You get a million dollars, and you get a million dollars!
[ Music ]
Maria Varmazis: Hello, everybody, and welcome to N2K CyberWire's "Hacking Humans" podcast, where each week we look behind the social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines and taking a heavy toll on organizations around the world. I'm Maria Varmazis, dusting off my Dave Bittner impression as he is out today, and with me is the one and only Joe Carrigan.
Joe Carrigan: Hello, Maria.
Maria Varmazis: Hello again, Joe. Okay, so first and foremost, I have Dave's permission to share this with everybody on why I'm filling in for him today. Many of our listeners are familiar with Dave's father, Bill Bittner. He has been sort of a character on our show, and Dave has spoken about him many times. Sadly, Mr. Bittner passed away, so Dave is, understandably, he's grieving, and he's dealing with all the things that happen when your parent passes away. So our sincere condolences to Dave, and I'm sure all of our listeners, our hearts are with him. So that's why I'm filling in for Dave today. Next, sorry, I'm getting a little choked up. I'm actually going to be out next week, not for a sad reason. I'm going to be at a conference, but yeah, I'm filling in for Dave because of his sad reason, so anyway, okay. Let's move on to our listener follow-up, because we have a ton of listener feedback. You all have been emailing us a lot. Thank you for that, everybody. I'll start with this first item from our listener, Justin, who said, "You brought up an interesting point about how would the buyer of gold know that they are getting actual gold?" And he wrote, "An easy sting operation seems like it would be to give the courier gold-painted lead bars, and one of them has a tracker, or just throw an AirTag in and see where it goes. Thanks for the podcast." Justin. I mean, I don't personally want to --
Joe Carrigan: That's an excellent idea.
Maria Varmazis: I don't want somebody very angry showing up at my door, but if somebody wants to try that and wants to take on that risk, I'd be very curious to know where it goes.
Joe Carrigan: Here's the thing. I'm pretty sure lead is actually heavier than gold, so you can make a lead thing that has some other mass in the middle that is not lead -- so that the block weighs as much as a gold block of that volume would do. I'm convinced you can do that. So then it's just a matter of coating it in maybe gold leaf or something so it looks like gold, but I think it would be pretty easy to embed a transmitter like that, like an AirTag into it.
Maria Varmazis: But lead, though, would that cause issues? If it's a blocking agent, right?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, you'd have to make sure the antenna has a way to go out of the bar.
Maria Varmazis: The L.L. Bean tote bag has the antenna in it, something like that.
Joe Carrigan: Right. I think that's a good idea.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, if you want to try it, I would love to know what happens, but please be safe.
Joe Carrigan: I'm not going to try it because I don't want to smelt that much lead.
Maria Varmazis: That is the sole reason, right, Joe?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, and I don't have that much lead. [ Multiple Speakers ]
Maria Varmazis: Well, hang on to that. We may need it.
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Maria Varmazis: Who knows? We also got some feedback from listener Xray Specs, who said, hey, love the show. In response to the theory about scanning plates and running a Python script against datasets or similar, not buying it. My wife and I get a couple of these emails a month, and we don't own a car.
Joe Carrigan: Okay.
Maria Varmazis: So there you go. And then, Joe, why don't you do this last bit of feedback from our listener, Jim Gilchrist.
Joe Carrigan: Jim says, "Regarding Joe Carey's letter from the folks at E-ZPass discussed in the March 20th episode in the Dark Ages before the dawn of transponderless E-ZPass, I received a similar letter to Joe's." Now this is interesting because I don't know why. Maybe my transponder has gone bad. I still haven't taken the time to go and investigate why it's not working.
Maria Varmazis: I'm having the same problem, though, honestly.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: That's interesting.
