Nasty blackmail scam

[stephec]

It was gerbil, except of course, it wasn't.

(ah, but I see Dawn French has also heard your hamster version )

I wasn't going to have that in my search history.

First time I've heard the word gerbilectomy as well.

 

[Dec66]

I sent them one of my the many videos of myself indulging in said activity, readily available on t'internet, and said "was it this one?"

I never heard back.**













** Some, or all, of this may be untrue

 

[Svendo]

You still have it though?

I’m guessing you’re thinking of resetting the tablet and reinstalling? And that if the ransomware has worked as advertised the hard drive or equivalent is irretrievably encrypted?

 

[Racing roadkill]

Has anyone else been sent an email saying you clicked on a porn site and they filmed you via your webcam having a Barclays Bank, give us $2500 in Bitcoin or we email it to your friends and family and post it on Facebook? I've received two. The alarming thing was that they had my computer password in the title. It was not the password to my email account or Facebook account, but since I've set most my web accounts to remember my various passwords, I wondered whether it was possible to remote desk into my PC and open them. I don't think my router's firewall will allow it, but I don't really know enough about it. I suppose they could not really do that while I was at my PC because I'd notice my mouse moving around on its own and clicking on things. I don't know how they got the password. It was an old one, which I have changed now. I read somewhere that lots of personal information was lost via security breaches.

Yes. I did get an email like that. I deleted it and ignored it. It threatened to send split video of a porn site in one bit, and me in the other bit, having hijacked my laptop ( I haven’t got a laptop, I don’t visit those sorts of sites ) it said if I didn’t pay 5000 in bitcoin, they would start sending stuff to my contacts list ( I don’t have a contacts list either) and that I had 2 days to pay up . I laughed, then deleted it.

 

[TheDoctor]

Yeah, leave the little guy alone

View attachment 422272

That's actually a rat.
[/pedant]

 

[Racing roadkill]

That's actually a rat.
[/pedant]

Rats have got tails that make retrieval easier ( so I’m led to believe )

 

[TheDoctor]

I'll bow to your superior knowledge on the topic!

 

[Mugshot]

That's actually a rat.
[/pedant]

You know, I thought it was too, but reverse image search says mouse.

 

[TheDoctor]

You were right.
Mice have furry tails, and different shaped ears.
I've had pet rats many times. That's a rat

 

[jefmcg]

That's actually a rat.
[/pedant]

I thought so too, but it came up on the first page of an image search for mice, and was more appealing than the actual mice, so that's the one I picked. Rats have much more intelligent expressions for one thing.

I'd far rather be happy than right.

And yes, the last sentence is a deliberate reference to mice.

 

[stowie]

There are plenty of lists linking email addresses to passwords if you know where to look and are prepared to pay. Other lists (Rainbow tables) have common passwords encrypted to common standards for hackers to use against your accounts.

I wouldn't worry about emails like the one in the OP. It is probably spam generated from the lists they have - if you email enough people some of them may pay up.

Do, however, use a password manager (I use lastpass, but keepass is free and there are many others). I am in technology and never really bothered about passwords (reused some for sites I considered not important etc) until I had a dormant twitter account hacked with someone reposting lots of really rather naughty pictures. Problem was that the password for the dormant account had been used for other accounts and the hacker would have had access to those as well as the old twitter account. Password managers allow to create lengthy and random text strings without having to remember them. They have add-ons so that it is easy to log into sites on PC or mobile apps. This, alongside two factor authentication is the best way to prevent hacking attacks.

I suspect a lot of these lists are sold on by disaffected employees. It is amazing how many idiot sites stored your password for their site in cleartext (un-encrypted) on their servers just waiting for someone to either hack them or, more likely, a disaffected employee to make a bit more cash by flogging them on the internet. These days it is far rarer to have this problem, so this is why I suspect some of these passwords are old - they cannot access newer passwords as easily.

 

[Cycleops]

I'd be more worried if I was a premiership footballer who'd been invited to a hotel with a female fan I'd met on the internet and who later invited a few other fans with a camera .

 

[Kryton521]

It's always worthwhile donning a balaclava before watching porn for this very reason.

I don't bother. I'm such a dirty boy, I link what I like on porn sites to my FB account. Absolutely no point in trying to blackmail me. I'm open about my perversions. Just cycling I keep quiet about!