3 ms·

Whatever you do, don’t say yes when this chatbot asks, 'Can you hear me?'

13 points by miraj 10y ago

blahyawnblah 10y ago
Kind of reminds me of Sneakers. My voice is my passport. Verify me.
joezydeco 10y ago
So we'll fight these chatbots with receptionist bots of our own that will administer Turing tests to incoming calls. Then we'll have escalating phone-bot intelligence wars. The future looks bright!
bisby 10y ago
I received this call last week. I sent a message to a friend, and received a phone call about 10 seconds later, and without thinking I answered without even glancing at the caller ID. I assumed it was the friend. I got the whole "having a problem with my headset" thing, and immediately hung up. My friend doesn't use a headset for calls so I realized it was a "telemarketer" and thought nothing of it. I had seen facebook posts about this before. but they all came from people who would post thing like "if you post 'I dont allow facebook to use my private data', then they cant!" or "forward this and bill gates will give you money!" so I never took it seriously. Seeing this article and having had the call myself, it becomes so much more real and scary. Granted, I just hang up on telemarketers without even saying "no thanks"... This could also possibly be an issue for people who like to "lead on" telemarketers. If anything you say while trolling them can be editing to sound like an affirmation, it's a bad idea. Hanging up is the only solution (for now)
scarface74 10y ago
I've gotten these calls. But how do they "bill" you just by saying "yes"? They don't have my credit card number or any other financial information.
Hnrobert42 10y ago
This is an urban legend.
- egwynn 10y ago
  Your comment is a little broad; maybe that’s why you’ve gotten downvoted. But effectively I agree with you. I know for a fact people DO get this exact call. But the evidence for the endgame of the exploit is pretty weak.
panarky 10y ago
I've received these calls and just hung up. Who knows what they're selling but it's very unlikely to be a scam to harvest an audio clip of your voice saying "yes". There's just no way anyone can buy something and bill it to you just with that.
egwynn 10y ago
Color me skeptical. I’ve never needed voice authorization for a CC transaction. Ever. And I don’t give my CC # to random people who call me from strange numbers. Seems like, if they already had my CC data, they wouldn’t need to call me. The “supporting” link FTA doesn’t add much, either. In fact, it says that the exploit is still considered “unproven”. Maybe they plan on doctoring the whole audio transcript and then submitting it as “proof” in their favor once someone issues a chargeback?
BrandoElFollito 10y ago
Good luck with this in Europe. Your agreement over the phone is just the first step for someone to actually prepare a contract for you, which you need to sign off later. They can go provide you services at their risk before this succor, though. The thing I do not understand in this articke is how they get the credit card number.

13 points by miraj 10y ago

Kind of reminds me of Sneakers. My voice is my passport. Verify me.

So we'll fight these chatbots with receptionist bots of our own that will administer Turing tests to incoming calls. Then we'll have escalating phone-bot intelligence wars. The future looks bright!

bisby 10y ago

I received this call last week. I sent a message to a friend, and received a phone call about 10 seconds later, and without thinking I answered without even glancing at the caller ID. I assumed it was the friend. I got the whole "having a problem with my headset" thing, and immediately hung up. My friend doesn't use a headset for calls so I realized it was a "telemarketer" and thought nothing of it. I had seen facebook posts about this before. but they all came from people who would post thing like "if you post 'I dont allow facebook to use my private data', then they cant!" or "forward this and bill gates will give you money!" so I never took it seriously. Seeing this article and having had the call myself, it becomes so much more real and scary. Granted, I just hang up on telemarketers without even saying "no thanks"... This could also possibly be an issue for people who like to "lead on" telemarketers. If anything you say while trolling them can be editing to sound like an affirmation, it's a bad idea. Hanging up is the only solution (for now)

scarface74 10y ago

I've gotten these calls. But how do they "bill" you just by saying "yes"? They don't have my credit card number or any other financial information.

Hnrobert42 10y ago

This is an urban legend.

egwynn 10y ago
Your comment is a little broad; maybe that’s why you’ve gotten downvoted. But effectively I agree with you. I know for a fact people DO get this exact call. But the evidence for the endgame of the exploit is pretty weak.

panarky 10y ago

I've received these calls and just hung up. Who knows what they're selling but it's very unlikely to be a scam to harvest an audio clip of your voice saying "yes". There's just no way anyone can buy something and bill it to you just with that.

egwynn 10y ago

Color me skeptical. I’ve never needed voice authorization for a CC transaction. Ever. And I don’t give my CC # to random people who call me from strange numbers. Seems like, if they already had my CC data, they wouldn’t need to call me. The “supporting” link FTA doesn’t add much, either. In fact, it says that the exploit is still considered “unproven”. Maybe they plan on doctoring the whole audio transcript and then submitting it as “proof” in their favor once someone issues a chargeback?

BrandoElFollito 10y ago

Good luck with this in Europe. Your agreement over the phone is just the first step for someone to actually prepare a contract for you, which you need to sign off later. They can go provide you services at their risk before this succor, though. The thing I do not understand in this articke is how they get the credit card number.