Spam and Scams

The “Golden Age of Scams”

If you feel like there’s been an uptick in spammy content coming across your devices lately, you’re not alone.

I’m seeing junk form responses and emails promising discount business support coming in at an unprecedented pace and – anecdotally – many of my clients are reporting the same. Spam text messages – mostly related to the election – come in near daily. A LinkedIn connection recently posted about an extortion attempt using a Google Street View image of his neighborhood and a threat to show up at his home. One of my clients even got a letter in the mail (remember that old thing?) demanding $289 for 12 months of “Website Domain Authority.” SPOILER ALERT: NOT A THING. 

According to a recent Time magazine article, it’s not just me. U.S. consumers were victims of fraud at a record pace in 2023, to the tune of $10 billion. That’s a 14% jump from 2022.

What’s going on?

So what is driving the “Golden Age of Scams”? A big piece is AI. The tool is enabling scammers in a variety of ways.

• Language
  AI is great at words (that’s kind of its thing) and spammers are taking advantage. Gone are the awkwardly-phrased emails and requests from a “Nigerian prince.” They’re speaking our language now… though you may still occasionally spot some grammatical flaws.
• Modes of Connection
  Some of the most compelling – and alarming – examples of scammers are those using AI-generated forms of media. The goal of every scammer is to inspire panic, which results in quick, poorly-considered actions. New forms of AI that can generate voices or photos play on that panic.
• Technology
  AI can help spammers speed up robo-calling, text messaging, and email automation, write scripts to spam web forms, setup domains and build fake websites quickly, and combine and organize ever-larger sets of user data. All the things that are helping you are also helping them.
• Creativity
  New scams are popping up all over, with ever more creative ways of reaching targets, inspiring alarm, and collecting your valuables. And your scammer isn’t asking for bank accounts and social security numbers anymore, they’re targeting Bitcoin, gift cards, and other non-traceable forms of resources.

What do we do?

First, it will take time for the technology to find new ways to block these users. In the meantime, keep reporting these attacks to your service providers, whether it be text messages, emails, or form and comment submissions. This should all be used to help the tools learn what to look for.

Second, be wary. This might sound obvious, but it’s easy to be swept away by panic and while we’ve been educated to look out for certain scenarios, this is truly a new generation of attacks.

And finally, don’t lose trust. A side effect of the uptick in spam and scams is a doubt in our institutions. While there’s certainly a need for valid skepticism, try to keep a wholesome confidence in our community.

But also definitely get a second opinion before you send a dozen gift cards to a Nigerian prince.

LinkedIn AI Training

A quick FYI: LinkedIn is going to be developing its AI capacity and it will be training that AI with user’s personal data and content.

This has come up recently, not through any large-scale communication from LinkedIn, but through a grassroots effort to inform users about this new addition to your profile settings. Please note that the default is to have you OPTED-IN for sharing your data.

If you’re ok with that, great! But if you’d prefer to not have your account content used in this way you can use the link below – courtesy of The Algorithmic Justice League and Dr. Joy Buolamwini to opt out.

Class Time