The time has come for us to make passwords for identifying each other…
Remember, if it’s truly life threatening, the hospital is going to do the surgery and gouge you for it later.
The time pressure is meant to prevent you from looking into it.
Hang up, call them…. Don’t just hand money over the phone.use an excuse like calling your bank or something
This was common advice for parents in the 80s and 90s. If someone had to pick me up from school unexpectedly my parents gave them a code word to tell me to let me know it wasn’t a child abduction
Fortunately, I hate videocalls and have no reason to use them, so if my friend videocalled me I’d ask what the fuck they were doing and immediately be suspicious.
My first thought would be “wtf? How did WhatsApp get installed” followed by throwing my phone in a lake.
Especially if they were suddenly asking you for money.
Easy solution: Never give money that’s requested like this. Give the money in person or not at all.
If the friend doesn’t like it they can go to the bank. If they don’t like my terms they can pay interest to them.
Sorry people, I’m not your fuckin loan officer and scams are just too easy.
“I’m not a cat.”
Here’s hoping for popularising secure communication protocols. It’s gonna become a must at some point.
WhatsApp video calls are end-to-end encrypted. A secure protocol means nothing in this context.
But key exchanges work.
Signal for example, will warn you when the person you are talking to is using a new device.
As long as the user heeds the warning, it is an effective stop, and at the very least gives the user pause.
If the signal safety number changes, but the communication stays on track, as in, the context of the conversation is the same, it’s unlikely to be a problem. But if the safety number changes and the next message is asking for money, that is a very simple and easy to process situation.
40,000 Indian rupees = $487 USD.
Wow that’s a cheap surgery! Definitely not US.
Yeah them paying in rupees might have been a hint to where it happened.
Indiana?
Hyrule
“Come back when you’re a little… mmm… richer.”
Don’t deep fakes always look a little clunky?
Yeah until they don’t anymore lol.
I got one of these a few months ago. I could tell it was fake before I even answered, but I was curious so I pointed my own camera at a blank wall and answered. It was creepy to see my friend’s face (albeit one that was obviously fake if you knew what to look for) when I answered.
How do these scamers know who our friends are? Also how are they able to get pictures or video from said friend to create the fake?
In my case, the friend’s facebook account was compromised. So they were able to get his pictures and call me from his account.
Right now deepfakes doesn’t work well when the face is viewed from extreme angles, so you can ask them to slowly turn their face to the side or up/down as far as they can until the face is not visible. It also doesn’t work well when something obstruct the face, so ask them to put their hand in their face. It also can’t seem to render mouth right if you open it too wide, or stick out your tongue.
I base this from a deepfake app I tried: https://github.com/s0md3v/roop . But as the tech improves, it might be able to handle those cases in the future.
Edit: chance that the scammer use a live deepfake app like this one: https://github.com/iperov/DeepFaceLive . It also supports using the Insight model which only need a single well lit photo to impersonate someone.
Right now deepfakes doesn’t work well when the face is viewed from extreme angles, so you can ask them to slowly turn their face to the side or up/down as far as they can until the face is not visible.
or, you know, you can just pickup the phone and call them.
I’m in the US and have a well off friend who had his Facebook hacked. The bad actors sent messages to his friends asking to borrow $500 until tomorrow because his bank accounts were locked and he needed the cash. Someone who was messaged by the bad actors posted a screenshot of a deepfaked video call he received that caused him to fall for it. Wild times we live in!
I know someone who fell for a similar scam but it involved purchasing gift cards.
I routinely get emails from the owner of the company I work for asking me to kindly purchase several large gift cards and forward them and the receipt to him for prompt reimbursement.
asking me to kindly purchase several large gift cards
kindly give me your money, thanks
With deepfake technology being so advanced nowadays, how will we ever know if the person we are talking with on the internet is who they say they are?
Dude had too much money. Simple.
