New scam to beware of

When a Russian "beauty" says She is in the driveway right now waiting for Me that makes Me afraid to open the curtains. I went and hunkered down in the shop, with the doors tightly locked.She won't pry Me out, the Wife can attest to that.

Hi Frances,

Ctrl "U" doesn't work on Linux !

I use "Kmail" on which Ctrl "V" displays the full Email as text, nothing gets returned to the sender unless you want it to. Part of the issue is Windows itself. It will automatically return an MDM (Message Disposition Message) you have to very specifically turn it off.

I sometimes ask for one just to see if the recipient has received the message. There are several MDM's that can be asked for.

Had a scam phone call today, we were out but they left a message warning that our internet line was to be terminated in 24 hours as 'they' - whoever they were - had detected a hacking or similar incident on something, perhaps our IP address - who knows - and to contact BT press 5 and other press 9.

Just warning of yet another scam attempt.

Chris

John,

Ctrl U works on mine.

Linux Mint Mate v.18.1, Firefox, Thunderbird.

Peter G. Shaw

Hi Peter, Guys,

I am running Q4OS with Trinity desktop, Firefox and Kmail. Qcad for drafting and Libre Office for just about everything else. Though I do use the console for some tasks.

Linux Mint is too much like windows ! Q4OS is Debian based

Were getting loads of texts from 'npower' demanding that we clear a gas bill. They don't seem to be all that joined up as the supposed account number keeps changing, as well as what they claim we owe. I haven't bought gas of npower for a long time, if it's genuine I've no doubt hey will write to me

I think npower has joined up with eon and change their name actually Duncan.

I had the equivalent of a friend request from my boss today through Linked-in. When I spoke to him I appologised that I wasn't giveing him the cold shoulder in not accepting and he said that like me he hadn't logged into it for years.

I am running Q4OS with Trinity desktop, Firefox and Kmail. Qcad for drafting and Libre Office for just about everything else. Though I do use the console for some tasks.

Linux Mint is too much like windows ! Q4OS is Debian based

John,

It all gets a bit complicated. My initial foray into Linux involved KDE2 & Suse which I found ok. When I did eventually move over to Linux, Suse was on KDE4 which I could not get on with. KDE3/Trinity was knocking around somewhere but I couldn't find it. In the event, although I do not like Microsoft's various antics over the years, I do like their desktop setup as per W2K & WXP so the fact that Mint with the Mate desktop could be set similar was, to me, a bonus, especially as I do still use a Win32 bit drafting program and a DOS based database system, both of which serve me well and I have no wish to change.

Fairly obviously, I am not an out & out Microsoft hater saying that Windows is Windows and Linux is Linux and never the twain shall meet. I will quite happily mix'n match.

Peter G. Shaw

I keep getting text messages and emails from a scammer, nPower, about installing a smart meter.

More seriously, these organizations are beginning to have directories that match a name to the phone number. I have been ex-directory for over 25 years so it is nothing to do with BT. About 10 to 12 years ago I sort of responded to a number of phone consumers surveys always giving a false name and address. It is these names that are now being used. I should add that these people are so dumb - one name is Micheal Mouse and I once gave the address as Hollywood.

JA

We have a Virgin media land line & 99.9 % of the incoming calls are scammers, we are seriously looking at ditching the line.

Tony

Hi Peter,

Very much like you, I dropped KDE4 and moved to Trinity. At the time they were basically fixing the bugs in KDE3. A while later I discovered Q4OS with the Trinity desktop and was hooked. Being Debian based and moving away from Debian/KDE4, was a convenient move.

I've used Linux from the days of Yggdrasil Linux, originally bound in a book that my wife bought me as a gift. Those were the times when you had to search the Internet for the drivers and then compile the whole lot to suit your machines hardware. Fun times !

Today its so easy, just download a live CD image, put it on a USB stick or burn a CD and boot from it. It will sort out almost everything for itself, right down to being able to surf the web. And if you run from the CD no issues with malware ! You simply cannot write anything to an already burnt CD. Of course you can then install to your machine if you want to.

So far I've not found anything that I want to do that I cannot on Linux.

