One of the greatest tech tragedies of our time is the way we’ve let the phone and post office degrade into a basket of scams, exposing millions of people to risk on a daily basis.
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Tech did not CAUSE this problem. Before tech turned global, scams were local. Snake oil salesmen, three card monte stands, timeshares salesmen, word of mouth ponzi and pyramid schemes. Tech just opens your ability to carpet bomb humanity with your scams.
While I'm strongly in favor of doing that, it provides exactly zero help for the problem Matthew Green's talking about;
a secure conversation with "The Tax Hotline" about your Microsoft Windows license or a random corrupt Nigerian official who wants to sell you car warranties is still a scammer.
It’s really unfortunate that the
US government is constantly
restrained by Republicans.
The USPS could otherwise
become an internet service
provider that charges $5
a month, along with mail
delivery and savings accounts
that are administered for
free for all US residents:(
I'm not sure this doesn't reflect the degradation of society as a whole, though. Huge swaths of our economy are built on scams and ripoffs! Why wouldn't our communications systems follow suit?
I evaded a most elaborate scam yesterday.
I got text allegedly from Apple notifying me of potentially fraudulent purchases.
But I was fairly sure Apple doesn’t send out such texts.
There were at least three people involved. However, they all spoke with the same foreign accent.
The scammers presented themselves as representatives of Apple, my bank, and my credit card company.
The topper was the faux banker saying they advised moving my money into a new account.
I admit I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.
What's great about how common and routine scam calls are now is that I'm now pretty sure that I accidentally yelled at a phone call that was for a credit card I actually applied for, thinking it was a scam call.
The postal service has become a government jobs support program. They have made me the middle man in the neighborhood trash transaction. Once a week the trash company truck picks up all the crap that the post office has delivered during the week. It's an elegant system.
I’m not sure what is worse scams or the 10-20 texts a day I get from rando politicians running for office 3000 miles away. Should have read the fine print on ActBlue. Seriously thinking about getting another number.
I spend 45 minutes on the phone now to make a simple appt that used to take 5 minutes.
AI Appointment Assistant: Hi how can I help you
Me: I'd like to make an appt w the doctor
AI: That's hard, let me transfer you to a person
[40 min hold]
USPS is cool in my books. At home pri t postage, at home pick up and delivery no charge, flat rate pkg great pricing, free boxes and envelopes, free online tracking and insurance - what's not to love?
When you drop a Christmas card with a gift card in it and somehow it never makes it to its intended destination. Somehow that never happens to my bills. Someone enjoyed a $25 Starbucks gift card courtesy of me.
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Which is why we are on a mission to make mobile phone communication E2EE, private and secure!
https://bsky.app/profile/boscolo.co/post/3lkw34fakjk2w
a secure conversation with "The Tax Hotline" about your Microsoft Windows license or a random corrupt Nigerian official who wants to sell you car warranties is still a scammer.
We’re working on this.
Until then, if you are on an iPhone I recommend turning on Silence Unknown Callers. In Settings->App->Phone
but for several years I silenced even known callers 😹
US government is constantly
restrained by Republicans.
The USPS could otherwise
become an internet service
provider that charges $5
a month, along with mail
delivery and savings accounts
that are administered for
free for all US residents:(
*HOWEVER* they are perfectly poised to provide banking services
I got text allegedly from Apple notifying me of potentially fraudulent purchases.
But I was fairly sure Apple doesn’t send out such texts.
There were at least three people involved. However, they all spoke with the same foreign accent.
The topper was the faux banker saying they advised moving my money into a new account.
I admit I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.
We = Republicans
it really should one of the items at the top of our list when talking about the problems AI brings.
I spend 45 minutes on the phone now to make a simple appt that used to take 5 minutes.
AI Appointment Assistant: Hi how can I help you
Me: I'd like to make an appt w the doctor
AI: That's hard, let me transfer you to a person
[40 min hold]