6 ms·

Man, 83, tricked by scammers, gets 21 years to life for killing Uber driver

44 points by fortran77 9mo ago

fortran77 9mo ago
https://archive.ph/YYECu https://archive.ph/YYECu
almosthere 9mo ago
When is the stopping point to get it so that our phone system stops scammers. We should migrate off phones except for personal calls to each other (without a number - more of a 2-step authorization, you can call me, I can call you, negotiated via links over email... The phone number is dead, and the only last need for it is scammers and companies that want to record you but you not record them.
- jackyinger 9mo ago
  While we’re at it let’s get rid of wire transfers, and transactions by bank id / account number. Something more fool proof and transparent is far overdue.
  - JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
    > let’s get rid of wire transfers, and transactions by bank id / account number You can’t sent a Fedwire with only account number [1]. And this woman wasn’t shot because of wires, the man was told to hand over hard cash. [1] https://onrr.gov/document/fedwire.pdf https://onrr.gov/document/fedwire.pdf
- abirch 9mo ago
  Minimally we should make spoofing harder and use some basic TLS type technology for calls.
- g8oz 9mo ago
  I thought STIR/SHAKEN was supposed to help. Whatever happened with that?
  - almosthere 9mo ago
    I imagine government mismanagement.
- RupertSalt 9mo ago
  A phone conversation, like an in-person one, is verbal communication, and therefore plausibly deniable -- even when it can be recorded or transcribed. Corporations continue to treat verbal conversations as unique. Voice telephone, at least before TTS and LLM, also gives the humans a fighting chance at discerning emotion and lies. Like it or not, the PSTN is still king in many regards. I find myself using telephone for contact more often than ever. For example, medical offices, despite demanding all our contact info, will use all at their disposal to remind us of appointments, bills, test results, etc. Voice telephone is probably still the best way to negotiate and schedule an appointment, and if you really need to speak to a specific nurse about those labs, it's not going to be email. You know all those Chat Buddy LLMs that corps have put on their websites as front-line CSR? They are usually worthless, because once you glitch out and need unique care or something, the chat LLM or the human chat CSR is disempowered and unable to help. I can't count how many times I thought I'd use the website or chat for convenience (or after-hours) and they wasted 30+ minutes of my time before admitting I must use a voice telephone number for contact for that particular issue. Even with Waymo, or my e-Bank with no branches: calling via voice is the only way to connect the two parties who are empowered to work issues and solve problems. In fact it is even more pervasive, as there is more WFH and the mobile phone is ubiquitous. Your contact in a company may have an extension and a cell number. They may not be at their "desk" but picking up the kids, so they're on their cell, and hands-free, they're using voice. So the PSTN is still the primary channel within the company, as well as with the outside world. Sure, set up a Zoom call, or a Google Meet. It's not for everyone. Requires software infrastructure, advance consent and planning. Won't replace PSTN. PSTN is like IPv4. While there are plenty of new modes of communication, the PSTN is still universal, rather mandatory, and indispensable, so I do not see PSTN-voice going away, but the telecom standards are still developing, such as STIR/SHAKEN, to combat the fraud and spam.
fortran77 9mo ago
It's very hard to make people understand how scammers use third parties. Mom 92 year-old mother mailed a check that was stolen in the mail, had the name changed, and was e-deposited. My brother (a lawyer!) wanted to sue the person whose name is on the check! I had to convince him not to bother; that the person's account that the check was deposited to was probably some other victom who was tricked into giving the bank login information away and his account was being unwittingly used to launder checks. The scammer was most likely overseas, but pays U.S. Post Office employees to steal envelopes that likely contain checks and send images (See https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/former-postal-employee-sentenced-federal-prison-stealing-checks-mail-bank-fraud-scheme https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/former-postal-employee-se... for example) The bank reversed the check but we had to get a notarized statement from my mom, and it was a hassle for a 92 year old. As far as this case goes, guns should only be used in self-defense when there's an immediate danger. Not punitively. This guy's life wasn't immediately being threatened and he deserves to have the book thrown at him.
- abirch 9mo ago
  Checks in their current form need to be sunsetted. Either have a way of printing a check locally that have QR codes that include recipient's name and the sender's financial institution. No static routing and account numbers.
- mjevans 9mo ago
  That's the mindset isn't it? *Punitive* use of force. ----- Batman usually doesn't do too badly. Not only is it fiction but they're often against fiction level villains who are 'hardened' criminals in literal senses. Even then the violence tends to stop at the point where actual resistance stops. (They get tied up and delivered to the cops with maybe the black eye used in the initial apprehension.) ----- Contrast this with what we see repeatedly on TV when poorly trained and poorly supervised law enforcement officers beat down or outright murder someone until they're not just not resisting anymore but are outright _unable_ to resist at all. Such excessive use of force in a professional context should also be a crime that is punished with congruent weight for the breach trust in a public official absent extenuating circumstances ('I had an emotional reaction' leading directly to deadly force should not be such a circumstance). I do recall a highly unfortunate case of someone from WA state who was on some combination of super drugs such that there didn't appear to be a reasonable application of force to result in a successful outcome. More and better tools might help. Maybe net launchers and methods of incapacitating someone at a bit of a distance for mutual safety?