Joe Carrigan: "Because there was no tag recognition system for the tolls in place then, my letter threatened huge fines unless I paid immediately." Also, they threatened to flag renewal of his tags until he settled up. I'm going to read this. "So I called because I was certain that my transponder had been in place in the inside of my windshield for the trips in question. The person on the other end of the call cross-referenced my tags to my transponder to deduce that all tolls due from the balance on my account, credited me with the penalty fees, and directed me to my local MVA branch, which is the Motor Vehicle Administration, or the RMV, I don't know what that stands for, DMV, Department of Motor Vehicles, the place where you register your car.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, it depends on your -- it's the place where you register your car. It's different names depending on where you're at.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. Yeah. But he was directed to go there to have his transponder tested. "Unsurprisingly, it failed, and a few minutes later, I walked out with a new device. The E-ZPass office is not part of the normal MVA system. So I was second in line to walk in, and the person who helped me was very helpful and friendly." So is he saying that when you go to the E-ZPass office, it's not the MVA, so they're helpful and friendly?
Maria Varmazis: Made a contrast.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.
Joe Carrigan: Because around here, if I have tag or title work, I go to the privately run tag and title company and pay the fee associated with that, just so I don't have to get abused by the people at the MVA, because they're experts at it around here. Actually, to the county I've moved to, I haven't tried this MVA yet, but we'll see. We'll see what happens. "I received several messages from numbers in the Philippines alleging unpaid tolls for trips in other M states like Maine and Massachusetts." Is Jim a Maryland resident? Because he says MVA.
Maria Varmazis: I'm guessing he is. Yeah, I'm guessing he is, because up here in Mass., it's the RMV, at least it used to be the RMV. So MVA is not something I was familiar with.
Joe Carrigan: Now, MVA is a Maryland acronym. I don't know how -- and he's definitely using an E-ZPass, and that's the Maryland system. But I know the E-ZPass, Massachusetts has E-ZPass, right?
Maria Varmazis: It's the Northeast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty much the Northeast. Yep.
Joe Carrigan: Right. So anyways, he says he received several messages from numbers in the Philippines alleging unpaid tolls for other M states like Maine and Massachusetts. "I'm pretty sure there's no correlation between the messages and toll trips I've taken. The cost to run such a scam is low, that it is so low that it should be profitable with only a small response, so ripe for a shotgun approach." Agreed. My response was to Google the country code, and then use the Report Spam and Delete Button at the end of the message. Thanks for the entertaining, informative content. You know, there is a good set of evidence here that this is random.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Because I have now received another one as well.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, there you go.
Joe Carrigan: And it was on a phone that's not associated with anything that I do personally. It's on my company phone. So they gave me an iPhone. I've talked about how much I don't like my iPhone, but I got a text on that that said, hey, you got some unpaid tolls? I'm like, nobody on this number has unpaid tolls.
Maria Varmazis: No, I don't.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: I find it really fascinating that a lot of people have been writing in to us. Because this is not even all the feedback that we've gotten. This is just some of it. Because I think a lot of people are getting these, and I think a lot of us are having these conversations. I know I have been asking my friends, because I'm one of the few people that actually lives where my cell phone area code actually is physically.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: So for me, it's like, okay, it's going to match. But most of my friends have moved all over the place. So up here in Mass., I've got friends who are from the West Coast, D.C., whatever. And yeah, I was just wondering, when they're getting the spam, is it matching where they live or where their phone is registered? And sometimes, as some of these writers have said, there's absolutely no correlation. It's for places they've never been. So yeah, I think people are on the right track here. It's just shotgun approach. It's just nonsense.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, maybe the earlier parts were just coincidence where it seemed that they were timing up perfectly. Or the other option is there was somebody who was timing up perfectly and had this great scam. But as soon as news got out, people were like, that's too much work. Let's just send out a bunch of spam text messages.
Maria Varmazis: If you were that person who was doing the too much work version, we would love to talk to you. You know what? There's a much easier way to scam people.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: I honestly would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. Thank you for all of our listeners who have given us so much great feedback. Please keep it coming. We love hearing from you, and this is all great stuff, and if you're going to do a gold bar sting operation, please be safe.
