SoundAndMotion
Active Member
Disclaimer: Yes, I know I'm weird. Yes, I may have too much time on my hands.
For whatever reason, we get several scam calls a month from "Windows Technical Support" telling me they have detected viruses on my computer. They have for a few years. My wife (the smart one of us) recognizes and ignores their calls. Sometimes I ignore, sometimes I answer. I often just hang up, but dozens of times I've yelled at them that they are a scam and they should quit calling, usually swearing, which seems to anger them. When they ask why I think they are a scam, I inform them we have no Windows computers. They still call.
I decided to have a little fun, and waste their time (yes, mine too). I created a "fake" Windows computer. It's a real computer, but it has no personal info on it. I created a fresh Windows-To-Go USB stick, and added a USB hard drive. I downloaded a large set of files, a corpus of files, to give them something to encrypt.
There is no real, personal info, and it connects to my guest wifi. Nothing else is connected to that network. I realize that Elliot Alderson or the NSA could easily hack anything and everything I have, but am I risking anything by letting these "tech support" scammers lock up my fake computer and then laughing at them?
For whatever reason, we get several scam calls a month from "Windows Technical Support" telling me they have detected viruses on my computer. They have for a few years. My wife (the smart one of us) recognizes and ignores their calls. Sometimes I ignore, sometimes I answer. I often just hang up, but dozens of times I've yelled at them that they are a scam and they should quit calling, usually swearing, which seems to anger them. When they ask why I think they are a scam, I inform them we have no Windows computers. They still call.
I decided to have a little fun, and waste their time (yes, mine too). I created a "fake" Windows computer. It's a real computer, but it has no personal info on it. I created a fresh Windows-To-Go USB stick, and added a USB hard drive. I downloaded a large set of files, a corpus of files, to give them something to encrypt.
There is no real, personal info, and it connects to my guest wifi. Nothing else is connected to that network. I realize that Elliot Alderson or the NSA could easily hack anything and everything I have, but am I risking anything by letting these "tech support" scammers lock up my fake computer and then laughing at them?