dayofthedaleks 9mo ago
Getting grifted is no excuse for shooting a stranger.
- fortran77 9mo ago
  Yes, and nobody here is disagreeing with you.
ddtaylor 9mo ago
The amount of scams happening is insane. The amount of people being wraponized into doing terrible things for others is insane. This is kind of a gun story but not really IMO. This is kind of like a story like the people who SWAT others and sometimes people die and sometimes they are held accountable. If someone is committed to presenting a false narrative for a long time they can manipulate people into doing things. That's not new, but it's certainly more accessible than ever and nobody is ready for it =(
- cucumber3732842 9mo ago
  >The amount of people being weaponized into doing terrible things for others is insane. Really is mind boggling when you look at it as "fractional evil". Some hypothetical clerk may make 99 "could go either way" decisions one way or the other to little ill effect and 1/100 or maybe 1/1000 of the time their decisions costs someone tens of thousands of dollars for no good reason for it could have gone either way. How much of society's wealth is lost to such endeavors? One wonders how much "evil" exists only because there exists some amount of legitimate activity it can be mixed among to dilute it enough that nobody cares.
- Stevvo 9mo ago
  This man was not "weaponized into doing terrible things for others". After he kidnapped an Uber driver and determined she was not a threat, he murdered her in cold blood.
  - zzrrt 9mo ago
    I don't know about "in cold blood." Allegedly they threatened him and his family with death, and he didn't really have time to premeditate killing her. I guess the prosecutor is getting at your point when he said it was not a "reasonable person"'s choice to kill an unarmed person backing away, but I don't think it quite qualifies as cold-blooded either. Maybe I'm too pedantic, but personally it's a reminder to not let emotions push me into a horrible choice like this, because after the fog passes it is objectively senseless.
    - 9mo ago
hshdhdhj4444 9mo ago
Outside of the obvious, the tragedy of the young woman losing her life, the fact that the scammers likely will not be impacted at all, etc. a couple of other thoughts. - It’s strange that we still haven’t setup any sort of authenticated form of communication with official parties. Email/phone call scams have been around for a long time. They’re very easy to fall prey to. There’s no reason our phones shouldn’t be able to inform us that a certain number is officially from the IRS, Cops, Verizon, etc. - This is a form of Swatting. Delivery companies, and also the police, etc need to do better in ensuring the people demanding services are where they’re demanding the service and/or the person who lives there is aware and genuinely needs to be visited. - We need a bit of a broken windows policing for online/digital scams. The reason they are blowing up is there is hardly a risk of being caught. And the cost/benefit analysis probably suggests that th police really shouldn’t be involved in most of the individual cases or expend too many resources. However, this blows up the number of cases so the aggregate cost does indeed grow too high. So there needs to be an effort to prosecute and expend resources even on low level cases so the criminals get the message that they’re not gonna get away with it.
- Neywiny 9mo ago
  In re your first point, it's tricky because the advice is to call them back on the publicly available number. Problem is, I know somebody who fell for a SEO hijack and called a fake number. Not everybody knows how to spot a scam. The guy here did though, and he used my techniques (ask questions they'd know the answer to). He knew he was getting scammed. I think it was just an emotional override with weighing the risks. This one is very different than a call saying the IRS wants Google Play gift cards or whatever. Especially with the scammers having the woman actually show up. That's next level in all the wrong ways
  - xethos 9mo ago
    You didn't say, and I wouldn't want to assume the situation, but calling the number on the back of a bank or credit card would work better here (in case it was a bank). This is also an argument in favour of paper bills, or logging in to a customer portal as a best-of-the-worst option
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
randyrand 9mo ago
"Objectively, a reasonable person would not kidnap and ultimately murder a defenseless person because they were scared,” Mr. Scott told the jury. That doesnt sound objective to me at all.
- mrala 9mo ago
  It sounds objective to claim a reasonable person would not kill a person because they felt scared. Based on the video footage[0], a reasonable person would be able to tell that woman presented no threat. Even if you argue shooting her in the leg because he was scared, it is nearly impossible to claim he was still scared and he has stalked her around her car and then shot her five more times. That is objectively, an unreasonable response to being scared when it’s apparent the woman was not endangering his life. [0]: https://youtu.be/RSlOY39ynaY https://youtu.be/RSlOY39ynaY
prmph 9mo ago
Sad story. It is partly also due to all the guns and the shooting-obsessed culture, folks. The way people are quick to use guns is not normal. I was shocked by the recent ICE shootings. And the fact the woman was of an ethnicity most associate with crime didn't help either, I daresay. The man probably had his biases confirmed and resorted to deadly violence without much tought.
- saaaaaam 9mo ago
  > And the fact the woman was of an ethnicity most associate with crime I feel like I’m missing something here. What ethnicity? And why do “most” associate it with crime?
  - prmph 9mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_stereotype_of_African_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_stereotype_of_African...