Joe Carrigan: Right. [ Music ]
Maria Varmazis: We will be right back after this message from our show's sponsor. [ Music ] Okay. So Joe, you are up first today for our story. Regale me, please.
Joe Carrigan: I will regale you with something --
Maria Varmazis: Regale me.
Joe Carrigan: From Theo Burman at Newsweek, and here we go regaling away. The headline of this story is "FBI Cracked Pig Butchering Scam on Dating Sites," but it doesn't talk too much about the dating sites. What's interesting here is that the FBI has seized $8.2 million in cryptocurrency connected to what this article calls a complex international romance scam known as pig butchering. Now we all are familiar with the term pig butchering, and if you're new to the show, I will explain it to you. It is essentially the combination of a romance scam and a cryptocurrency scam. So you are on some dating site. You meet this person online. You probably will never meet them in person. They strike up a conversation. They do all the same romance scam stuff that everybody always does in a romance scam. They love bomb you. They plague you with compliments. They try to build this false rapport, and then they say, oh, by the way, I make my money being a crypto investor. And they send you a link to, you know, they show you, hey, look how much money I've made in crypto, and it could be millions. Then they will encourage you to put some money into crypto. And when you do put money into crypto, you will see reports that say your money is growing really, really fast, which then encourages you to put more money into it and more money into it. And there may even be a point at which you say, I'd like some of my money back, and they give it to you. That's usually a very small amount of money. But it's happened where you put in 100 bucks and they say, hey, your 100 bucks grew to 200 bucks. Fine, give me 200 bucks. Here's your 200 bucks. And you go, okay, well, let me try that again. I'll put that 200 bucks back in. Here's another 1,000 bucks, and then it just keeps growing from there. So people have lost tons of money in this. In fact, I have a link, another link, that will go in the show notes, about a Maryland woman who lost over $3 million to a pig butchering scam.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, my God. Sorry.
Joe Carrigan: It's a lot. WJZ is the station covering this. It's one of the Baltimore news stations, and Mike Helgren has the story. We'll put a link in the show notes. They are disguising her voice in this so that you can't find her. Because unfortunately, when you come forward as someone who's been scammed, people will pile on you. They shouldn't do this, but they do. They pile on you, call you stupid.
Maria Varmazis: They do.
Joe Carrigan: I mean, there was a poor victim of the Brad Pitt scam, I think in France, who -- the stories had to get taken down. So kudos to WJZ here.
Maria Varmazis: Honestly -- yeah, I was just going to say, I really -- I wish that more news outlets would start doing this because even one of the first stories I did here on Hacking Humans, it was, I think, a piece in The Cut. And the woman, I think she said she got scammed out of like $50,000. I'm still seeing comments about that over a year later of people denigrating her. And it's like, no, she did a really important service by telling us about what happened to her.
Joe Carrigan: Exactly.
Maria Varmazis: And also victims get re-scammed also, don't they, when they come forward?
Joe Carrigan: They do. It's sad, but that is what happens. Anyway, this Maryland woman also came forward. She said, I feel terrible about this. I've lost so much money. I don't know if this is her life savings or not. But $3 million, I can't imagine that not being. And she is telling a story, which, good for you too. So thank you to this woman. I don't know who you are, and thank you to WJZ for keeping her anonymous. That's great news. Anyway, back to the Newsweek story. What happened here is they were -- it was the Cleveland field office of the FBI, and they were able to trace the funds to three cryptocurrency wallet addresses. So you can have multiple addresses, like a lot of addresses, with one wallet. And it --
Maria Varmazis: It sort of like feeds into the wallet, right?
Joe Carrigan: It feeds into the wallet, right.
Maria Varmazis: Like a big tree with its roots everywhere, sort of how I imagine it.
