Blackmail variant – 2023-07-06

This is an every so slight variant on the ones from last November and October.

Hello there!

Unfortunately, there are some bad news for you.
Around several months ago I have obtained access to your devices that you were using to browse internet.
Subsequently, I have proceeded with tracking down internet activities of yours.

Below, is the sequence of past events: In the past, I have bought access from hackers to numerous email accounts (today, that is a very straightforward task that can be done online).
Clearly, I have effortlessly logged in to email account of yours ([REDACTED]).

A week after that, I have managed to install Trojan virus to Operating Systems of all your devices that are used for email access.
Actually, that was quite simple (because you were clicking the links in inbox emails).
All smart things are quite straightforward. (>_<)

The software of mine allows me to access to all controllers in your devices, such as video camera, microphone and keyboard.
I have managed to download all your personal data, as well as web browsing history and photos to my servers.
I can access all messengers of yours, as well as emails, social networks, contacts list and even chat history.
My virus unceasingly refreshes its signatures (since it is driver-based), and hereby stays invisible for your antivirus.

So, by now you should already understand the reason why I remained unnoticed until this very moment...

While collecting your information, I have found out that you are also a huge fan of websites for adults.
You truly enjoy checking out porn websites and watching dirty videos, while having a lot of kinky fun.
I have recorded several kinky scenes of yours and montaged some videos, where you reach orgasms while passionately masturbating.

If you still doubt my serious intentions, it only takes couple mouse clicks to share your videos with your friends, relatives and even colleagues.
It is also not a problem for me to allow those vids for access of public as well.
I truly believe, you would not want this to occur, understanding how special are the videos you love watching, (you are clearly aware of that) all that stuff can result in a real disaster for you.

Let's resolve it like this:
All you need is $1450 USD transfer to my account (bitcoin equivalent based on exchange rate during your transfer), and after the transaction is successful, I will proceed to delete all that kinky stuff without delay.
Afterwards, we can pretend that we have never met before. In addition, I assure you that all the harmful software will be deleted from all your devices. Be sure, I keep my promises.

That is quite a fair deal with a low price, bearing in mind that I have spent a lot of effort to go through your profile and traffic for a long period.
If you are unaware how to buy and send bitcoins - it can be easily fixed by searching all related information online.

Below is bitcoin wallet of mine: 1Nx353jT8zZYaqmoMdMr2PRtdixStrDoZE

You are given not more than 48 hours after you have opened this email (2 days to be precise).

Below is the list of actions that you should not attempt doing:
> Do not attempt to reply my email (the email in your inbox was created by me together with return address).
> Do not attempt to call police or any other security services. Moreover, don't even think to share this with friends of yours. Once I find that out (make no doubt about it, I can do that effortlessly, bearing in mind that I have full control over all your systems) - the video of yours will become available to public immediately. Do not attempt to search for me - there is completely no point in that. All cryptocurrency transactions remain anonymous at all times.
> Do not attempt reinstalling the OS on devices of yours or get rid of them. It is meaningless too, because all your videos are already available at remote servers.

Below is the list of things you don't need to be concerned about:
> That I will not receive the money you transferred.
- Don't you worry, I can still track it, after the transaction is successfully completed, because I still monitor all your activities (trojan virus of mine includes a remote-control option, just like TeamViewer).
> That I still will make your videos available to public after your money transfer is complete.
- Believe me, it is meaningless for me to keep on making your life complicated. If I indeed wanted to make it happen, it would happen long time ago!
Everything will be carried out based on fairness!

Before I forget...moving forward try not to get involved in this kind of situations anymore!
An advice from me - regularly change all the passwords to your accounts.

Blackmail variant – 2023-07-05

And here I was starting to wonder whether these blackmail scammers had started to avoid sending these to my email knowing I’d just… post it on my blog for everyone to discover.

This one’s another entirely new variant, but again still bearing the same hallmarks of prior variants. Though the inclusion of the phone number is new. But they likely got that from some data breach in similar fashion to prior scam emails showing a password.

Hi, today there are sadly some bad news for you.

Your device was infected with my private malware, your browser wasn't updated / patched, in such case it's enough to just visit some website where my iframe is placed to get automatically infected, if you want to find out more, Google: Drive-by exploit.

My malware gave me full access to all your accounts, full control over your device and it also was possible to spy on you over your cam.

If you think this is some bad joke, no, for example I know your phone number: [REDACTED]

I collected all your private data and I RECORDED YOU (through your cam) SATISFYING YOURSELF!

After that I removed my malware to not leave any traces and this email was sent from some hacked server.

I can publish the video of you and all your private data on the whole web, social networks, over email and send everything to all your contacts.

But you can stop me and only I can help you out in this situation.

The only way to stop me, is to pay exactly 750$ in Bitcoin (BTC).

It's a very good offer, compared to all that horrible shit that will happen if I publish everything.

You can easily buy Bitcoin (BTC) here: www.paxful.com , www.coingate.com , www.coinbase.com , or check for Bitcoin (BTC) ATM near you, or Google for other exchanger.

You can send the Bitcoin (BTC) directly to my wallet, or install the free software: Atomicwallet, or: Exodus wallet, then receive and send to mine.

