Comments on: A question for you old-timers

By: robohara

robohara — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 12:19:43 +0000

After reading Dvorak’s blurb a couple of times, I’m convinced he’s talking about dialer malware, and just got his facts about how it worked incorrect. And maybe that’s how people *thought* it worked at one point in time, and that’s how he remembered it. But yeah, like you, I can’t imagine any feasible way for a BBS to affect a caller’s machine. To put it simply, our “browsers” (terminal programs) did not have the rights to be changed or controlled by our “sites” (BBSes). I suppose we did get a few things right back then. 😉

The only thing I can think of that could have been done back then would be some sort of call-forwarding scam on the BBS end, something on the phone company’s end that would redirect incoming calls to an off-shore number and rack of charges for the caller. But even with that, I don’t think it could be done with software, and I think the BBS owner would have to be “in on it”.

By: BGrigg

BGrigg — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 05:34:25 +0000

The problem with being an “old timer” is that the memory begins to play tricks. The phone phreaking scam was the rage in those days, not hi-jacking modems. Most people (like me) used the same land line as the modem line, and scheduling time on the phone was pretty important. Even if a rogue BBS could hijack the modem, it got turned OFF when I was finished online, thereby making the attempt moot.

By: Joe Rampolla

Joe Rampolla — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 02:39:42 +0000

Hi Dave,

This happened to a family friend who was not computer savvy, and a similar story was on the local news, both about 10 years ago. Either in an e-mail or a zip file you downloaded, you would inadvertently install a “dialer” where it would mute your modem speaker then dial out to some off-shore ISP, long distance, so as long as you were online you were racking up long distance charges to the other telephone company at very high rates. The friend got a bill for about $3,000 which they had to pay even after complaining to their local government representative. I think the charges might have appeared on the phone bill as an adult entertainment service in some cases. People were embarrassed to bring it to the attention of the authorities, but eventually the local telephone companies had to repay customers and take the loss, but only if the customer made the claim. I believe that many seniors would install the dialer program after clicking on a bogus e-mail link to update their security software or anti-virus, or something similar. In some cases it was connected to certain pornography downloads so people never contacted law enforcement and just paid the bill. I seem to remember a similar story on a Baltimore news program where a child used the off-shore ISP from a dialer program for a whole month and the parents got an enormous phone bill.

Another scam was to send you a bill for something in an e-mail with what looked like a long distance customer service number for the US, but it was some off-shore telephone company, and you would be placed on hold for about 20 minutes to a half hour. Later you got the charges on your telephone bill for a pricey international call. They used to talk about these scams on ZDTV, then called Tech TV, then G 4, and Leo Laporte would warn you about the scams. Laporte’s shows were “Call For Help” and “The Screen Savers” which I used to watch regularly. Dvorak used to have a computer-related current events type show on ZDTV also.

Take care, Joe.