Joe Carrigan: Exactly. I'm not exactly sure what the math is behind it, but you can have multiple addresses that feed into the same wallet, which is the same private keys. But these guys used just these three addresses, and that let the FBI develop a trace of where this money was going. Because even though these guys attempted to launder the money with obfuscation techniques, using things like tumblers and switching from one blockchain to another. It says in here they bought Ethereum and Tron, and they used multiple DeFi protocols, which is distributed financing.
Maria Varmazis: Okay, thank you. I didn't know what that meant.
Joe Carrigan: It's like an exchange where there's nobody in charge. So I've never done anything. I say that I do have some crypto on here, some of it's in a personal wallet. Some of it's on an exchange. Most of it's on an exchange. DeFi, you can go up there. You can say, I'm going to exchange this for that, and maybe you get your money. I don't know. I've never tried it, but I would assume that you get some money from it. But anyway, these guys were able to -- the FBI was able to trace this based on one Cleveland-based victim who was convinced to liquidate her entire retirement savings and transfer $650,000 into digital assets, and she thought it was going into an investment account. It isn't going into an investment account. It'll look like it is. There will even be a fake webpage, and they'll tell you, oh, you're doing great. But as soon as you say, hey, give me some of my money, that's when everything stops. And once you have the large amount of money, that's when they start -- they will try to get you to put as much money in there as possible. And once you get to the point where you started putting money in here, you would just think of it as gone. It is moved off the platform.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, you're just burning it, basically.
Joe Carrigan: It's gone. So once they had traced the money down and they had a good idea of where it was, they used civil forfeiture laws and filed a civil forfeiture complaint in February talking about the scam and how they knew this was going on. Now this, I'm not a big fan of civil forfeiture laws because often they get abused. There are cases where people have been going to buy a car and they have $20,000 in cash and law enforcement just seizes the cash and says, you can't have that much money unless you're going to do something illegal. We're going to have a civil forfeiture here, and good luck getting your money back.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, it does seem like something rife for abuse, for sure.
Joe Carrigan: It is. It absolutely is. But here, this is a good-intended use case where the FBI has judiciously demonstrated that these are scam funds or we're reasonably certain that these are scam funds. Please seize the cryptocurrency and they've seized $8 billion. They said they're going to give it out to people who have been victims of these scams. One of the things they're saying is, of course, they don't know how many victims there are. There are many victims who just will never be identified. Hopefully, their losses are small.
Maria Varmazis: Goodness, I just, wow. I have so many thoughts about -- every time we cover these stories, I just -- I have so many thoughts that go through my head that I just, it's just sort of, what would convince somebody to take their retirement savings out in general and move them en masse somewhere else makes me wonder about like when I go into retirement, like retirement funding websites, I'm trying not to use names, sometimes they don't look very credible even though the institutions themselves are. And then I'm thinking you combine maybe a website that looks about as credible by a gut check as an established financial institution plus the conversations I know I hear all the time going on between grandparents and their grandchildren about, you know, you should get into crypto. It's a great thing. Park your money there and then just -- you have not enough information plus things that look, I suppose, somewhat credible or at least as credible as everything else and then it's just a terrible mélange of awful that makes it just so easy for people to get victimized like this. And that's to say nothing of also, then the social engineering that's going on to make people do these kinds of things. It's a combination of so many bad, bad elements at once.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, it is. If everybody took my advice they would not get hurt on this and my advice is, remember if you're going to invest in crypto that's fine but don't do it with money you can't afford to lose. It's like gambling, essentially. It's the same advice I give when you're gambling. If you want to put a lot of money into crypto, that's fine but you should never, under any circumstances put all of your money into this and it is even if that's the only source of your money let's say that I was smart enough to buy Bitcoin when I could have bought it for $0.25 or $4 at some point in time.
Maria Varmazis: Smart enough or just lucky enough?
Joe Carrigan: Lucky enough, yeah. I mean, I had the opportunity, I really considered it I was like, I think I'll be happier with the four bucks. Turns out I was wrong.
Maria Varmazis: Well, I mean, yeah, I know people who did get in on that but I also, in the cases of those people they had fallen for like $20 they'd had financial decision type scams beforehand but in this case it ended up paying off so I'm kind of like, eh.