44 points by fortran77 9mo ago

https://archive.ph/YYECu https://archive.ph/YYECu

When is the stopping point to get it so that our phone system stops scammers. We should migrate off phones except for personal calls to each other (without a number - more of a 2-step authorization, you can call me, I can call you, negotiated via links over email... The phone number is dead, and the only last need for it is scammers and companies that want to record you but you not record them.

jackyinger 9mo ago
While we’re at it let’s get rid of wire transfers, and transactions by bank id / account number. Something more fool proof and transparent is far overdue.
- JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
  > let’s get rid of wire transfers, and transactions by bank id / account number You can’t sent a Fedwire with only account number [1]. And this woman wasn’t shot because of wires, the man was told to hand over hard cash. [1] https://onrr.gov/document/fedwire.pdf https://onrr.gov/document/fedwire.pdf
abirch 9mo ago
Minimally we should make spoofing harder and use some basic TLS type technology for calls.
g8oz 9mo ago
I thought STIR/SHAKEN was supposed to help. Whatever happened with that?
- almosthere 9mo ago
  I imagine government mismanagement.
RupertSalt 9mo ago
A phone conversation, like an in-person one, is verbal communication, and therefore plausibly deniable -- even when it can be recorded or transcribed. Corporations continue to treat verbal conversations as unique. Voice telephone, at least before TTS and LLM, also gives the humans a fighting chance at discerning emotion and lies. Like it or not, the PSTN is still king in many regards. I find myself using telephone for contact more often than ever. For example, medical offices, despite demanding all our contact info, will use all at their disposal to remind us of appointments, bills, test results, etc. Voice telephone is probably still the best way to negotiate and schedule an appointment, and if you really need to speak to a specific nurse about those labs, it's not going to be email. You know all those Chat Buddy LLMs that corps have put on their websites as front-line CSR? They are usually worthless, because once you glitch out and need unique care or something, the chat LLM or the human chat CSR is disempowered and unable to help. I can't count how many times I thought I'd use the website or chat for convenience (or after-hours) and they wasted 30+ minutes of my time before admitting I must use a voice telephone number for contact for that particular issue. Even with Waymo, or my e-Bank with no branches: calling via voice is the only way to connect the two parties who are empowered to work issues and solve problems. In fact it is even more pervasive, as there is more WFH and the mobile phone is ubiquitous. Your contact in a company may have an extension and a cell number. They may not be at their "desk" but picking up the kids, so they're on their cell, and hands-free, they're using voice. So the PSTN is still the primary channel within the company, as well as with the outside world. Sure, set up a Zoom call, or a Google Meet. It's not for everyone. Requires software infrastructure, advance consent and planning. Won't replace PSTN. PSTN is like IPv4. While there are plenty of new modes of communication, the PSTN is still universal, rather mandatory, and indispensable, so I do not see PSTN-voice going away, but the telecom standards are still developing, such as STIR/SHAKEN, to combat the fraud and spam.

fortran77 9mo ago

It's very hard to make people understand how scammers use third parties. Mom 92 year-old mother mailed a check that was stolen in the mail, had the name changed, and was e-deposited. My brother (a lawyer!) wanted to sue the person whose name is on the check! I had to convince him not to bother; that the person's account that the check was deposited to was probably some other victom who was tricked into giving the bank login information away and his account was being unwittingly used to launder checks. The scammer was most likely overseas, but pays U.S. Post Office employees to steal envelopes that likely contain checks and send images (See https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/former-postal-employee-sentenced-federal-prison-stealing-checks-mail-bank-fraud-scheme https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/former-postal-employee-se... for example) The bank reversed the check but we had to get a notarized statement from my mom, and it was a hassle for a 92 year old. As far as this case goes, guns should only be used in self-defense when there's an immediate danger. Not punitively. This guy's life wasn't immediately being threatened and he deserves to have the book thrown at him.

abirch 9mo ago
Checks in their current form need to be sunsetted. Either have a way of printing a check locally that have QR codes that include recipient's name and the sender's financial institution. No static routing and account numbers.
mjevans 9mo ago
That's the mindset isn't it? *Punitive* use of force. ----- Batman usually doesn't do too badly. Not only is it fiction but they're often against fiction level villains who are 'hardened' criminals in literal senses. Even then the violence tends to stop at the point where actual resistance stops. (They get tied up and delivered to the cops with maybe the black eye used in the initial apprehension.) ----- Contrast this with what we see repeatedly on TV when poorly trained and poorly supervised law enforcement officers beat down or outright murder someone until they're not just not resisting anymore but are outright _unable_ to resist at all. Such excessive use of force in a professional context should also be a crime that is punished with congruent weight for the breach trust in a public official absent extenuating circumstances ('I had an emotional reaction' leading directly to deadly force should not be such a circumstance). I do recall a highly unfortunate case of someone from WA state who was on some combination of super drugs such that there didn't appear to be a reasonable application of force to result in a successful outcome. More and better tools might help. Maybe net launchers and methods of incapacitating someone at a bit of a distance for mutual safety?

dayofthedaleks 9mo ago

Getting grifted is no excuse for shooting a stranger.

fortran77 9mo ago
Yes, and nobody here is disagreeing with you.

ddtaylor 9mo ago

The amount of scams happening is insane. The amount of people being wraponized into doing terrible things for others is insane. This is kind of a gun story but not really IMO. This is kind of like a story like the people who SWAT others and sometimes people die and sometimes they are held accountable. If someone is committed to presenting a false narrative for a long time they can manipulate people into doing things. That's not new, but it's certainly more accessible than ever and nobody is ready for it =(

