The Biological Tricks Used by Software Scammers
The fundamental finding of softwarephysics is that life is all about the interactions of various forms of self-replicating information in action and that software is just the latest form of self-replicating information to appear on the planet and rise to predominance. Amongst the numerous interactions between the various forms of self-replicating information on the planet, parasitic/symbiotic relationships, by far, play the greatest role. For more on that see A Brief History of Self-Replicating Information. In this view, we humans are just DNA survival machines with Minds infected with the self-replicating memes of Richard Dawkins and Susan Blackmore, and we are now basically just trying to cope with the trials and tribulations of life on a daily basis as software comes to dominate the world. Having to now deal with the antics of software scammers on the Internet is also just part of that daily challenge.
Given the above, it should not come as a big surprise that modern software scammers have adopted many of the same strategies that carbon-based living things have evolved over the past four billion years to swindle their fellow creatures. These scammer strategies fall into basically two categories. The first category uses fear to manipulate victims and the second category uses greed.
Using Fear to Swindle Victims
Fear is by far the strongest emotion used by carbon-based living things to survive the rigors of daily life. After all, falling prey to a predator is far worse than experiencing a frightful false alarm. That is why you automatically jump when you hear a frightening sound in the dark. Consequently, some species have evolved a very frightful appearance to ward off possible predators. Below are a few examples.
Figure 1 – Above we see a number of caterpillars that have evolved the appearance of some very scary-looking snakes.
Figure 2 – Here we see a butterfly that looks very much like a scary owl.
Figure 3 – Finally, we see a frog seemingly with the very scary eyes of a predator staring back out of its rear end to fend off possible predators.
Similarly, the most common strategy used by software scammers is to frighten their victims into willingly giving them money while online. The aim of most of these scams is to swindle several hundred to several thousand dollars from a victim as quickly as possible. The one common theme to all of these scams is to have the victim call into a scammer call center. Once the victim is in the hands of a scammer in the call center, the scammer then tries to gain the trust of the victim using standard conman techniques. The goal is to have the victim download a free trial version of a remote desktop product like TeamViewer. This allows the scammer to then remotely take over the control of the victim's computer with the help of the victim. The victim must type in the TeamViewer ID and Password for the scammer to take control.
In the "Tech Support" scam, the software scammer is responding to a victim who has stumbled upon a scammer website that throws up a fake webpage that tells the victim that they have been infected with a very dangerous computer virus or that they have been hacked by somebody on the Dark Web with ill intent. The victim is instructed by the fake webpage to call into a "Tech Support" call center to alleviate the problem - see Figure 4. Once the software scammer has taken control of the victim's computer, the scammer will then do things like blackening the victim's screen and then run the Tree command in a Windows Command Window. After the Tree command runs for a while, the scammer will kill the Tree command with CTRL-C and then type in an ominous message like "Computer Scan Completed - 3 Computer Viruses and 2 Trojans were detected". The scammer will then turn the victim's screen on again so that they can review the scan of his machine together - see Figures 5 and 6. The scammer then offers a "Tech Support" service to the victim. After the initial one-time charge of several hundred dollars to remove the computer viruses and trojans that were already found on the machine, the scammer will then install some proprietary software that will prevent all further infections for an additional charge. The scammer will then direct the victim to their phony "Tech Support" website to watch the victim enter their credit card for the "Tech Support" services. Many of these victims never realize that they have been swindled. They think that the "Tech Support" company has actually fixed all of their computer problems and has protected them from future threats.
Figure 4 – Scammer websites will throw up very scary-looking webpages that will instruct victims to call a scammer call center for "technical support".
Figure 5 – Once the scammer has taken control of the victim's machine, he will run the Windows Tree command in a Command Window to "scan" the machine for viruses and trojans.
Figure 6 – The scammer kills the Tree command with CTRL-C and then types in an ominous message at the bottom. The scammer then turns the victim's screen back on so that they can go over the scan results together.
Another way to convince victims that they have some real problems is to have them pull up the Services tab under Task Manager and have the victims look at all of the "Stopped" processes on their machines.
Figure 7 – Showing the victim many "Stopped" processes on the Services tab under Task Manager can also frighten victims into buying technical support from a scammer.
Another scammer technique is to send a fake email from the IRS to the victim that threatens to do some nasty things if payment is not made. The email contains a link to the scammer's website and lists a phone number for the scammer call center.
Figure 8 – Fake emails from the IRS can also frighten victims into calling into the scammer's website.
Figure 9 – Scammers can easily create a fake IRS website that looks like the real thing by pulling real IRS image files from the real IRS website. The fake IRS website can then take real payments from the victim.
Using Greed to Swindle Victims
All forms of carbon-based life need resources to survive. This means that all forms of carbon-based life will develop strategies to obtain those resources. This provides parasites with additional ways to swindle their fellow creatures by enticing their victims with desirable resources. For example, the Orchid Mantis looks very much like it is part of the orchid flower and will capture unwary bees that are in pursuit of some tasty nectar.
Figure 10 – An Orchid Mantis looks very much like it is part of the orchid flower.
Spider-ants have evolved to look like tasty ants, but in reality they are real spiders with venom just waiting for an unsuspecting insect to come along and try to eat it.
Figure 11 – Above we see a real ant in the top of the figure and a fake spider-ant beneath it.
Figure 12 – Angler fish feature their own lures that glow in the dark to entice small fish into taking a bite.
