Just got a "PORN SCAM" e-mail, feel soooo violated

[packman]

I? kno?w (Deleted by me) o?n?e of yo?ur pa?ss wo?rds. L?ets get stra?i?ght to th?e purpo?se. absolut?ely no o?n?e ha?s pa?i?d me to inv?estiga?t?e yo?u. Yo?u do? not know me a?nd yo?u'r?e pro?bably wonderi?ng why yo?u a?re g?etti?ng thi?s ma?i?l?

a?ctua?lly, i? a?ctua?lly s?etup a? so?ftwa?re o?n th?e 18+ str?ea?ming (a?dult porn) w?eb si?te a?nd ther?e's mo?re, yo?u vi?si?ted this w?eb sit?e to? ?exp?eri?enc?e fun (yo?u kno?w wha?t i? m?ea?n). Wh?en yo?u w?ere vi?ewing vi?deo? cli?ps, yo?ur w?eb bro?wser bega?n functio?ni?ng as a R?emo?t?e co?ntro?l D?esktop wi?th a? keylo?gg?er which pro?vi?d?ed m?e a?cc?essi?bili?ty to? your di?spla?y and w?ebca?m. Just a?ft?er that, my so?ftwa?r?e ga?th?ered yo?ur compl?et?e co?nta?cts from yo?ur M?ess?eng?er, FB, and ?e-mai?l . aft?er tha?t i? ma?d?e a do?ubl?e vi?deo. 1st part sho?ws th?e video yo?u w?ere wa?tchi?ng (you'v?e go?t a? go?o?d ta?st?e lma?o? , a?nd 2nd pa?rt di?spla?ys th?e vi??ew o?f yo?ur w?eb cam, y?ea? i?ts you.

You g?et a? pa?i?r o?f po?ssi?bi?li?ti??es. L?ets r?ea?d th?e cho?ic?es i?n a?sp?ects:

V?ery fi?rst soluti?o?n i?s to dismiss this e-ma?i?l. i?n tha?t ca?s?e, i? mo?st c?erta?inly will s?end o?ut yo?ur v?ery own vi?d?eo? reco?rdi?ng to? a?ll yo?ur yo?ur perso?na?l co?ntacts a?nd thus just thi?nk conc?erni?ng th?e humili?a?ti?o?n yo?u wi?ll d?efi?ni?t?ely get. o?r i?f you a?re i?n a ro?mantic r?ela?ti?o?nshi?p, pr?eci?s?ely ho?w i?t is go?i?ng to affect?

2nd a?lt?ernati?v?e sho?uld be to? giv?e me $7000. L?ets rega?rd i?t a?s a do?na?tio?n. Subs?equ?ently, i wi?ll wi?tho?ut dela?y ?eli?mi?na?t?e yo?ur vi?d?eota?pe. Yo?u ca?n k?e?ep go?i?ng ?ev?eryda?y li?f?e lik?e thi?s n?ev?er to?o?k pla?c?e a?nd you sur?ely wi?ll nev?er hea?r ba?ck a?ga?i?n from


https://www.wcpo.com/money/consumer/dont-waste-your-money/scary-porn-blackmail-scam-knows-your-password

Of course, I NEVER watch porn on the internet (Cough, cough, wink, wink) so I know this is a scam. But it sorta freaked me out that they knew one of the parts of my passwords. Now I have to go thru the trouble of changing all of them.

[dhol82]

1. You're the third person I know of that has received this email within the last four days

Wow, somebody is doing a lot of trolling.

[True Dough]

2. I have a piece of electrical tape over my webcam

Not a chance anything I do can be recorded by video (because there is a legit chance you could be hacked by somebody someday). Anyway, they can take their scam and stick it!

[Celerity]

27. Just deactivate the camera via device manager, no more ugly tape

For Windows

Using your keyboard, press the Windows button + R to open the Run window.

Under 'Open' type devmgmt.msc and click 'OK'

Expand 'Imaging devices' to display your camera. ...

Right-click on the device and choose 'Disable'

Click 'OK' to confirm.

It cannot be turned back on via another programme. You must do it manually. You can also go to computer settings and turn off use cam option for all apps, just to doubly sure.

[TheBlackAdder]

32. That can still be activated by folks using IME or another installed tool with admin rights.

.

There are three things that prevent a camera from working.

A Thinkpad Think Shutter, a Purism laptop with Physical Kill Switch, Tape.

Oh, your mic will still be able to get hijacked, if you don't have the Purism laptop.

.

[eleny]

3. What was the subject header of the email?

[lagomorph777]

4. When wife found that exact email in my inbox, I was in trouble...

...until she got one herself. She's asexual so 100% confident they are lying.

Pretty sure it's related to one of the big hacks of recent years (probably Yahoo in my case). Not related to actual porn; they're just making that up because they know most people occasionally indulge, so it's a good bet for the crook.

[regnaD kciN]

18. Since when is your wife going through your inbox???

Seriously, dude, I’d consider that a pretty serious boundary violation.

[lagomorph777]

23. Yeah, that's the least of it.

Serious medical and mental health issues. Life's been a challenge.

[regnaD kciN]

31. I can imagine...

Hope you come out of it OK.

[lagomorph777]

33. Maybe some day.

Wish I could leave but she is too sick to live without help.

[catrose]

28. I was confident it was a scam because I don't have a webcam

[flyingfysh]

5. I have gotten a couple of these things

They seem to make a point of varying the wording and changing the amount they are asking for, perhaps to make it harder for email companies to find them and delete them?

The culprit doesn't sound like he knows English as well as an American, but I have no idea what country he is in. He supposedly knows passwords, but what he quoted was never any of mine.

