I've been talking to strangers again, but this time I don't think I've been conned.
I was sat in Costa Coffee at Scotch Corner services earlier today doing a bit of work on the Eee PC and posting a few things on here.
A woman wanders across and asks if I've managed to connect to the service area's free broadband service, because she's struggling.
I have, so bring your laptop over, I say, and I'll have a look.
It was a fairly old 11 or 12 inch Sony Vaio running XP and it didn't seem to want to connect to the free service.
So I ask what she wants to do on the internet, thinking she could borrow the Eee PC for a quick surf or to send an email.
"I want to check if some money's come into my bank account," she says.
Mmm, not sure if it's wise for her to do banking on my machine, so I suggest I plug my dongle into her laptop.
Good old Vodafone fires up after a bit of USB device recognising and software downloading.
Her husband and child appear, and tell me they are waiting for a bank transfer which is 'a lot of money to us'.
She gets out the little calculator thing Barclays give online customers to generate passwords, and after some keypad and keyboard bashing, broad smiles all round, the money's in.
Husband offers to buy me a coffee for my trouble, she offers to pay for the data use.
I accept the first offer, decline the second, and they depart thanking me as they go.
A pleasant encounter all round, thanks to my little Eee PC and dongle.
And unlike that bloke I stopped for a few weeks ago, I think these people were genuine.
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Does the Vodaphone dongle have any storage facilities? Is it possible to load a key logger or a trojan onto it?
I think I would be watching my accounts very closely - but not using the dongle!
>>>Her husband and child appear, and tell me they are waiting for a bank transfer which is 'a lot of money to us'<<<
They were not eastern European were they? The whole set up looks like a techno-sophisticated version of some older scams!
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No, not Eastern Europeans - RC1 to use an Americanism.
I really can't see she could have done anything to my dongle, and she didn't know in advance I had one.
I was using the service area's free broadband, the dongle was out of sight in my laptop bag and I only produced it when we couldn't get her laptop to connect to the free broadband.
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They were quite clearly swingers and you missed out.
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Trust you to hit the nail on the head. :)
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Having just looked at the Vodafone site to see what services they offer associated with broadband dongle access I would be feeling very nervous! The implication that they can offer data backup and storage as a facility associated with the dongle raises significant questions.
At a basic level I can see how they can switch devices to enable a ' false device' to install software on your machine. Do you watch Hustle?
>>>>She gets out the little calculator thing Barclays give online customers to generate passwords, and after some keypad and keyboard bashing, broad smiles all round, the money's in.<<<
Particularly broad smiles if it was your money! The Barclays PINsentry device is just a good bit of 'convincing' kit to put you at ease.
Be afraid, very afraid,
Last edited by: pmh on Fri 30 Apr 10 at 21:28
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...Do you watch Hustle?...
The woman who spoke to me was nowhere near that fit. :)
The dongle was plugged into their machine, not plugged into mine.
And as I said, she cannot have known I had one when she approached me.
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Can I ask how you log on to the Vodafone network? And how she logged on? Did you have to type your user id or password into her machine? or is it embedded in the dongle?
Is the dongle just a modem? If so was it just a coincidence that she had a Vodafone account?
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The user ID is stored into the dongle.
I suppose there could be some bandwidth con involved but I can't see it.
Most people are genuine.
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Its all self contained on the dongle and the sim in the dongle. Its just a modem to the cellular network. Some drivers are copied to the host machine, but thats all.
Its safe to swop. at the very worse all you could loose is 15 quids worth of airtime.
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>>>>Its safe to swop. at the very worse all you could loose is 15 quids worth of airtime.<<<
Can the user Id and Sim info be read? If so it would be possible clone the the original onto a replacement dongle with extra code stored on it. Handback dongle, next time it is used it installs key logger and trojan on to original owners machine. Everything at risk.
Very small investment with potentially large returns.
Last edited by: pmh on Fri 30 Apr 10 at 21:58
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Good heavens, you lot are a suspicious bunch! That's twice now that IIH has lived up to his forum name, and twice he's been made to feel like a proper klutz for just being nice :-)
For what it's worth, IIH, I'd probably have done the same as you on both occasions as I also prefer to see the best in people.
Incidentally, I did think that the thread title was a euphemism referring to an activity that you may have chosen to undertake whilst alone... ;-)
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I think Badwolf has grasped the spirit of this thread and Rattle and Zero the technical implications.
But I'm also grateful to pmh for asking some worthwhile questions.
There is no password on the dongle, so if someone nicked it, they could log on to the internet using my account.
And I concede it's on direct debit, so someone could keep downloading data past the 3gb a month I get for the £15 monthly charge.
But since I only let this woman use it for 10 minutes, I don't think that's a problem.
The dongle itself has a SIM card in it, but I don't think it contains any exciting data about me, such as my bank account details.
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"That's twice now that IIH has lived up to his forum name"
If he had really wanted to help this couple he would have taken them back to his leafy North Yorkshire holiday home, set up the video camera and let events take their course.
