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I once got a call while I was lecturing some students. It was repeated three times in three minutes - I assumed it was an emergency and stepped out. I was gree
by arkades 7y ago
I once got a call while I was lecturing some students. It was repeated three times in three minutes - I assumed it was an emergency and stepped out.
I was greeted by someone explaining that my father had caused a car accident, and they were calling on his behalf. That someone would need to send over some money for repairs or they’d call the police.
Sure.
They added that their cousin, the driver, is a parolee now holding my father at gunpoint. That if I don’t send them money to make them whole, they’ll kill my father.
This was super fishy, you know? But still, with things like “life of a loved one” at stake, it’s hard to call a bluff.
I can only imagine what I’d have done if I’d heard my fathers voice pleading for help. They might have been able to get any amount of money out of me.
Well, if my father hadn’t passed away nine months prior. They were not delighted to hear that.
- toxicFork 7y agoHow do you even prepare for something like that... Do we need to assign identifying keywords to each other when we leave home so we know we are really ourselves? Like a vocal pgp?
- robbiemitchell 7y agoI told my wife that if I ever mention <redacted> while on a phone call, she should know that I am in trouble an unable to speak freely. Sound like we'll all need more things like this eventually :(
- elefantastisch 7y agoIt would make sense to have another word that indicates it is genuinely you and you are genuinely speaking freely.
- baroffoos 7y agoThat would solve the problem of having to find a word that you would never normally use but could slip in to a sentence normally.
- Double_a_92 7y agoIf you can speak freely you don't need an extra codeword to explain that you are using the codeword in it's real meaning. Unless maybe you suspect that somebody is listening to you and might learn your codeword from that.
- elefantastisch 7y agoThe codeword is to make it clear your words should be taken 100% seriously without considering the risk you are being coerced / spoofed with AI. If I agree on a word in advance with someone that no one could possibly guess and insert into an attempt to coerce / spoof my voice, then if there is truly an emergency in which I need this person to wire money to a random account, they will actually do it because they will know my request is genuine. If I'm being coerced, I could have a codeword to indicate that. If I'm being spoofed with AI, I'm not in control of "my" words, so I can't. I need instead to prove when I'm not being spoofed with AI. That's the purpose of this second codeword.
- dredmorbius 7y agoIf that's the default situation (a likely scenario for most people), you'd need something other than a single code word. In practice, most people can conduct a reasonable verification through a series of challenge/response interactions based on shared knowledge, should they need to do so. Mentioning something done, said, or shared in private recently would suffice in many instances. For more robust tradecraft, should you need it, a set of one-time codes (passwords or passphrases) might substitute. When the former head of InterPol was arrested in China, he managed to alert his wife through the use of a duress signal, an image of a knife: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/wife-missing-interpol-president-said-he-sent-knife-image-danger-n917561 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/wife-missing-interpol-pre... Not subtle, but effective. Spoiler: In the film Capricorn One (1978), one of the astronauts alerted his wife by referring to a holiday they'd recently taken together, by mis-stating the destination as Disneyland, rather than Hollywood -- the land of make believe -- as it had actually been, which led to the revealing of the hoax mission.
- r00fus 7y agoWhile it's a great idea, how do you test this? Is it worth the time? All my loved ones are on my iCloud so I would just ping their phone/watch while confirming location and asking the assailant to let you hear the phone ping on the line.
- bjelkeman-again 7y agoFind My Friend is so unreliable for me it is nearly worthless. Apple isn’t really delivering what I need.
- hawaiianbrah 7y agoReally? How so? I use it probably almost daily and haven’t had an issue, at least I don’t think I have!
- gt2 7y agoI've seen it fail to update the location pretty often.
- jiveturkey 7y agohow do you pronounce the < > symbols? i mean, 'redacted' is already a pretty strange thing to say by itself.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- friendlybus 7y agoless than redacted greater than, though it's clear he's keeping the real word a secret.
- Double_a_92 7y ago<...> is a common way of indicating a placeholder.
- Shorel 7y agoYou just make static noises, like a radio signal being lost. Also, you are lacking in the abstract thought department. Get that fixed, for your own benefit.
- throw1234651234 7y agoIt's either a knowledge gap...or he is hopeless if he knew the symbol but didn't pick up on it. Nothing I know of can improve that.
- protomolecule 7y agoI'd bet jiveturkey was joking.
- seanhunter 7y agoThey are pronounced "wakka" and "wakka" respectively.
- animal531 7y agoI invented two code phrases for pretty much exactly the same reason, but in case I ever met myself from the future.
- lm28469 7y ago> How do you even prepare for something like that. You don't because it statistically never happens. Just like you don't prepare for a plane crash or a lightning bolt striking you.
- Smoosh 7y agoYet, so many people have made plans for what they will do when they win the lottery.
- ohithereyou 7y agoI prepare for the astronomically improbable chance of a plane crash or lightning bolt striking me by having life insurance, so why such a reaction to someone asking this question?
- bobloblaw45 7y agoI'm broke so it makes things a lot easier.
- LinuxBender 7y agoYes. My mom and I had phrases for duress. Since she has long since passed away, I can share ours. "I love you". Sad, right?
- throw1234651234 7y ago"They were not delighted to hear that." - I used to do that, be a smartass. Then I realized at worst they get more info, at best, you are training them and wasting your time. Then there is that whole thing where they are getting your voice.
- r00fus 7y agoPOTS just needs to die unless they allow for authenticated CID. One could wonder if this was some sort of conspiracy to break one of the most successful protocols in the world (or at least not update it so it dies by neglect) to increase profits by other means.
