By BD Bondy

​I accidentally mistyped the name Smishing, a combo of SMS and phishing, but I like Smushing as a name too. SMS is a text message, phishing is ‘fishing’, throwing a line out and hoping to get a ‘bite’. In this case, I found an article on the weird test messages I’ve been getting, sometimes just a Hello, sometimes asking who I am, and sometimes an invite to coffee or something like that.

Often it seems to want me to respond in a way where I explain they must have sent the message to the wrong person, so sorry. Being a bit cynical in the tech world, I never respond and instead, delete the message and select ‘Report as Junk’.

It appears that there may be links attached sometimes that I am meant to click on, or simply reply in some way which will likely escalate into more text messages or who knows what. If you get these messages, delete them and report as junk. I am additionally going to try and block them if I can figure that out. Sometimes I get several a day, but usually, several a week.
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It's a good article you can read HERE: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hello-text-scam_l_67eb1781e4b0d17863f2fb05

By Rick Rouse
Rick’s Daily Tech Tips

Well, another very insidious phishing scam is making the rounds again.
 
This one won't show up in your Facebook Newsfeed or in an email.
 
Instead, you'll receive it in an SMS text message, and if you fall for the bait it could end up costing you dearly.

The scam works like this...
 
You receive a text message explaining that your Apple ID is due to expire today. You are then told that you must visit the Apple website to "confirm" your Apple ID.
 
The problem is the website at the link supplied isn't the real Apple website, but rather a very authentic-looking, but fake copy-cat site.
 
If you tap the link and visit the fraudulent website you'll be prompted to enter your Apple ID and password. If you comply by entering your Apple credentials, you'll then receive an error message stating that your Apple account has been "locked" for security reasons.
 
That "your account has been locked" message is just a ruse. You'll still be able to sign in to your real Apple account with no problems whatsoever.
 
The problem is, the hacker can too because you just gave him your Apple ID and password.

Just so you'll know what to look for, here's a screenshot of the fake text message:
          ​

 
Bottom line: Apple will never send you a text message telling you that you need to "confirm" your Apple ID.

If you receive this malicious text message, DO NOT click the link in the message. Simply delete the message and forget about it.

If you have already received this text message and entered your Apple credentials on the fake website, you need to log into your Apple account at the real Apple website and change your password immediately.
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Stay safe out there folks. We're all living in the technological version of the wild, wild west.

By BD Bondy

There are so many scams involving texts and emails. Between Carol and I, we get something every day. I get more texts from mysterious people asking how I’m doing, or wanting to get together as it’s been a long time. I have no idea what that’s about, I just delete them an select report as junk.

Lately, Carol and I have been getting texts saying it’s the final notice to pay my E-ZPASS Toll. E-ZPass is actually a legitimate Toll business, and we do use it, however, since our tolls are paid, and since we haven’t accrued any recently, these are clearly scams. One of the most obvious things about the text was that it didn’t list the state it was from.

There are 17 E-ZPass states, all of them in the eastern half of the US. Don’t click on the link in the text. Delete it and report it as junk, but otherwise, it’s a scam. I got 3 of them last week and every one of them said it was my final warning. The intent is to make you react without thinking about the legitimacy of the message.

Pop-up messages are the same. They are frequently dire, possibly noisy, and alarmist. Those are clues that it is a phishing scam of some sort. A neighbor recently had an email which was asking for money via bitcoin, and said his browsing history was tracked, his camera was accessed, and his porn watching habits were monitored.

That was a scam with a twist. The email did contain a password they used. The thing is, there are over a billion stolen passwords on the black market sold in the dark web. Google tells me that I have compromised passwords, as does my iPhone. Unfortunately, that’s the nature of our world, and it’s not getting better.

I’ve changed my passwords for anything where I use a credit card. So far, none of those have shown up compromised. There is reason to be watchful, and maybe even nervous, but don’t panic. The vast majority of these messages are phishing and the best thing you can do is to delete them.

Read about the E-ZPass scam HERE. https://www.news9.com/story/67e18c53d6bda7547c492e22/ezpass-scam-how-to-protect-yourself-from-smishing-and-other-types-of-fraud

By BD Bondy

​A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a problem with some Warner Brothers DVD discs, created between 2006 and 2008ish. I’d like to take full credit in seeing that Warner Brothers has stepped up and is replacing discs, kinda sorta.

It appears that if you have the defective discs, you can contact WB and they will do something about it, perhaps? Not all the discs that fail are still in production and also, not all are even still under WB licensing, so a disc title may get substituted for something else. Hopefully though, you will get an actual replacement of the bad title.

A thorough link on the issue can be found HERE.

And an article talking about the replacement issues can be found HERE.

Ultimately, you can contact WB about the discs HERE: whv@wbd.com and HERE.
When Kidde had some of their fire extinguishers deemed defective, they created a great website that helped you get a replacement by filling out an online form. It was immediately verified and a new fire extinguisher was sent out. 
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WB could do the same, except they are not. Currently, there appears only to be a webmail address where you can write “them” about the issue. I am assuming they would respond and work out a deal where they send some sort of replacement. I haven’t tried it so I don’t know. It seems likely that that WB is not trying to be all that helpful in resolving the defective disc problem, still, it’s worth a try. 

If you've been on Facebook for a while you've probably seen a wide variety of quiz-style posts pop up in your Newsfeed.

There are many variations of these posts, but the most common ones are of the "What is your spirit animal?" or "Which celebrity do you look like?" variety.

These posts can seem like they're nothing more than just a bit of innocent fun, but the truth is some of them are quite dangerous.

The most dangerous quizzes typically require you to agree to enable an app in order to participate in the quiz.

Once you have enable the app and accepted its permissions it will proceed to "mine" your Facebook account and steal your personal information, your photos and even a digital copy of your Friends List.

The app (or the scammer behind it) will then use that stolen information to do any or all of the following:
1 - Use the information mined from your account (your name, mailing address, phone number, and birthdate) to steal your identity.
Note: This is one important reason why you should remove as much personal info as possible from your profile if any of it's on there.
2 - Create a fake "clone" Facebook account in your name.
3 - Use that fake account to send fraudulent friend requests to your Facebook friends and then perpetrate various scams on the ones that innocently accept them.
4 - Install additional malicious apps on your account that you don't even know about.
5 - Write posts on the Timeline of your real account and make it appear that they were written by you.
6 - Send fraudulent (and dangerous) instant messages to your Facebook friends.
And guess what? These activities could well go on for days, weeks or even months before you even find out about them (assuming that you ever do find out).

Bottom line: If an invitation to participate in a quiz similar to the ones mentioned above lands in your Newsfeed it would be best to simply delete the post and move on because interacting with the post in any way could very well cause problems for both you and your friends.
And by the way, if you've ever interacted with even one quiz-type post on Facebook in the past and strange things are have been happening with your account, chances are there's at least one malicious app enabled on it.
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For that reason I recommend checking your list of enabled apps to make sure there are no apps enabled that you don't know about. If you find one or more apps that you aren't familiar with I recommend that you remove them right away.