changed the branding on usernames. It used to be "Apple ID," but it changed to "Apple Account" in June 2024.

How do you recognize scams?

jesse_the_k: chainmail close up (links)

[personal profile] erinptah collates amusing and horrifying examples of large language models ("AI") spewing nonsense after they steal the hard work of artists like herself:

https://erinptah.dreamwidth.org/tag/artificial+unintelligence


[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posted eighteen subtle and beautiful eclipse shots at the "share your photos" community [community profile] common_nature https://common-nature.dreamwidth.org/253608.html


[tumblr.com profile] jenroses’s Fork Theory is a most excellent complement to spoon theory

http://jenrose.com/fork-theory/

You know the phrase, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” right?

Well, Fork Theory is that one has a Fork Limit, that is, you can probably cope okay with one fork stuck in you, maybe two or three, but at some point you will lose your shit if one more fork happens.

A fork could range from being hungry or having to pee to getting a new bill or a new diagnosis of illness. There are lots of different sizes of forks, and volume vs. quantity means that the fork limit is not absolute. I might be able to deal with 20 tiny little escargot fork annoyances, such as a hangnail or slightly suboptimal pants, but not even one “you poked my trigger on purpose because you think it’s fun to see me melt down” pitchfork.


Finally, this pro-captioned video summarizes the findings from an Hungarian research paper published last month in Cell. It supports that dogs make mental representations of human words.

stream on YouTube or … stream here )

Boros, Magyari et al. (2024) Neural evidence for referential understanding of object words in dogs https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.02.029

jesse_the_k: Wisconsin license plate "B KRE8V" (Wisconsin Creative)

Back in August we got a new van — and wow howdy the surveillance state has arrived at a car dealership near you. The place we bought it tried seven times to get our email — so they could send updates to the car. It comes with three months of free satellite connectivity and defaults to connecting to any mobile device within its red doors.

ridiculous details )

The good news is there's room for MyGuy to drive my chair up steep ramps into the back, Bella likes it, the seats are comfortable, and we've already scratched it (so we no longer need to be hyper careful).

Any vehicular news in your life?

jesse_the_k: text: Be kinder than need be: everyone is fighting some kind of battle (Default)

I want to help [personal profile] sasha_feather enjoy podfics on her newish Samsung phone.

Barriers: - I know macOS and iOS but nothing about Android. - Since [personal profile] sasha_feather is still recovering from her concussion and my cognition is fuzzy thanks to life-saving psych meds, we need a foolproof workflow. I'm sure there are better, more open-source, less-privacy-depriving paths, but right now we're looking for something that works.

No need to reinvent the wheel -- if you can point me to a site that explains how to do this, SUPER!

Right now I have two questions -- feel free to tell me about others I should be considering.

Q1: What's a basic audio player for Android?

We don't need a music player -- no equalizers, no cross fades, no podcasts. It's just for voice. Automatically saving a bookmark when you pause and a sleep timer are the crucial features. No flashy graphics. Happy to pay once.

Q2: What's the most foolproof way to get these fics into the player?

Right now, the podfics are stored all over: various clouds (DropBox, Google Drive), on clouds linked at AO3, on her MacBook.

Does Android offer a file system?

Could I connect an Android phone via Bluetooth or WiFi and use that system to copy files from the MacBook on the network?

Could we just plug the Samsung phone into the macbook's USB port and read/write its data like an external drive? Do I need a particular cable for that?

My circles has so many technical whizzes -- I'm looking forward to your answers!

jesse_the_k: Cartoon of original Mac with screen displaying the "happy Mac" smile indicating successful boot (old Mac)
It only took me nine years to discover this.

When you tap on a link in iOS Safari, the browser loads that link and leaves the current page.

To open a link in a new tab (behind the current one), tap on the link with two fingers

All this time I’ve been pressing-and-holding to bring up the context menu, and then selecting “Open in New Tab.”

jesse_the_k: Head inside a box, with words "Thinking inside the box" scrawled on it. (thinking inside the box)
Thanks to a Motherboard article1 I learned that Netflix has thousands of genres, including:
  • Biographical 20th Century Period Pieces about Fame
  • Absurd Cult Comedies from the 1980s
  • Heartfelt Hindi-Language Movies
Data can be beautiful )
jesse_the_k: text: Be kinder than need be: everyone is fighting some kind of battle (Default)
If it runs on electricity, I want it, so this "your life in tech meme" is right up my alley. Following [profile] wild_iris's example, I've reworded some of the Qs so they're more sensical for an Old. I also reworded some of the Qs because they were incoherent. 19 Q and As )
jesse_the_k: harbor seal's head captioned "seal of approval" (Approval)

Life in Code—Ellen Ullman5 of 5 )


Real American—Julie Lythcott-Haims5 of 5 )

jesse_the_k: text: Be kinder than need be: everyone is fighting some kind of battle (Default)

SHOWA: a History of Japan, 1926–1939 by Shigeru Mizuki - 4 of 5 stars
history on two levels )

Visual-only sample pages at the publishers’ web site:
https://www.drawnandquarterly.com/search/showa

Brief histories of everyday objects—Andy Warner - 4 of 5 stars
the extraordinary origins of the mundane )

A sample item: undescribed comic about brown paper bags
https://medium.com/the-nib/meet-the-mother-of-the-modern-paper-bag–941e6517a870

Queer by Meg John Barker & Julia Scheele — 3 of 5 stars
Behind the popular formations of theory )

Meg-John’s uncaptioned video trailer for the book:
http://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/sex/queer-the-video/

jesse_the_k: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040204184222/http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1031.html">Bitmapped "dogcow" Apple Technote 1013, and appeared in many OS9 print dialogs</a> (dogcow from OS9)
I just ran into some exceptionally helpful video by Gary Rosenzweig -- turns out his Macmost site has more than 1500 "how to" videos. They're friendly, step-by-step, and his narration is soothing. They're not captioned, but Gary's voice may have been one of the Google "auto caption" AI trainers, because they do an excellent job.

http://macmost.com
Creating PDFs on iOS 10 and 11 )
jesse_the_k: text: Be kinder than need be: everyone is fighting some kind of battle (Default)
My iPad is always within reach, but it doesn't have cellular service. Could I get a mobile hotspot and use it as a phone?
more details )
jesse_the_k: Large ewe stares front while adolescent lamb escapes (lamb runs away from ewe)
Swam two extra lengths on Wednesday, been going downhill since.

So nothing to post today, however, this true story about holding on to old, inept technology is so funny that you'd better visit the toilet first:

http://thefourthvine.dreamwidth.org/190113.html
jesse_the_k: USB jump drive pointing into my left ear (JK data in ear)

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