07-05-2020, 11:52 AM
22
Re: The Porn Scammer Tries Again!
I had a porn scammer recently. They asked for payment in bitcoin or all those on my Facebook and e-mail account would receive images of me (gained from my webcam) looking at porn sites. I just ignored it for what it was.Another point made in the e-mail was that the scammer would know that I'd opened the e-mail via a special code put within the body of it. I happen to know that this much at least is possible if your e-mail loads images automatically.
This can be a reason for using for using an e-mail program. This aspect is then controllable. There is usually an option in the program to prevent images loading automatically. Mine is set this way as an anti-spam/security measure.
Any spammer, scammer or advertiser knows when their e-mail has been opened because images within it are not sent with the email. They are most often only links to the images that are stored on a remote server somewhere.
When the e-mail is opened, the email sees the link and goes goes off to the server to fetch the image. If the server is monitored, the only way the image would have been called on is if the email had been opened. The advertiser or spammer then knows it might be worthwhile sending more e-mails to that e-mail address because they'll know the recipient looked at their e-mail.
In the case of the porn scammer, they can put a 1 pixel white image in the body text that the reader will never see or know about. However, the link to that image is present and the e-mail will go off to get it as instructed. Hence the porn scammer knows the email has been opened.
Best to keep remote images turned off in my opinion. Then you can read the e-mails if you want to without the sender knowing.
The porn scammer may have my e-mail address and can probably spoof it and so send emails that appear to come from me. What the spammer doesn't have though is the password to the e-mail account. It's therefore only likely that the e-mail address will be used to send me spam from the porn scammer, or anyone else they might sell the address to.
The e-mail address would be an absolute pain for me to change because it is used for quite a few company transactions and I'd have to go to all of those sites/businesses and change the address.
Considering the e-mail address is known to those who I never gave it to, there is surprisingly little trouble from it. The porn scam e-mail received on that address is a rarity.
Edit: Also, it's usually also possible to set messages to open in plain text, then any links to images, hidden or otherwise, will be seen as links and not automatically followed.
07-05-2020, 02:54 PM
23
Re: The Porn Scammer Tries Again!
Originally Posted by Tedc
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Ah! The "Link", the "attachment", the "Trojan Horse".Did you call Apple Support to ask if they were aware of it?
It's not like the authorities or the FCC will do anything about it. Case in point, a few years ago we had someone working within Verizon sell our account information to a scammer. That person went and ordered 2 new smart phones on the account. Well, the person wasn't very attentive to detail because they sent one of the phones to my house.
I was out on the road so the wife called all excited that we just got this new free phone and wanted to know if we could legally keep it for free since we didn't order it (you can). I immediately smelled a rat and had her contact Verizon. She got the info and found out there was a second phone on its way to Chicago. We were able to track its delivery progress and made all the right dutiful citizen reports and contacted everyone in the chain of command from our local sheriff all the way up to the FBI, FCC and FTC. They easily could have been Johnny-on-the-Spot and been there when the phone was delivered to take them into custody. However, since the phone was valued at less than $1000, nobody wanted to move on the matter, even though this probably wasn't an isolated incident.
Nevertheless, I sent back the other phone to Verizon and criminals were free to continue ripping off the system.
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