Similarly, software scammers use the "refund scam" to entice victims into giving them control of their computers. In one scam, the scammer has the victim log into their online bank account so the scammer can give the victim a $500 refund. The scammer will then edit the HTML for the webpage that the victim is viewing and will increase the victim's account balance by $1500. The scammer will then tell the victim that the only way to "rectify" the refund process is for the victim to go out and buy $1000 in gift cards from a nearby store. Otherwise, the entire $1500 credit will have to be backed out and the victim will lose their $500 refund. Once the victim returns with the $1000 in gift cards he is directed to a website to enter the gift card numbers.
Figure 13 – Fake refund emails direct victims into how they can claim a refund. The scam actually ends with the victim paying the scammer in some way.
Hyperparasites - Parasites That Parasitize Other Parasites
All forms of self-replicating information are subject to the Darwinian mechanisms of inheritance, innovation and natural selection that can lead to very complicated natural designs. In fact, Universal Darwinism attributes all Design in the Universe to these mechanisms. For more on this see Susan Blackmore's brilliant TED presentation at:
Memes and "temes"
https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes
Note that I consider Susan Blackmore's temes to really be technological artifacts that contain software. After all, a smartphone without software is simply a flake tool with a very dull edge. Consequently, it turns out that biological parasites can also be burdened by parasites of their own. Biologists call parasites that parasitize other parasites hyperparasites. An excellent example can be seen in this one-page paper:
Hyperparasites of Aphid Parasitic Wasps
Cheryl F. Sullivan & Margaret Skinner
University of Vermont Entomology Research Laboratory
https://www.uvm.edu/~entlab/Greenhouse%20IPM/Workshops/2013/HyperparasitesfactsheetNov2012.pdf
The above paper starts off with:
Hyperparasites are secondary parasites of primary parasitic wasps. They seek out aphids that have already been parasitized by a parasitic wasp. The hyperparasite lays an egg inside the aphid, within or near the egg of the parasitic wasp. The immature hyperparasite feeds on the parasitic wasp, eventually killing the parasite before it emerges.
Figure 14 – Alloxysta spp is a hyperparasitic wasp that parasitizes the embryos of other parasitic wasps that have previously deposited eggs in an aphid host. Aphids are also parasites that feed by sucking the juices from plants like little vampires.
It should therefore come as no surprise that software scammers are also subject to this same plight. There are a large number of software hyperparasites out there in cyberspacetime who parasitize the software scammer parasites! Many of these scam scammers have their own YouTube Channels that feature hilarious videos of scammers getting scammed. Many of these software hyperparasites are incredibly skilled IT workers who are able to hack into the scammers' call centers and give them a taste of their own medicine by doing things like deleting all of the files on the scammer's machine. Here are some of my favorites:
Scammer Payback
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC9EjyMN_hx5NdctLBx5X7w
Boda Scambaits
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMeuuFTFNdS8K5Ho-Wc3U6A
ScammersGotDeleted
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp5UQ-SycPwaJ3cIqmT9V_A
ScammerRevolts
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0uJKUXiU5T41Fzawy5H6mw
Kitboga
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm22FAXZMw1BaWeFszZxUKw
Here is a very creative Kitboga scambait session:
My AI Powered Bot Makes Scammers Angry (automatically)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx5R0Vnp6w4
in which he creates a python program that makes calls to the AI software on
Wit.ai
https://wit.ai/
to produce a chatbot designed to agravate scammers. This seems to be a promising low-cost way to shut down scammer call centers with a denial of service attack by armies of AI chatbots. Kitboga is continuing work on his chatbot to enable the chatbot to do more than just waste the time of scammers. In the scambait session below, the AI chatbot actually manages to extract the bank name and account number the scammers use to receive wire transfers of money from victims. This scammer reversal of fortune is like a hyperparasitic wasp parasitizing a parasitic wasp embryo in an aphid. Once the bank and account number have been extracted, the bank can be contacted so that their fraud department can contact the authorities.
AI Bot Beats My Record Time Catching Scammers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coNjpBa5m1E
All of the above scam scammers are very impressive, but Jim Browning has taken the scamming of scammers to new heights. Below is his YouTube Channel:
Jim Browning
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBNG0osIBAprVcZZ3ic84vw
Take a look at the 4-part YouTube video down below in which Jim Browning hacks into a scammer call center and gets control of the CCTV cameras that are used to monitor the scammers. This allowed him to penetrate the operations of the scammer call center and eventually bring down the entire operation and have the culprits arrested.
Spying on the Scammers [Part 1/4]
Spying on the Scammers [Part 2/4]
Spying on the Scammers [Part 3/4]
Spying on the Scammers [Part 3/4]
Finally, for a real treat take a look at IRLrosie's YouTube Channel:
IRLrosie
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_0osV_nf2b0sIbm4Wiw4RQ
IRLrosie is a very beautiful and talented young actress who can also do many voice impressions to confound the scammers she is parasitizing in very clever ways. I was astounded by her abilities to impersonate Siri, Alexa and other computer text-to-speech software!
Watching these software scammers in action can be quite educational and entertaining. But it reminded me of the dangers posed by interstellar software scammers. For more on that see SETS - The Search For Extraterrestrial Software.
Comments are welcome at scj333@sbcglobal.net
To see all posts on softwarephysics in reverse order go to:
https://softwarephysics.blogspot.com/
Regards,
Steve Johnston
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