Liveline: Thread with no name, Host with no shame

You'd want to be fairly innocent to fall for any of those scams.

Aaah good decision ……. Bit less ‘in your face’ down there.

Beware of the lads with the monkeys for. ‘Petting’. Fcbookers can be carrying disease.

Let me preface this story by saying I have been working in IT Security for over 15 years.

A couple of years ago, I got a call from a Pakistani scammer who tried to blackmail me. He told me he had hacked my computer and encrypted the hard drive. If I attempted to switch it off or reboot, I would get prompted for the key, and without the key I could not access my data.

Me:"Oh no! But, but, but, how did you encrypt my Windows computer??"

Scammer: I used a well known exploit to gain administrator access on your computer

It's at this point I was suspicious because I dont use windows at home, I use Linux, and Linux does not have an administrator, the super-user is called root. However, I did a quick alt+tab to my shell, ran dmesg and there was no sign of any encrypting going on. ANyway,

Me:"Oh noes! What am I going to do??"

Scammer: If you Western Union me $1000 dollars and email me the receipt, I will tell you the pass key.

Me: OK, I will do it now. What name and Western Union destination will I send it to?

Scammer: <scammers name> and Western Union, whatever street, Karachi, Pakistan. Email address is douchebag491@gmail.com

Me: OK, give me a few minutes.

I went on to Western Union, and sent 1 dollar to the Western Union in the Pakistani town of Karak, downloaded the receipt but before emailing it, I fired up GIMP which is the Open Source answer to photoshop, and changed the $1 to $1000. Saved it as a new image and emailed it to him.

Went back on the phone and told him I'd sent it. You could hear the excitement in his voice and he said "The passkey is <some random string of letters>

Me: Thanks, oh, I just noticed, I made a typo, I sent the $1000 to Karak not Karachi, well nevermind, you can get the bus there. Thanks again, Bye!"

Scammer: no wait.. wait!

<click>

For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Pakistan, Karak is a city about 3000km from Karachi. Just for context, its further than the distance between Dublin and Moscow. The quickest way to get there is a 5 hour flight, or a bus for 26 hours. Considering the average monthly wage is about $280, a $1000 ransom is a good incentive to travel to go get.

To this day, I wonder what his reaction was after getting a bus for 26 hours, arriving at the Western Union, and getting $1.

Yep not a word about Mona. Our first swimming medalist in nearly 30 years and not a mention.

"Coffin". Joe will try to bring death into any topic.

It's much more important to read out the potted life stories of Daniel and his brother. Whose careers he has been following avidly for years no doubt. Such a plonker.

De three twins

telepathy and dat cawlur

She'd have to die in the pool, caller.

'Tipping each udder', times are different now Joe.

she’s not from de north so Joe not interested

Is this just going to be about twins so?

Was Eamonn Casey a twin ?

Was it a good quality whisky or did it taste like piss?

Could one of the twins turn up their radio a bit louder there it's hard to make out the feedback