I was so hoping the crappy “hey, a text thing I want to share, let me take a fucking attributionless accessibility-poisoning screenshot and upload it like a psychopath instead of just copy/pasting the link to the text or the text itself like a decent human being” routine would die with Reddit. We should be better than that here.
This was common advice for parents in the 80s and 90s. If someone had to pick me up from school unexpectedly my parents gave them a code word to tell me to let me know it wasn't a child abduction
You have to establish a shared password that only you two know, this should be done in person, face to face. Someone needs to make an app for storing passwords for people as opposed to websites. I suppose contact lists could store the password field.
You’re not wrong but it’s going to take a long time for “that relative that is calling could be someone else” to be something that people actually think about. Simple to execute your solution but 99% of the people out there won’t even consider the possibility.
“HI we are chased bank and we sent you 40k please give us the codes to Amazon gift cards to pay it back” still works on the elderly. This trick is going to wreak havok among old people.
Why don’t people use “Threema”. They can provide lifetime secure communication with a one-time payment. Also, you don’t need a phone number. If your phone number is captured, it will not be a problem because Threema provides communication with personal codes, not phone numbers.
At the start of COVID, I was in Hanoi, but wanted to go to India before going home (it was super cheap). Before that, 2 things had happened:
The stupid airline blocked the money (in the credit card) for our flight back and on top also transferred it, which left me without money in Vietnam. Super big pile of shit already.
Due to COVID there was zero chance of reaching anyone for support. It took, at the end, another week when we where back for that money to be unblocked.
Then something else happened: They didn’t let us on our flight to India (and thus to our flight home). Despite the Indian government saying no restrictions untill 2 days later. I had the website if the Indian ministry right there to show them. (guess how long it took to get that money back, despite the person saying they refund right now: about a year!)
So now we were stuck in Hanoi, without money for a flight back. So I had to call my family for credit card details to pay for a flight. There was essentially no other option. I don’t plan to have 3x the amount of money “just in case”. I don’t travel much, so I assume parts of that are not too rare.
I’m in the US and have a well off friend who had his Facebook hacked. The bad actors sent messages to his friends asking to borrow $500 until tomorrow because his bank accounts were locked and he needed the cash. Someone who was messaged by the bad actors posted a screenshot of a deepfaked video call he received that caused him to fall for it. Wild times we live in!
I routinely get emails from the owner of the company I work for asking me to kindly purchase several large gift cards and forward them and the receipt to him for prompt reimbursement.
Fortunately, I hate videocalls and have no reason to use them, so if my friend videocalled me I’d ask what the fuck they were doing and immediately be suspicious.
Signal for example, will warn you when the person you are talking to is using a new device.
As long as the user heeds the warning, it is an effective stop, and at the very least gives the user pause.
If the signal safety number changes, but the communication stays on track, as in, the context of the conversation is the same, it’s unlikely to be a problem. But if the safety number changes and the next message is asking for money, that is a very simple and easy to process situation.
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