Night Music: Lhasa de Sela

Fun With “Windows Security”

I don’t know how many times someone claiming to be from “Windows Security Department” has called me but it has to be scores of times. I guess they keep selling my telephone number to the next bunch of scam artists. I used to get annoyed, but these days I treat it as cabaret, a break from the day.

The scam is to get you to log on to a url which, I assume, downloads malware onto your system that will steal your identity or do something equally dastardly.  I have great fun wasting as much of their time as I can.

I usually start by asking them for their phone number; I tell them I will have Microsoft security give them a call to sort out their problem. That used to be enough to make them run away but they are better organized now: they will usually be able to give you a number, often local.  However, today’s chap didn’t know how to parse the number properly. He told me it was “604 – 26 – 30 – 651.”

I then follow up by asking where it is they are calling from.  Today, that was enough for the guy to cancel the call. But often they will be ready with “Vancouver” or “Portland” or whatever.  That leads me to ask whether the hurricane caused as much damage as I’d heard. They know by then that they have been caught and they usually give up.

On a few occasions, I have allowed them to supposedly talk me through what they expect me to do — log on and sign on to the url (which I would never do, of course). At some point I get bored and tell them I am not going through with it, and they usually then threaten to terminate my internet service. I tell them to go ahead, and then say nothing more as I supposedly wait for them to destroy my system.  Usually there is pleading from the other end, begging me to log on, but this nearly always collapses quickly into a torrent of unimaginative abuse before they slam the phone down.

I sip my tea and get on with the day, waiting for the next time.

 

Wise Words

Image: Slab #1