Why You Got Hacked By NSA Malware…Scams
Why You Got Hacked By NSA Malware…Scams
Because you never made yourself scam proof.
Today, I got got a “replay” sent to me that I never opted in for to begin with. The title was “3 Simple Steps To $500K In 90 Days”
The headline itself told me it was a scam or at least spam. It turned out to be a phishing attempt by including a download which was some sort of malware. What was in that “replay”? I’ll never know — because it was a phishing attempt. I downloaded the file and found it was only 9K in size, meaning that it was a scam. Deleted it and didn’t look back.
Other than to send you this article to give you a heads up.
The malware worked to infect computers because people will open very stupid emails. That is how the Democrat’s servers got hacked during the last election. Someone entered their password where they shouldn’t have. Oops.
What was key in this email above was the use of money in the headline.
If you see money in a headline, it’s spam. Or at least link-bait.
Look over that headline again: “3 Simple Steps To $500K In 90 Days”
Yes, that is spam or a scam. Because it says:
No effort.
Lots of Money.
Little time spent.
In other words: Get Rich Quick. Do nothing and get paid for it.
Spam or scam or both. Because there is never any successful business built on these ideas.
The first truth: Money is based on exchangeable value. You give value first and then people give you back a commodity called “money.” You have to give in order to get. It’s always been that way. You have to have a product on a shelf that people can look at and see for themselves. Then they will test your product to see if it works. If it does, they’ll let you keep their money. If it does something valuable for them, they will come back to get more when it runs out or wears out. If it does something very valuable for the, they’ll tell others.
That’s called commerce.
I’m telling you this so you can watch out for scammers just on what is in the headlines.
Most people have false beliefs in “money” as a tangible good, and a goal, and all sorts of weird meanings.
Money is only a symbol. It stands for delivered value. You did something to get it. You helped someone.
The people with lots of money helped someone out with a problem and gave incredible value.
If there is money in the headline, someone thinks you are stupid enough to fall for it. They want people who are after money for money’s sake.
You can do this with other weird ideas as well. The scammer click-bait formula is this:
Benefit — Time — Effort
Big benefit, little time, little effort.
I lost 120 pounds in two weeks by eating twinkies.
You can Solve World Hunger by sending us only 39 cents a day!
Keep these abused/neglected/mistreated pets alive for only $5 a month (and get a t-shirt!)
Politician X will straighten out Washington if you vote for him/her (or donate to his slush fund.)
All of those are based on lies.
The truths:
You lose weight by changing your mental and eating habits. It takes a lot of work over several months or a few years, and you have to develop new habits to keep that weight off.
World hunger was solved years ago. The only places people are starving is where someone in their government is creating that problem. There is more than enough charity to solve these scenes. (North Korea/South Korea as example.) Governments won’t allow charity to reach their populations. And they won’t allow people to train their farmers to raise food efficiently.
The biggest “non-profit” that hides behind animals is the HSUS which doesn’t manage a single shelter, but instead is a lobbying firm which is pushing a Vegan agenda (nothing wrong with vegans, except where someone is forcing that belief system on others — like a cult.) And PETA kills more animals than it saves, according to recurring reports.
Politicians stay in office by not solving problems, but promoting their partial solutions to get more donations. Their only job after getting elected is to get donations (raise money) to stay in office. The farther away your government representatives go from your home town, the less you can hold them accountable. If they really wanted to help, they’d vote for term limits on themselves.
How to Get Scam Free
Yes, I wrote a book on this — after getting scammed out of thousands, getting a full refund, and helping a handful to get theirs back.
Yes, it’s a free book (with audio and video, if you want) and I don’t even ask you to opt in. Just click here. (That’s: http://livesensical.com/get-scam-free )
There are essentially 10 points people use to get you to do what they want (which is almost never in your own self-interest):
1. Reciprocation
2. Commitment and consistency
3. Social proof
4. Liking
5. Authority
6. Scarcity
(These are from Robert Cialdini’s “Influence.”)
7. Approval
8. Security
9. Control
10. Belonging
(These were discovered by Lester Levenson.)
I could go into a long dissertation about each of these and how they enable people to control your life, but there is more in that book and the videos.
The point of this article is to tell you that you can get scam free if you want to.
What started this off (in the middle of a huge nightmare of infected computers across the globe) was a phishing attempt to get me to open some malware. Since I knew what I was doing, it didn’t work.
(Also, I only run Linux and MAC, which are not easily affected by malware and are constantly updated. If you are running Windows, you are a target. Anything you think you have to do on Windows can be done on Linux or MAC. There are no reason for not moving to a secure platform. Look up Debian as this Linux version is reputedly the most secure of all Linux distribution — and the MAC is partially based on Debian as well.)
Underlying this is the common social insanities we’ve been taught since birth. Most of these are “conventional wisdom” and that is usually wrong. (Look up quotes about this and you’ll see why I say this.)
If you want to go deeper into scam-proofing yourself, look up my Make Yourself Great Again (also titled The Art of Wonk.)
Or just expect to get scammed regularly from here on out. Lose money. Lose time. And meanwhile not enjoying your life as much as you could.
Your choice.
Your free copy of Make Yourself Great Again is waiting. Just click here for instant download.
Originally published at Living Sensical.