Joe Carrigan: This is the one they talk about, right?
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, yeah it is, yep.
Joe Carrigan: They don't talk about, you know, going into multi-level marketing or anything. Anyway, yeah, by now I would have liquidated some amount of that and put that into other more traditional investments and, you know, with the rate at which cryptocurrency or Bitcoin in particular the prices have been growing I probably would have done that multiple times In other words if my wealth came from the growth of -- the explosion of the value of cryptocurrency, I would have by now moved it to another investment. I would have diversified, and you should not have all your money in one type of investment.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, this gets into financial literacy and, you know, what kind of risk can you take on, and also, it's a whole other conversation about finances, and I think, again, it gets into that a lot of people especially in the United States are just not that financially literate but it's also very complicated especially if you're from another country where a lot of this stuff tends to be handled by a government, and in this case, you've got to figure it out, and it's not easy to figure out.
Joe Carrigan: In my youth, I talk about this my father -- actually, I found out he still maintains his education requirements so he can hold his CPA certification. I didn't know that about him.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, bless him. Wow.
Joe Carrigan: But yeah, he -- I grew up in what you would consider to be a very financially literate household. My father was an accountant. My mother was a bookkeeper. We have a lot of accounts in the family. Not everybody comes from that kind of a background. So, I mean, this stuff all seems like second nature to me, but I understand that the reason that is the case is because of the household I grew up in.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, I come from the opposite, but it's -- my parents were very financially literate, but they were self-taught completely, and I know for my extended family, things were either handled by a pension -- really, it was a pension, or you bought property and basically you were a landlord, and that was it. There were 401ks or anything with the stock market None of that either existed or nobody understands how to manage any of that. So anything that I learned I learned from my parents who thankfully learned about this stuff, but a lot of my family I'm still having the conversations with them about, you know, if you have the cash to buy property that's great but there's this whole thing called the stock market that you might also be interested in to grow your wealth. I don't know. I just think of those use cases where it's easy to assume that people know this stuff but it's really not clear at all. So yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Yep.
Maria Varmazis: All right, let's move on to my story now and --
Joe Carrigan: I was about to ask. What do you got?
Maria Varmazis: What do I got? Well, I really just have a quick story today. Sort of, I wanted to mention what happened in the story but then pontificate a little bit on it because, honestly, it's sadly yet another Publisher's Clearinghouse or PCH scam and another whack-a-mole in these scams that just will not go away In this case, in the end of March four people were indicted on federal charges for apparently scamming millions of dollars out of several elderly folks around the United States. Three of the four people who have been indicted which I thought was an interesting bit of flavor there Basically, the scam occurred within the United States, and the four scammers would contact their elderly victims in many cases saying this is standard PCH scam stuff but hey, you've won the Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes. We're going to give you the cool, fun novelty check and show up at your house with the balloons like you've seen on TV, multi-million dollars coming your way. All you need to do is pay just the up-front taxes and fees before we can give you this prize. And often, the scammers would even give forged documents describing the actual sweepstakes winnings that would be coming their way and using official government seals to make it look very legitimate, and of course, the money was never going to be there and the money from the victims was sent to a number of -- a whole mess of different bank accounts that the scammers would sort of draw from. So a PCH scam is nothing at all new. I think the thing that I wanted to really just speak to is I think on certain parts of the internet -- I'm a very online person. PCH scams have this sort of notoriety of sort of comical sort of like the Viagra pill spam, like who is still falling for these? How is this still successful? And I'm not coming at it at that angle. I understand that that angle exists. My main question is for people under the age of, I don't know, 30. Do people even know what PCH was, like what Publishers Cleaning House is? Because I'm old enough that I remember when they were on TV all the time, but --
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, Ed McMahon was their --
Maria Varmazis: He was their guy. Yeah, so for people who don't know and have never seen this, back in the 90s -- 80s and 90s I want to say -- especially it was this commercial you would often see on TV where people with balloons like in a party-like atmosphere would sort of seemingly roll up to some random person's house with a huge novelty check for a lot of money basically saying you've won this enormous amount of money, and often Ed McMahon, who was a big celebrity at the time, would be there with his microphone interviewing some average American person looking very happy and surprised that they just won a million dollars or whatever, and it was one of those it seems too good to be true, and apparently it was. I've never really understood how thing worked. I guess it was just like a lottery. I'm not really sure.
