What do you do if you think your friend is bugging you? I don’t mean bothering you. I mean…bugging you…using a device to listen to you, maybe e1ven recording your conversations, when you visit their home. Well, that’s the world most of us live in now. Personal assistants, many modern [Keep reading]
While much attention has been paid lately to the role of cryptocurrency in fraud, gift cards are still the tool of choice for many Internet criminals. In fact, the BBB says gift card fraud reports tripled between 2017 and 2020. And about one in four fraud victims who had money [Keep reading]
This looks like a normal office full of workers doing normal office-y things. But it’s a scammer phone bank, set up to rip off people all around the world. If you didn’t see it for yourself, you wouldn’t believe it. But thanks to a European tech worker who calls himself [Keep reading]
Get used to seeing this pop-up, and millions of others like it: Sometime soon — perhaps this week, perhaps tomorrow — Apple will turn on a simple feature that has the potential to shake up the very business model the Internet is built on: surprise surveillance. To users, it could [Keep reading]
This is part two of a six-part series based on my new podcast, Debugger. I am on a quest to find the Original Sin of the Internet with a series of experts who were there at the beginning of the Internet age. Next up: Bill Woodcock from the Packet [Keep reading]
Some scam stories hurt more than others. In this one, Janet lost her husband of 52 years, and days later, got a call from someone who claimed she worked with her husband’s former employer. There was a life insurance policy, the caller said, but there were unpaid premiums. As anyone [Keep reading]
You live with someone for 50 years. You do everything with them. Eat, sleep, cry, laugh, suffer. Then one day, you’re alone. Just thinking about that void can take your breath away. Now imagine someone steps into that void and manages to …ease the pain, just a little. Anyone would [Keep reading]
As most readers know, I have a dog named Rusty. I’m on my third rescue dog now. Lucky, Rusty’s older brother, played a big part in a lot of stories I’ve written, so I was really excited to talk with today’s guests in The Perfect Scam podcast, Danny and Alison, [Keep reading]
It seems like an easy enough question to answer: When will everyone in America who wants a vaccine be able to get one? That question implies another one: Why is our current vaccine distribution system such a cluster****? I’ll begin with the end of this story, which is: Best as [Keep reading]
Former Florida guardian Rebecca Fierle was arrested last year and charged with aggravated abuse of an elderly person after she signed a do not resuscitate order on behalf of a 75-year-old man in her care — against his will — and he died when his feeding tube was capped. That’s [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan