NA - The Economics of Impersonation

[wanttaja]

Got a text via Messenger today, purporting to be from the account of an old friend, complete with his picture. It was trying to lead me into a discussion on some supposed new disability benefit.

I suspected early on that this was a fake, and my "What airplane did you solo in" question was never answered.

I'm not looking for a "Facebook/Messenger are evil" discussion. What I *am* curious about is how the perpetrator of this intends to profit from it. I was expecting to receive a link to a malicious site, but the perp never sent me one. Just kept dropping hints about how they'd received a bunch of money from a "Compensation appeals board."

But no links, and no suggestions to send them money.

So...how are they expecting to make money? I'd love to keep stringing them on (like I do phone scammers) and waste their time. But I'm suspecting it's a bot, and trying to string them along doesn't make any difference. Do they just send the malicious URL automatically after N responses?

How does this sort of scam work?

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Huckster79]

Interesting, I’ll watch this as that’s a good question..

 

[IK04]

If you respond, your location will be known. That way you can get targeted ads from all your favorite annoyances...

 

[wanttaja]

If you respond, your location will be known. That way you can get targeted ads from all your favorite annoyances...

Yes, I'd thought of that. But the message was apparently from the account of an old friend, and they'd used his picture as the avatar. Sounds more like they'd accessed his account and stole his contact list...

Since he was an old flying buddy, I asked the sender what plane he'd soloed in. No response, just the same sort of "you can get these benefits, too". I talked to my buddy on the phone, it wasn't his account. He said others had been contacted as well, and had the same suspicions. Great minds think alike, one of the OTHER people asked the sender what the ILS frequency at his home field was....

I quit responding, but still got another message ~12 hours later asking if I was still there. We'll see if they keep coming.

I'm wondering if the guy/bot is fishing for me to say ANYTHING positive about this supposed "program" so he can claim some sort of success.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Gerhardt]

Now I'm curious. So what is the ILS frequency at his home field?

fwiw, I get maybe 10 spam calls on my cell every day, another 10 spam texts, email by the thousands.

 

[1RTK1]

I maybe get 1 unknown call per month on my cell phone and very little spam in my email, are you guys going to some bad porn site or what

 

[ETres]

I maybe get 1 unknown call per month on my cell phone and very little spam in my email, are you guys going to some bad porn site or what

Is there such a thing as a "bad" porn site?

 

[-KLB-]

I maybe get 1 unknown call per month on my cell phone and very little spam in my email, are you guys going to some bad porn site or what

Usually they actually spend the money on security. It is the churches, blogs, and mom and pop operations who do their own site, or don’t spend enough on security that you have to worry about. Heck, even CNN has been infected at times. Voting in primaries can likely get you into some systems. The data isn’t supposed to be used that way, but I can’t imagine that everyone who requests lists of who voted in what election actually remembers how they got the data, or the restricted use agreement they signed when they got it. Heck, the robo call systems some candidates use probably leak data that was legitimately provided into illegal uses.

 

[Everskyward]

The data isn’t supposed to be used that way, but I can’t imagine that everyone who requests lists of who voted in what election actually remembers how they got the data, or the restricted use agreement they signed when they got it. Heck, the robo call systems some candidates use probably leak data that was legitimately provided into illegal uses.

I don't know about who voted in what election, but party affiliation is public, at least in some states. Definitely in Colorado.

 

[-KLB-]

I don't know about who voted in what election, but party affiliation is public, at least in some states. Definitely in Colorado.

Texas simply restricts you from participating in more than one party’s primary process in a year. If you vote in the republican primary, you can’t vote in the democrat primary, or any democrat run off election. There is no registration as such, other than as a registered voter. But the last several years data is readily available for which elections you cast a ballot in, as well as your address, and I believe any phone number you put on the registration form. Any candidate or their staff can get the data, they just have to sign an acknowledgement that they will only use the data for political campaign purposes.