Joe Carrigan: I would get these things every -- you know, I'd open the Publishers Clearing House mailer because there would be ads on TV going look for the Publishers Clearing House mailer. Enter the sweepstakes
Maria Varmazis: Did you have to pay in?
Joe Carrigan: No.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, you have to enter the sweepstakes. That's what it was. Oh, you said enter it.
Joe Carrigan: You never have to pay in, or at least you shouldn't have to. In fact, you don't even have to buy a magazine, which was what I would do. I'm not going to buy any magazines. I'm just going to send this thing back. And then they'd send you another one, and you'd have to fill that out and send it back.
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: Eventually, I lost interest in it.
Maria Varmazis: It was big.
Joe Carrigan: The whole idea is they -- yeah, they were trying to get you to buy magazine subscriptions --
Maria Varmazis: That's what it was.
Joe Carrigan: -- because back when I was a kid, magazines were delivered to your door via the postal service not online.
Maria Varmazis: They still can be.
Joe Carrigan: I know. I actually still get National Geographic because it's got such beautiful photography in it.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, yeah, and it's easier to just pick up a magazine and read it to the kids, right?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, I love them for that reason especially.
Maria Varmazis: I love to give my daughter a copy of Wired. Just kidding. That's for me. [ Laughing ] Here, read The Atlantic. Would you like The Economist? She gets Highlights.
Joe Carrigan: Highlights for Children?
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, Highlights for Children is great. But anyway, that's a whole thing. I admittedly have not watched much network TV in a while, but I remember these commercials being a big part of the cultural zeitgeist in the United States especially in the 90s, but I want to say the last 20 years they have faded away a lot.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: I don't think this is so much of a thing. So to me the fact that this scam still persists, is almost explicitly by design targeting the elderly because who else would really remember when this was relevant and exciting. I feel kind of sad saying that but --
Joe Carrigan: I agree with that 100%. You're right. It's something that is -- it's self-selected to target the elderly to begin with because, I mean, if someone called you and said, "Hey, you won the Publisher's Clearinghouse." You'd be like, the what? The who? I don't understand.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, I've never even heard of that. Right. Exa- -- I mean, I have but I can imagine people under a certain age, they only know about it in the same breath as a Viagra pill scam. Like why would you ever fall for this? For people who remember when this was a big part of the deal, you know, people would joke about maybe one day Ed McMahon will show up at your house with balloons. It was a big deal. So it was just yet another PCH scam. Sadly, a lot of people lost money. I'm glad to see some more folks get caught for doing this. Interestingly enough, the people who actually allegedly have done this version of the scam are actually all around the 30s, late 20s and early 30s. So do they even remember when it was culturally relevant, I guess, is my thing. But yeah --
Joe Carrigan: Probably not.
Maria Varmazis: Probably not, yeah. Isn't that interesting? Anyway, so yeah, yet another PCH scam. Be careful out there, and we will be right back after this message from our show's sponsor. And we are back, and now it is time for Catch of the Day, Joe. ( Soundbite of Reeling in Fishline )
Joe Carrigan: Our Catch of the Day comes from r/scams, and this is on Reddit, r/scams. And the user -- I love this user's username -- cultwitch underscore 13. She sounds nice.
Maria Varmazis: Why are we assuming it is a she? Just kidding.
Joe Carrigan: That's a good question, because it doesn't say cult warlock. I don't know. Does that even make sense anymore? Is that even -- I don't --
Maria Varmazis: Cult wizard, cult warlock. Are you a sorcerer or are you a -- [ Laughing ] -- cult with D&D rules now.
