[colug-432] "Interesting" Phone Call

[Bill Baker]

What phone number shows up on your caller ID when they call in?  I have
a habit of sending people to voicemail if I don't recognize the number,
but I might have to make an exception for these people.

On 06/22/2012 05:15 PM, Angelo McComis wrote:
> I had the same call. I asked "which computer since there are 4 here". He
> says it doesn't matter. ??? 
> 
> The guy had thick Hindi accent. I asked where he was calling from. He
> said New Jersey. I asked where in NJ and he tells me a city. I pulled up
> Google Earth and Yelp and located some Indian restaurants in the area.
> Asked if he goes there for lunch. Asked if his office is by the big
> park. If he ever goes to the park. I also pulled some local news. There
> was a big apartment complex fire. Asked if he saw it on tv. 
> 
> Never did go to his website. Told him I was typing it in (I wasn't). And
> kept asking him questions while I was waiting for the site to come up. 
> 
> I think (hope) I made a nice dent in his call stats for the day. 
> 
> 
> On Jun 22, 2012, at 3:16 PM, Chris Embree <cembree at ez-as.net
> <mailto:cembree at ez-as.net>> wrote:
> 
>> I saw a video of exactly what you're describing.  The guy was fast
>> enough to spin up a Win VM and play along for a while.  They of course
>> wanted to charge him for the service. ;)
>>
>> You can probably find it on YouTube.  I forget where I saw the link...
>> I am not your google monkey ;)  or !LMGTFY
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 4:03 PM, Rick Troth <rmt at casita.net
>> <mailto:rmt at casita.net>> wrote:
>>
>>     May I quote you on this?
>>
>>     I'm giving a talk next week on SSL.  It will include "trust models"
>>     and will lead to PGP and SSH and stuff like that.
>>
>>     One of the points will be "water cooler leaks", ie: that the biggest
>>     security holes are human.
>>
>>     This story is just too juicy to pass up!
>>
>>     -- Rick; <><
>>
>>
>>     On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 3:55 PM,  <jep200404 at columbus.rr.com
>>     <mailto:jep200404 at columbus.rr.com>> wrote:
>>     > I got an "interesting" phone this afternoon from someone who
>>     > claimed that my Microsoft Windows computer was sending them
>>     > messages with passwords and other nifty secrets, and that they
>>     > were calling to help me remove the bad software that sending
>>     > the secrets. He asked if I was in front my computer. I asked
>>     > if the problem was due specifically to MS Windows, and he
>>     > confirmed yes. When I said that I did not have a Windows
>>     > computer, he said he must have the wrong number and hung up.
>>     > He had a south asian accent.
>>     >
>>     > When he asked if I was in front of my computer, I think he was
>>     > going to have me go to some web site that would take over
>>     > my computer under the guise of "helping me".
>>     >
>>     > If I had been thinking quicker, I would have booted Knoppix on
>>     > a computer with no hard drive, then play along. With more
>>     > preparation, wireshark, honeypots, and friends would be fun.
>>     > A fun question _before_ visiting the sucker web site would
>>     > be to ask what my IP address is (since they are getting
>>     > messages from my computer) and how they got from my IP address
>>     > to my phone number.
>>     >
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>>
>>
>>     --
>>     -- R;   <><
>>     '::1, sweet ::1'
>>
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