cucumber3732842 9mo ago
>The amount of people being weaponized into doing terrible things for others is insane. Really is mind boggling when you look at it as "fractional evil". Some hypothetical clerk may make 99 "could go either way" decisions one way or the other to little ill effect and 1/100 or maybe 1/1000 of the time their decisions costs someone tens of thousands of dollars for no good reason for it could have gone either way. How much of society's wealth is lost to such endeavors? One wonders how much "evil" exists only because there exists some amount of legitimate activity it can be mixed among to dilute it enough that nobody cares.
Stevvo 9mo ago
This man was not "weaponized into doing terrible things for others". After he kidnapped an Uber driver and determined she was not a threat, he murdered her in cold blood.
- zzrrt 9mo ago
  I don't know about "in cold blood." Allegedly they threatened him and his family with death, and he didn't really have time to premeditate killing her. I guess the prosecutor is getting at your point when he said it was not a "reasonable person"'s choice to kill an unarmed person backing away, but I don't think it quite qualifies as cold-blooded either. Maybe I'm too pedantic, but personally it's a reminder to not let emotions push me into a horrible choice like this, because after the fog passes it is objectively senseless.
  - 9mo ago

hshdhdhj4444 9mo ago

Outside of the obvious, the tragedy of the young woman losing her life, the fact that the scammers likely will not be impacted at all, etc. a couple of other thoughts. - It’s strange that we still haven’t setup any sort of authenticated form of communication with official parties. Email/phone call scams have been around for a long time. They’re very easy to fall prey to. There’s no reason our phones shouldn’t be able to inform us that a certain number is officially from the IRS, Cops, Verizon, etc. - This is a form of Swatting. Delivery companies, and also the police, etc need to do better in ensuring the people demanding services are where they’re demanding the service and/or the person who lives there is aware and genuinely needs to be visited. - We need a bit of a broken windows policing for online/digital scams. The reason they are blowing up is there is hardly a risk of being caught. And the cost/benefit analysis probably suggests that th police really shouldn’t be involved in most of the individual cases or expend too many resources. However, this blows up the number of cases so the aggregate cost does indeed grow too high. So there needs to be an effort to prosecute and expend resources even on low level cases so the criminals get the message that they’re not gonna get away with it.

Neywiny 9mo ago
In re your first point, it's tricky because the advice is to call them back on the publicly available number. Problem is, I know somebody who fell for a SEO hijack and called a fake number. Not everybody knows how to spot a scam. The guy here did though, and he used my techniques (ask questions they'd know the answer to). He knew he was getting scammed. I think it was just an emotional override with weighing the risks. This one is very different than a call saying the IRS wants Google Play gift cards or whatever. Especially with the scammers having the woman actually show up. That's next level in all the wrong ways
- xethos 9mo ago
  You didn't say, and I wouldn't want to assume the situation, but calling the number on the back of a bank or credit card would work better here (in case it was a bank). This is also an argument in favour of paper bills, or logging in to a customer portal as a best-of-the-worst option

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

randyrand 9mo ago

"Objectively, a reasonable person would not kidnap and ultimately murder a defenseless person because they were scared,” Mr. Scott told the jury. That doesnt sound objective to me at all.

mrala 9mo ago
It sounds objective to claim a reasonable person would not kill a person because they felt scared. Based on the video footage[0], a reasonable person would be able to tell that woman presented no threat. Even if you argue shooting her in the leg because he was scared, it is nearly impossible to claim he was still scared and he has stalked her around her car and then shot her five more times. That is objectively, an unreasonable response to being scared when it’s apparent the woman was not endangering his life. [0]: https://youtu.be/RSlOY39ynaY https://youtu.be/RSlOY39ynaY

prmph 9mo ago

Sad story. It is partly also due to all the guns and the shooting-obsessed culture, folks. The way people are quick to use guns is not normal. I was shocked by the recent ICE shootings. And the fact the woman was of an ethnicity most associate with crime didn't help either, I daresay. The man probably had his biases confirmed and resorted to deadly violence without much tought.

saaaaaam 9mo ago
> And the fact the woman was of an ethnicity most associate with crime I feel like I’m missing something here. What ethnicity? And why do “most” associate it with crime?
- prmph 9mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_stereotype_of_African_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_stereotype_of_African...