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Ced Kurtz's Techman Texts: Dealing with persistent computer scammers

Ced Kurtz's Techman Texts: Dealing with persistent computer scammers

Last week TechMan did something he almost never does — answer a phone call from a number he didn’t recognize instead of letting the answering machine screen it.

After a period of silence I heard, ”My name is Carl and we can see that something is wrong with your computer.”

Now I know this con and have received such calls before, so I said, “Carl, I know this is a scam.” This flustered Carl who said, ”Well go and log onto your computer so we can see what is wrong.”

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I’m thinking, ”Carl is not the sharpest arrow in the quiver.” I said, “Carl this is a scam and the only thing I am going to do is report this call to the attorney general.” Carl quickly decided he didn’t want to chat anymore and hung up.

Being targeted is bad enough but couldn’t I at least have gotten a competent scammer? Carl couldn’t scam a cat out of a bone.

If I had logged into my computer, Carl would have wanted me to allow him to access my computer remotely or go to a website and download a fix to the fictional problem. Either way I would end up with a load of malware and data and passwords stolen.

When I had a call like this before, I filled out an online complaint to the state attorney general. A few weeks later I got a form letter saying thanks for reporting the incident but there is nothing we can do. So caveat emptor.

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Apple pay. Apple has begun paying out $400 million to consumers after it lost a long court battle over price-fixing of e-books.

Consumers will receive a credit worth $6.93 for every New York Times bestseller they bought as an e-book and a credit of $1.57 for other e-books purchased through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Apple between April 1, 2010, and May 21, 2012. If you are eligible, watch for an email notifying you of the credit. My wife already got hers.

China is super. China dominates the new list of the world’s fastest supercomputers and has the largest number of computers among the top 500 — a first for any country other than the United States.

Also for the first time, the world’s fastest supercomputer uses Chinese-made microprocessor chips instead of chips from Silicon Valley. But Computer World magazine reports that IBM says in a few years it will deliver a computer almost twice as fast as China’s fastest.

Hubble double. NASA has announced it will extend the life of the Hubble space telescope for another five years, through to June 2021. It will still be on the job when the James Webb Space Telescope launches in 2018, giving astronomers a dual view.

Epic fail. I have an old laptop I am trying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. But no matter what I do, the machine freezes at 99 percent of the install. Any suggestions?

Send comments, contributions, corrections and condemnations to pgtechtexts@gmail.com.

First Published: June 28, 2016, 4:00 a.m.

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