I've been told that Microsoft actually write windows software on Unix/Linux !

Latest one for us was yesterday. We have EE mobiles. My wife received the usual "your latest bill is ready to view" etc. Which is normal as we pay by DD. Within the hour she had a text. States that EE were unable to take payment for the outstanding account. Please press the link to complete the form and make payment.

Hmmm The timing is a concern as we have had a number of scams surrounding bills that are regularly paid by DD and the scam appears or the call comes when the bill is issued. EG the utilities are EDF. Bill every 6 months, monthly DD. Bill time and the scams start. A purchase from Amazon will generate numbers of the Prime scams. Just be real careful folks. I assume our illustrious retail industry is not as secure as they would have us believe.

Tony

I am in the process of moving all my contact numbers to my mobile phone because even though we are ex directory we are getting more and more scam calls on the landline. There is another reason why I choose to discontinue use of the landline, I have a moderate to severe hearing loss and find it near impossible to hear on the landline but I can just about hear on the mobile. Unfortunately using a mobile in our area is not easy because since COVID it appears that the volume of use on mobiles has escalated with people working from home, buying online and bored children using their mobiles much more. So far I have been able to avoid getting scam calls on the mobile but for how long, who knows, meanwhile the landline phone is virtually unused.
Dave W

I've just this minute received one supposedly from Paypal to tell me that their system is changing and to 'Click Here'.

The senders email address included the word 'Paypal, but the rest of the address gave the game away. I've forwarded it to 'Spoof at Paypal'

With most of us using online shopping it pays to be VERY careful.

Brian

John Baron:

I use Thunderbird on my Win 10 PC. Recently, I have been getting occasional emails which appear to be scams. I delete these and mark them as spam on my ISP's webmail site. I assume this is of limited value as the scammers no doubt keep changing their send address.

Presumably, if as you say it is possible to deny the sender any confirmation of receipt this might discourage future scam emails? How do I "turn it off", please?

I had one of the long-silence then lady with distant accent call this morning; the old " I'm from the Technical Department of Microsoft Windows.... your computer has reported many faults... "

I have not had one of them for a long time. Perhaps it's no longer a very efficient claim, by [successes / failures].

I let her read her script for a bit longer, until she quoted my post-code and asked " .. Is that right? "

I replied, " No, Wrong, and I know that you or the people you work for, are criminals trying to scam me. Goodbye. "

Then immediately hung up, before she had chance to do so.

I thought I might prepare my own script, something like,

" I live in Denbigh for a start; and my computer's Ajax OS has the Asquith Security message and phone tracer. "

Hi Ega,

I haven't laid hands on a W10 machine since it was released ! So all I can do is tell you what to look for.

Somewhere in your Email client settings will be something like "Security" in there turn off anything to do with HTML

Mine says "Prefer HTML to plain text" No you don't want that. It also says "Allow messages to load External references" You don't want that either.

Then it says "Message Disposition Notices" I've four choices, "Ignore, Ask, Deny, Send" I use "Ignore". All the other three will allow a sender to discover that you are receiving their mail".

After that it asks if I want to "Quote original message", with three options, "Nothing, Full message, Only Headers". I use "Nothing". Be careful with this one because if you use any of the last three in the MDN list it will still send headers.

The next one is with regard to encrypted messages. I do not send anything for encrypted messages. Its a common trick is to send an encrypted message that is just junk which will obtain an MDM even if the other setting have been turned of, so "Do not send MDM's in response to encrypted messages.

You also need to turn on warnings for "Receivers Email address is not in their security certificate and turn on warnings for certificates that are out of date, less than 14 days old or are about to expire.

Certificate validation should be turned on to get the warnings, and Ignore HTTP certificate requests should be on. Again these can be used to obtain information about you.

I think that is about all. But I'm sure that Micky will have other goodies up their sleeves.

HTH.

Edited By John Baron on 12/12/2020 20:08:34

Edited By John Baron on 12/12/2020 20:09:52

I just ask them what they are doing with the other hand??????

pete

I just ask them what they are doing with the other hand??????

pete