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Oooh, you are awful. But I like you! :-)
Last edited by: Badwolf on Fri 30 Apr 10 at 22:51
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"Oooh, you are awful. But I like you!"
Don't suppose you and Sue are into that sort of thing? (contact address in profile)
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>> Don't suppose you and Sue are into that sort of thing? (contact address in profile)
Thank the merciful Heavens that mine isn't :-)
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I gather you knew fred and rose BBD?
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Yes, but they stopped contacting me a few years ago. Anyone know what happened to them?
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>> Yes but they stopped contacting me a few years ago. Anyone know what happened to
>> them?
>>
Gorn underground.
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>> >> Yes but they stopped contacting me a few years ago. Anyone know what happened
>> to
>> >> them?
>> >>
>> Gorn underground.
Only Fred.
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..and he already had his dongle with him....
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There could have easily been a trojan on the other machine. It depends if the OP had a flash memory chip in it or not. If he did then there is a small chance of infection.
After visiting 1000's of customers to repair computers I would say that there is 99.99% chance it was genuine.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Fri 30 Apr 10 at 22:07
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>>>There could have easily been a trojan on the other machine. It depends if the OP had a flash memory chip in it or not. If he did then there is a small chance of infection.<<<
Small chance if the encounter was genuine - but large chance if encounter was a planned scam.
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...but large chance if encounter was a planned scam...
pmh,
I think we've all been very tolerant of the conspiracy theory, so perhaps you could explain how this was planned?
Approach a stranger - me - who is using the service station's wireless facility on the off-chance that stranger has a dongle in his pocket.
That in itself is too daft for words, but let's continue...
Persuade stranger to produce said dongle and plug it into the scammer's laptop.
Oh, not forgetting the scammer has to set up their laptop to make it look like it's trying to connect to the service station's wireless facility, but failing.
And for what possible benefit?
There's nothing on the dongle of any use.
So let's make another extraordinary leap of faith and assume something's been installed on it that can now track my every keystroke.
I use the dongle perhaps two or three times a week for a bit of surfing and to send/retrieve the odd email.
Not something I would choose to open to public inspection, but there's nothing there anyone can profit from, either.
I'd have thought the far bigger risk is my dongle has recorded her bank details.
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In my younger days, before personal computers had even been thought of, we used to say "Never let your dongle dangle in the dust".
;-)
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It will spoil this whole thread if it turns our to be an innocent event :-)
So... why didn't they go to the cashpoint machine in Scotch Corner and do a balance check or mini statement???
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...why not go to the cashpoint machine....
Good question.
The machines at Scotch Corner are the generic 'privately owned' ones that charge, and it may be they don't do mini-statements and the like in the way that a Barclays one would.
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Iffy don't worry about it - it's all too random to be a set up. My dongle has a memory feature, you access through My Computer - have a look at the dongle and purge anything you don't recognise. I honestly wouldn't worry, life's far too short.
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...Iffy don't worry about it...
No, I'm not worried, and it's made a good bit of forum sport.
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>> ...Iffy don't worry about it...
>>
>> No I'm not worried and it's made a good bit of forum sport.
>>
I am still at a loss to understand what the purpose of iffy's first post was.
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...I am still at a loss to understand what the purpose of iffy's first post was...
John,
If every thread on here had to have a purpose it would be a very quiet forum.
It was an encounter in which I thought a few people might be interested, and judging by the views and responses, they were.
Each response is equally valid and valued by me, including your own.
The thread has done quite well in forum terms, not as well as some, but better than others.
It's up to members what they make of it.
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To me a forum should be like a room full of friends.
lots of conversations, words spoken knowing that they can be heard so none private, the speakers knowing that others may join in, and there will be occasions of disagreement...
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There's a few virtual pints behind the bar for you as a reward for your RAK's, IIH - it's always nice to know that the world is not as niggardly as some people would have us believe
RAK = www.actsofkindness.org/
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...it's always nice to know that the world is not as niggardly as some people would have us believe...
Yes, I think I am more hard-bitten and cynical than gullible, but above all, realistic.
I couldn't put a figure on it, but I would say the overwhelming majority of people are decent, honest folk who would rather do you a good turn than a bad one.
As ever, it's the minority which makes the most noise, leading to the perception that everyone is out to get you, or something you own.
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What a coincidence ifithelps. My nephew lent me one of those dongles the other day to help my wife with her work, but I think she's going to have to get an IPhone to go with the new Mac we are getting.
It has downloaded all its software and it works, to the extent that I sent a test text message from the computer. But can it get email or anything like that?
Sorry, but all this electronic tat is Greek to me. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak as it were.
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...But can it get email or anything like that? ...
AC,
The dongle provides the connection, so you can do whatever the software on your computer allows you to.
There is a text message utility included in the Vodafone connection software.
In this case, the woman fired up her browser and logged onto her bank's website.
So if you had a dongle plugged into your computer, you could post on here and do your emails as you usually do.
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>> Sorry but all this electronic tat is Greek to me. The spirit is willing but
>> the flesh is weak as it were.
>>
Greek no more the way they're going!
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Making friends with my dongle - sherlock47