Joe Carrigan: Yes, she posted this message that she got -- she receives a text message along with four other -- three other people receive this text with her.
Maria Varmazis: Randomly?
Joe Carrigan: Right, randomly.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: You want to you want to read this?
Maria Varmazis: Sure thing. "Hello. Good day. This is Elon Musk Tesla. Did you got any messages from my manager yet? We are happy to inform you that your name have been randomly selected as a new beneficiary with a sum of $500,000 to help people pay off debts such as mortgages, medical bills, and unpaid bills as well as to support the disabled. Kindly respond back with accept to plus one some phone number to proceed immediately. Thank you. Do not call. Only text. Congratulations to you, once again." [ Laughing ]
Joe Carrigan: So Elon's middle name is not Musk. That's his last name.
Maria Varmazis: His name is Elon Tesla.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: When his mother is really mad though she goes, Elon Musk Tesla. [ Laughing ]
Joe Carrigan: He is actually the great, great grandson of Nikolai -- no, he's not.
Maria Varmazis: No, he's not.
Joe Carrigan: He named his car company after that. I don't think Nikolai Tesla had any kids.
Maria Varmazis: No, he did not. He loved pigeons.
Joe Carrigan: Like Mike Tyson.
Maria Varmazis: Yes, Tesla was a fascinating person. I stayed in the hotel room where he lived and died, and you --
Joe Carrigan: Really?
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. So there's the -- he lived in a hotel in New York that's very close to Penn Station, and there's like a plaque in the lobby saying like he lived here, but I actually -- I apparently got like the room where he actually lived and died.
Joe Carrigan: Yikes.
Maria Varmazis: This was years ago. Yeah. Well, you know, he was a bit of a personal hero to my father. So I knew a lot about Tesla growing.
Joe Carrigan: Okay. So here's why this actually might work is --
Maria Varmazis: "Do not call. Only text."
Joe Carrigan: Right. I was I was on Newsweek today, and there is -- I'm reading that pig butchering FBI story, and at the bottom, there's a link to another article that says Elon Musk says he's going to go write million-dollar checks to people who vote in the Supreme Court -- vote election in Wisconsin. He says he's all --
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: -- going to give. It doesn't matter what he's going to do, but it's a stunt. Who cares -- it's things that -- when he does things like that that -- can pair up nicely with scams like this: Hey, Elon Musk is going to Wisconsin to give away two $1 million checks. It's not so hard to believe that I am the lucky recipient of half that amount from such a wacky billionaire. So --
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, I mean honestly, it's a drop in the bucket for him. Plus he's doing the PCH scams with the giant novelty checks, right?
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So I mean it's we all see this as obviously a scam. If you if you contact these people you just get led into an advanced fee scam where you have to start paying fees in advance. Oh, yeah, we got your $500,000 here, but you have to pay a wiring fee of a hundred bucks. Oh, okay. Now you have to pay some taxes of another taxing fee and just these fees until you either realize it's a scam or run out of money. One of the two things is going to happen.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So it's really great to realize this is a scam when you've lost zero dollars That's the objective, and that's why we have this show.
Maria Varmazis: Indeed, thank you for that, Joe. [ Music ] And that is Hacking Humans brought to you by N2K CyberWire We would love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures that we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing world of cybersecurity. If you like the show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to Hacking Humans at n2k.com. We're privileged that N2K CyberWire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies, N2K makes it easy for companies to optimize your biggest investment -- your people. We make you smarter about your teams while making your teams smarter. Learn how at n2k.com. This episode is produced by Liz Stokes. Our Executive Producer is Jennifer Eiben. I've been we're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Tré Hester. Peter Kilpe is our publisher, and I'm Maria Varmazis.
Joe Carrigan: And I'm Joe Carrigan.
Maria Varmazis: Thank you for listening. [ Music ]
