02-09-2017 , 06:34 PM
http://news.softpedia.com/news/army-of-b...2793.shtml Army of Bots Sent to Destroy Army of Windows Support Scammers
Fighting fire with fire: bots trying to disrupt scammers
Feb 9, 2017 13:36 GMT · By Bogdan Popa · Share:
The growing army of Windows support scammers might soon have to fight against what it could be its fiercest rival: an army of bots whose purpose is to keep them busy 24/7.
If you’re a tech-savvy computer user, you probably know how tech support scammers try to steal people’s money: they start random calls pretending to be working for Microsoft and warning of infections that need to be removed as soon as possible.
Obviously, they’re asking for a fee to do the whole thing remotely, only to deploy malware and then ask for more money to clean the system.
Unfortunately, tech support scams have grown a lot lately even though Microsoft and other tech companies warn users not to pay for alleged computer repairs offered by unknown people over the phone.
But it’s this growth what convinced a skilled programmer to create an army of bots to fight the scammers, and there’s hope that most operators would be kept so busy over the coming months that fewer people would actually become victims of these tactics.
Keeping scammers busy
Jolly Roger explains that what he wants to do is to “hit them with thousands of calls from bots. It’s like when the pirate ship turns ‘broadside’ on an enemy in order to attack with all cannons simultaneously. I’ll calling it a ‘Broadside’ campaign against Windows Support and the fake IRS.”
The recordings the programmer posted on this blog proves that bots are actually quite effective when it comes to keeping scammers busy, especially because they are developed in a way that makes they sound a lot like a human being.
One of the “female” bots, for example, interrupts the discussion with the tech support engineer to have a conversation with her daughter, making the whole thing look very real.
The idea is great, there is no doubt about it, but the whole concept needs to evolve more in the future and why not, Microsoft itself can also join the effort using its super-advanced machine learning technologies. If this idea doesn’t receive the support of more people and companies, tech support scammers could reach a point where they become aware of all these bots, so they can hang up on them instantly, making everything useless in a matter of seconds.
Fighting fire with fire: bots trying to disrupt scammers
Feb 9, 2017 13:36 GMT · By Bogdan Popa · Share:
The growing army of Windows support scammers might soon have to fight against what it could be its fiercest rival: an army of bots whose purpose is to keep them busy 24/7.
If you’re a tech-savvy computer user, you probably know how tech support scammers try to steal people’s money: they start random calls pretending to be working for Microsoft and warning of infections that need to be removed as soon as possible.
Obviously, they’re asking for a fee to do the whole thing remotely, only to deploy malware and then ask for more money to clean the system.
Unfortunately, tech support scams have grown a lot lately even though Microsoft and other tech companies warn users not to pay for alleged computer repairs offered by unknown people over the phone.
But it’s this growth what convinced a skilled programmer to create an army of bots to fight the scammers, and there’s hope that most operators would be kept so busy over the coming months that fewer people would actually become victims of these tactics.
Keeping scammers busy
Jolly Roger explains that what he wants to do is to “hit them with thousands of calls from bots. It’s like when the pirate ship turns ‘broadside’ on an enemy in order to attack with all cannons simultaneously. I’ll calling it a ‘Broadside’ campaign against Windows Support and the fake IRS.”
The recordings the programmer posted on this blog proves that bots are actually quite effective when it comes to keeping scammers busy, especially because they are developed in a way that makes they sound a lot like a human being.
One of the “female” bots, for example, interrupts the discussion with the tech support engineer to have a conversation with her daughter, making the whole thing look very real.
The idea is great, there is no doubt about it, but the whole concept needs to evolve more in the future and why not, Microsoft itself can also join the effort using its super-advanced machine learning technologies. If this idea doesn’t receive the support of more people and companies, tech support scammers could reach a point where they become aware of all these bots, so they can hang up on them instantly, making everything useless in a matter of seconds.