- zaroth 7y agoI’m convinced that POTS is already a dead man walking. The younger generation has no interest in talking on the phone in the first place, and with the amount of spam calls my phone number is absolutely the worst part of my phone. Texting and apps is a much more pleasant way to interact with someone, and bonus of no hold times and much can be automated. I think business texting is an upcoming startup unicorn which will be another “trivial idea packaged properly into a billion dollar product”.
- Benjammer 7y ago>business texting You mean Slack?
- Pxtl 7y agoOr BlackBerry?
- tomrod 7y agoMobile slack is a terrible UX for short term engagement.
- zaroth 7y agoB2C - not team internal chats. It will have “jumped the shark” once there’s an SMS button on the business listing that Google Maps displays. Instead of the wonky/creepy Google demo which did speech to text and then analysis and then text to speech relayed over to the business, every business will just communicate directly with customers over text. It’s not that this isn’t already done (to some extent). And more so in some countries outside of the US. But I have no doubt it will become the primary/preferred way to connect with any business, to the point where you will text with an 800- number long before it would occur to you to dial an 800- number to get service. Like for example, the warranty claim I just made on my Dyson handheld vacuum for a battery replacement. Search for “Dyson warranty claim” and they tell you to dial their 800- number. Now their phone helpline is absolutely the best of the best, but even still most people would [will eventually] prefer to interact via text. Another example, making a reservation directly with a restaurant (which I prefer to do versus using OpenTable which will take a cut for doing nothing), is a perfect usecase for texting. Also ordering take-out if you already have a favorite order saved, obviously all the notification type things which make sense over SMS instead of email, making an appointment when a dedicated app is too much overhead, etc. etc.
- jancsika 7y ago> I can only imagine what I’d have done if I’d heard my fathers voice pleading for help. Hm... that certainly gives me pause, and my first reaction was to be very afraid. On the other hand-- it still doesn't hold a candle to pyramid scheme sales techniques. I mean in a lot of cases those involve your actual loved ones betraying your trust and love in order to sell merchandise for a third party. Yet somehow in the face of a rising tide of those we still have functioning communities in the U.S.
- firethief 7y agoIt's harder for Eve to get your loved ones to betray you than to speak for 5 seconds.
- bonestamp2 7y agoAt least in a MLM sales pitch, nobody thinks that one of you is about to die. For that reason, I think the scam call is far worse than any MLM sales pitch. Side note, it's not accurate to refer to MLMs as pyramid schemes... Even though they're legal, MLMs are worse than actual pyramid schemes (and I don't think most people know what an actual pyramid scheme is, which is unfortunate because they're fascinating). https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ehsankia 7y agoIt was a real rollercoaster reading this comment! Also now, you have to also be worried about talking back being a smartass, because now they will record YOUR voice and use it to contact another loved one...
- LinuxBender 7y agoIn my opinion, all phones should be set to not ring unless the number is in the address book in a specific category. Mine won't make a noise. If it's important, they will leave a message.
- headcanon 7y agoFirst off, Awesome story. I have a friend who had something similar happen, he got a frantic call from his grandmother who learned via a scam call that he was in jail across the country and needed bail money. This was a few years ago, so they couldn't have used a duplicate of his voice, but possible they were relying on imperfect memory. Sweeping generalization, but elderly are and would likely prime targets of this kind of scam in the future since they likely have funds and are less likely to be educated in the state of the art for this kind of tech, not to mention a protective instinct.
- pontifier 7y agoI received a call with a human on the other end. When I said hello, the person said in a friendly tone "Grandpa!" And tried to start talking to me. That strategy probably works some percentage of the time.
- inetknght 7y agoI live in Houston. I recently read a Houston Chronicle article describing very similar scenario. I don't have the exact link (it was from 2019), but here's one from 2013 [0]. Combined with the inability to verify the actual phone number displayed on caller ID has led me to tell all of my family to not ever accept a phone call from a number they don't recognize. There's literally zero trust in our phone system upon which we've built our modern economy. Unfortunately that's not possible for everyone. Some people are legally required to answer the phone, always, even for numbers they don't recognize. [0]: https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Houston-police-Email-phone-scam-may-cost-you-4952941.php https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Hou...
- losteric 7y agoGiven caller ID spoofing, they really shouldn't even accept calls from numbers they do recognize... especially with tech like this. Let it go to voice mail then return the call afterwards.
- inetknght 7y agoI wholeheartedly agree. I don't answer the phone for unknown numbers unless I'm expecting a call from an unknown number; the expectation will have been set up via prior correspondence. Unfortunately, not everyone can do that. Some people are legally required to answer the phone, even if they don't recognize the number. And unfortunately many businesses only communicate via the phone system. So, unfortunately, our entire country is built upon a system in which we're told to implicitly trust but doesn't have any capability for us to verify.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y agoWhy are there people who are legally required to answer the phone? On what grounds? Why? (Assuming private persons here)
- inetknght 7y ago
- x2f10 7y agoHow were you to send money?
- rolltiide 7y agoI know someone that had a fling abroad and their fling began asking for money for treatment over facebook The American assumed it was a scam and the person did die I have often found that truth is stranger than fiction, and people are too conditioned for fiction that they can’t perceive truth
- sethammons 7y agoWait, what? Did you miss a word or a sentence? What is "treatment" and how did this escalate to death? Was it a medical treatment and they were ill and surcumbed to the illness?
- mrtweetyhack 7y agoWhat's your number?