[NightWatcher]

6. I got the same one last week. It was a password from my Dropbox years ago

I felt so violated as well and thus began an hour long changing of all the passwords I have.

Don't worry, no one contacted any of my contact list and I have a Mac and thought it was unhackable

[CloudWatcher]

8. Macs ...

Macs are much better than PC's for such things, but not 100% unhackable. If you can get the user to install malware, it's open season. The one I see most often are web alerts saying your flash software is out of date and you need to install a new version (when my flash is up to date and they're trying to install malware).

But I've never heard of anyone figuring out how to turn on the built-in camera without the little LED light going on next to the lens. That's wired into the firmware that controls the camera (for Macs, not PCs or external cams).

[NightWatcher]

13. I knew it was BS for several reasons. First I dont visit porn sites, next I have my camera covered

w electrical tape.

But when I saw a password I used listed in the email I freaked out.

[lagomorph777]

25. Nothing to do with your computer; the hacks are at providers such as Yahoo and myspace

[lagomorph777]

24. Yeah, the passwords we got were real but very outdated.

Scary.

[CloudWatcher]

7. I get one of these about every two days now ...

Two points ...

1) the password that they "recently" stole from me? I used only on myspace (!) years and years ago and had changed it right after it was widely reported that myspace had been badly hacked.

2) they claimed to be sending email to me from my own account, but the email was a simple forged email. The "from" field was just faked and the "received from:" header lines clearly showed that it did not come from the account I use for email.

Lessons from this:
- Never use the same password on multiple sites ... assume some of them will be compromised.
- Do change passwords routinely

And maybe ...
- Keep a log of old passwords that you've used so when they come back like this you can see what site was compromised.

I was pretty concerned until I realized just how long ago I had used that password and how long it had been since it was stolen (and stolen from myspace, not my computer).

[DavidDvorkin]

9. I've been getting a lot of those

The first one was amusing. Then it just got annoying.

[Renew Deal]

10. Here's the story on these

Lots of people have received them.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/07/sextortion-scam-uses-recipients-hacked-passwords

[Trumpocalypse]

11. I got this one too.

The scammer got my password wrong and I don't have a webcam. I forwarded the email to the FBI cyber crime unit.

[CloudWatcher]

14. police ...

I wish the police were actually funded to track down people that send spam. The clues are there, but often cross international borders. E.g. the first porn-scam I received was sent from a bot in Sweden, the next one was from Thailand, after that I stopped looking.

[dhill926]

12. yep...got a similar one a few weeks ago...

and it was high time I changed a lot of passwords anyway, so I did.

[LiberalArkie]

15. They got me, how did they know that the first 4 letters of my password was "Pass"?

[lunasun]

16. If I only had the time!

https://m.

https://m.

NSFW this last one could be offensive but at least listen to the first call with 3 roomies
https://m.

&t=316s
Hope they make you feel better

[regnaD kciN]

17. I was getting several of them daily for about two weeks...

...sometimes with a password from some web account I’d changed over a decade ago, most with ones I’ve never used in my life.

Anyway, I would have been very interested to see the footage they recorded on my totally non-existent webcam...

Oh, and this particular variant of the letter, the one that gives you twenty-four hours or they’ll release the video? After you ignore it, in another week, they’ll send you the exact same e-mail with the same “in twenty-four hours I’ll send out your video” threat. Real convincing, guys!

[NewJeffCT]

19. There was a similar episode of Black Mirror

around this sort of theme. Only more twisted.

[fleur-de-lisa]

20. I receive several of those emails each week. They go right to my spam folder.

I have had the camera on my laptop covered for years.

I have never visited a porn site in my life (really).

The writer threatens to post videos on Facebook of me watching porn (videos that don't exist), and I don't have a Facebook account.

I think these scammers send out thousands of blackmail messages every day hoping to scare some poor guy into coughing up money. Just ignore them.

[hunter]

21. If anyone finds internet pictures of me when I was young, naked, and oh so HOT...

... feel free to post them here.

Let the DU juries decide.

The one where I'm wearing nothing but the leather hat I bought in Ensenada is my favorite.

[packman]

22. Pictures, pictures, we need pictures

[OhZone]

26. Ha!

I don't have a webcam in my home office for this reason.

Although my work knows I'm a lesbian, they don't know the extent of my festishes and such. I'm even a big poster on a couple of fetish websites and even write fetish stories. I could monitize a few of my alternative interests if I wanted to, but I kinda like balancing my "conservative" job with the other side of my life.

I have a Facebook account where I use my middle name and I avoid using any work pictures, except once when I showed a cropped picture of all the personal pix on my desk at work, asking if I should remove the one of a former lover. Long story.

Anyway, although I have webcams on my laptops I don't in my home office or my bedroom without covering the cam with a band aid , so they could never get a clip of me nakey or like that. Ha! One of the old posters on my forum once got me into google hangout chat with his girlfriend, trying to get a clip of me naked, but I was in my home office not at my laptop and not near my cell phone, so they were out of luck. And my ex would have killed me if I cammed with anyone but her. But I got screen shots of them, scantily clad! Haha. I kinda miss his girlfriend. She was a sweet, troubled chick. Supposedly he even knocked her up, and she disappeared. I'm not friends with her on FB any more, but I know her page and I check it once in while. She almost never updates.

[EllieBC]

29. I got those a couple of months ago!

Gmail always put them in junk mail. Joke is on them. I don’t have a webcam!

It did have an old password that I used to use so I wondered how they had it.

[regnaD kciN]

30. The latest one claimed my username was my "password"...

Nice try.