{"id":28895,"date":"2024-08-14T09:11:36","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T13:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=28895"},"modified":"2024-08-14T09:11:36","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T13:11:36","slug":"qr-code-scams-hidden-in-plain-sight-the-old-subscription-trap-may-be-ending-hello-pervert-scam-emails-hackers-may-have-social-security-numbers-of-every-american-and-more-every-day-we-scan-th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/qr-code-scams-hidden-in-plain-sight-the-old-subscription-trap-may-be-ending-hello-pervert-scam-emails-hackers-may-have-social-security-numbers-of-every-american-and-more-every-day-we-scan-th\/","title":{"rendered":"QR Code Scams Hidden in Plain Sight; The Old Subscription Trap May Be Ending; Hello Pervert&#8230;Scam Emails; Hackers May Have Social Security Numbers of Every American&#8230; and more!  Every day we scan the tech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24pt;\"><strong>QR Code Scams Hidden in Plain Sight<\/strong><\/span><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">; The Old Subscription Trap May Be Ending; Hello Pervert&#8230;Scam Emails<\/span><\/strong><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">; Hackers May Have Social Security Numbers of Every American<\/span><\/strong><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">&#8230; and more!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Every day we scan the tech world for interesting news in the world of technology and sometimes from outside the world of technology. Every Wednesday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week&#8217;s\u00a0 &#8216;Wednesday Newsbytes&#8217; informative and interesting!<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/qr-code-scams-hidden-plain-133101939.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">QR code scams are hidden in plain sight. Here\u2019s how to spot them<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">QR codes are everywhere these days \u2013 on restaurant tables, at checkout and even on the bills you receive in the mail. But not every QR code you come across is sure to be legitimate. Scammers are taking advantage of the technology to trick people into different schemes, the Better Business Bureau warned this week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">The scams work in a few different ways. One common strategy, the BBB says, is sticking fraudulent QR codes to the back of parking meters or at parking payment terminals. You may think you can scan to pay for parking (especially if you don\u2019t carry change), but you\u2019re led to a fake website where you\u2019re prompted to enter your credit card information.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">You may notice it\u2019s a scam until the credit card charges start appearing days or weeks later&#8230;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/qr-code-scams-hidden-plain-133101939.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\">Read more at Yahoo News.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/money\/companies\/america-s-subscription-trap-nightmare-could-be-coming-to-an-end\/ar-AA1oDXkA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt;\">America&#8217;s subscription-trap nightmare could be coming to an end<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Sick of spending hours trying to cancel your gym membership or get money back on a flight? A solution could be coming your way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">President Joe Biden&#8217;s administration announced on Monday an initiative called &#8220;Time Is Money&#8221; to crack down on hard-to-cancel subscriptions and bad customer service.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">In partnership with government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Transportation, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the administration is proposing rules to make business processes easier for consumers to navigate. The rules would ensure people are not stuck paying subscriptions they don&#8217;t want, which can cost them time and money as they try to drop a service&#8230;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/money\/companies\/america-s-subscription-trap-nightmare-could-be-coming-to-an-end\/ar-AA1oDXkA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Read more at MSN<\/span><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/tech\/hello-pervert-email-scam-message-b2593444.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">\u2018Hello pervert\u2019: The terrifying scam email arriving in people\u2019s inboxes<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Message claims that someone has been watching you through your webcam \u2013 and threatens to release the footage<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">A long-standing scam that sends terrifying messages to people, beginning with the words \u201chey pervert\u201d, appears to be continuing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">The emails claim that someone has been watching you through your computer\u2019s camera, and threaten to send footage taken through that camera to family and friends.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">The emails often begin with a variation on the eye-catching opening: \u201chello pervert\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">They usually include accusations that the recipient has been watching pornographic content and that those videos could be sent to families and friends too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">But the messages and any claims they make are a scam. While it has been a popular way of attacking people for years, it seems to have picked up in recent weeks and months.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">If people are tricked into believing the message, they are encouraged to send money to someone as a ransom to stop the supposedly incriminating footage being released&#8230;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/tech\/hello-pervert-email-scam-message-b2593444.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\">Read more at Independent<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2024-08-13\/hacker-claims-theft-of-every-american-social-security-number\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Hackers may have stolen the Social Security numbers of every American. How to protect yourself<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">About four months after a notorious hacking group claimed to have stolen an extraordinary amount of sensitive personal information from a major data broker, a member of the group has reportedly released most of it for free on an online marketplace for stolen personal data.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">The breach, which includes Social Security numbers and other sensitive data, could power a raft of identity theft, fraud and other crimes, said Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog director for the U.S. Public Information Research Group.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">\u201cIf this in fact is pretty much the whole dossier on all of us, it certainly is much more concerning\u201d than prior breaches, Murray said in an interview. \u201cAnd if people weren\u2019t taking precautions in the past, which they should have been doing, this should be a five-alarm wake-up call for them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">According to a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the hacking group USDoD claimed in April to have stolen personal records of 2.9 billion people from National Public Data, which offers personal information to employers, private investigators, staffing agencies and others doing background checks. The group offered in a forum for hackers to sell the data&#8230;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2024-08-13\/hacker-claims-theft-of-every-american-social-security-number\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Read more at The Los Angeles Times.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/pro\/researchers-find-that-millions-of-hdmi-cables-could-betray-their-owners-by-transmitting-data-to-eavesdroppers-here-is-what-you-could-do-to-avoid-data-leakage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Researchers find that millions of HDMI cables could betray their owners by transmitting data to eavesdroppers \u2014 here is what you could do to avoid data leakage<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">AI makes it possible, because of course it does<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">CRT monitors generate images by directing electron beams onto a phosphorescent screen, creating a pattern of light that forms the visible display. This process involves high-frequency signals that radiate from the monitor, which hackers found they could capture using specialized equipment. The shift to LED screens with HDMI cables made doing this much harder as digital signals are more complex and involve higher frequencies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">A study from a team of researchers at Universidad de la Rep\u00fablica Montevideo in Uruguay has demonstrated that, with the aid of AI, it&#8217;s possible to overcome these hurdles and eavesdrop on the signals once again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Santiago Fern\u00e1ndez, Emilio Mart\u00ednez, Gabriel Varela, and Pablo Mus\u00e9 Federico Larroca published their findings on the arXiv preprint server, explaining how digital signals emitted from a computer&#8217;s HDMI cable can be captured and decoded to reproduce text on a computer screen&#8230;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/pro\/researchers-find-that-millions-of-hdmi-cables-could-betray-their-owners-by-transmitting-data-to-eavesdroppers-here-is-what-you-could-do-to-avoid-data-leakage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Read more at TechRadar Pro.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; color: #c10fd1;\"><strong><em>Thanks for reading this week&#8217;s Wednesday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful. Darcy &amp; TC<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/donation.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2017\/goodfight2017.png\" alt=\"Help us help you!\" width=\"573\" height=\"136\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; QR Code Scams Hidden in Plain Sight; The Old Subscription Trap May Be Ending; Hello Pervert&#8230;Scam Emails; Hackers May Have Social Security Numbers of Every American&#8230; and more! Every day we scan the tech world for interesting news in the world of technology and sometimes from outside the world of technology. Every Wednesday, we feature news articles\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/qr-code-scams-hidden-in-plain-sight-the-old-subscription-trap-may-be-ending-hello-pervert-scam-emails-hackers-may-have-social-security-numbers-of-every-american-and-more-every-day-we-scan-th\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1678,1,1426,1670,1680,1656,3766,4372],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28896,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28895\/revisions\/28896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}