My Bitcoin (BTC) wallet is: 1DkKm1sWz6yEHiqjEusuA23BKqk4gDTVbK

Yes, that's how the wallet / address looks like, copy and paste it, it's (cAsE-sEnSEtiVE).

I give you 3 days time to pay.

After receiving the payment, I will remove everything and you can life your live in peace like before, don't worry, I keep my promise.

Next time make sure that your device got the newsest security updates.

Other Bitcoin wallets associated with this:

Troubleshooting 2.5Gb power over Ethernet

This quick post is for those with a 2.5Gb PoE device, such as a WiFi 6 access point, that either won’t run at 2.5GbE speeds at all or falls back to 1Gb or 100Mpbs after a short time.

On my home network I have several TP-Link devices. Relevant to this article is my EAP670 WiFi access point and TL-SG3210XHP-M2 2.5GbE PoE+ switch. And for some reason the EAP670 wouldn’t run faster than 100Mpbs.

Sound familiar? Well there’s a simple solution I’m surprised I never thought of sooner: DON’T. USE. CAT5E! Don’t use Cat6 either.

To be sure your 2.5Gb PoE device will talk at 2.5GbE speed, use Cat6A or Cat7. When I switched out the Cat5E cable for Cat7, it had no problem staying at 2.5Gb. You might get away with Cat6, but you’re better off using Cat6A or Cat7.

Cat5E will work fine for non-PoE 2.5GbE devices. But it won’t work for 2.5GbE POE. Again, use Cat6A or Cat7.

EAP670 connected at 2.5Gbps full duplex with PoE.

How employment actually works

Let’s talk about this image:

First, it is generally NOT true that workers at a business create value. Most workers, instead, transform existing materials with their labor into new products, or leverage existing products and materials to provide a service.

It’s only in the creative industries that employees actually create value, create something that didn’t previously exist in any form. I’m talking graphic design, web site and software development, photography, videography, architecture, etc. And in all those cases, the work product is also considered a “work made for hire” under copyright law, meaning it’s the intellectual property of the employer. And like in most every other line of work, the employees in creative industries aren’t using their own equipment.

As an example, I’m a professional software engineer. My employer provides everything I need to work: the computer (laptop, specifically), access to needed cloud services at their expense, software licenses, etc. The only thing I’m bringing to the table is my skill and expertise.

I am permanently work from home, so I do provide additional equipment for my own benefit: two 4K televisions I use as monitors (with needed adapters to connect to the laptop), mechanical keyboard, mouse, and work space. But those additions are divorced from the laptop my employer provided, so won’t change if I change employers.

In very, very few lines of work is an employee bringing anything more to the table than their skills, experience, and, where required, strength. The employer is providing everything else at their expense, not the employee’s expense: machinery and equipment, tools, materials, the space to do the work, additional personnel so the employee doesn’t need to do everything, etc. Before the employee even shows up to add their part to the equation, the employer has already sunk a lot of cost into production.

Yet the image above pretends the employer – the “capitalist” – isn’t putting anything into the production. Only taking. Whereas the reality is the “capitalist” is providing everything except what the employee is adding.

The easiest illustration of this is food service. Specifically those who are preparing the food.

The line cooks don’t provide the ingredients, and they didn’t purchase the equipment needed to cook and serve the food. The owners of the establishment provided that. Along with paying to have it all installed properly, paying for maintenance when required, replacements where necessary, cleaning equipment and supplies, the utility service (e.g. electricity, natural gas or liquid propane, water, etc.), insurance on the entire establishment and employees, and… pretty much everything else.

The employee just… shows up and does their job as agreed. Receiving for their time a paycheck.

Blackmail variant – 2023-06-09

This one goes a little further than previous variants, but still bears the same hallmarks. And it’s also still just fluff. Don’t fall for it.

***The driver installation was successful***

The system has been added to the tracking list.

Your device has been successfully attacked by our bot-virus, which, once on the device, spreads to all layers of the device.
These are drivers, cameras, microphone, operating system services.

Your entire device is under our control. We can delete any data on it, write anything on it.

We copied all the data from your device to our server clusters recording dialogs, video from the web camera, from the main camera of the device, as well as everything that happened on the screen.
There is some very interesting nude video.
All your movements with the phone were recorded by GPS data during the entire time.

You have 48 hours to transfer 1400$ US dollars to our Bitcoin wallet 1KrztAabSkWQbkgB5cF5EgdrK3ySJ6zgA



If no money is received after that time, all the data will be on the Internet.
Your social networking friends and phone contacts will especially like it.

As soon as the funds are credited to our account, your data will be deleted from our servers and the virus will be automatically deleted from your device and won't bother you anymore.

Don't forget that your device is completely under our control and don't try anything foolish things.
If any action is suspected of finding a virus, contacting law enforcement, all your friends will be familiar with the fine selection of materials involving you.

***The timer was automatically run after you've opened this email.

Blackmail variant – 2023-05-27

They’re evolving.

This is a completely new variant in terms of text. Though they claim to know my password, without providing anything within the body of the email proving such, I already know what password they would’ve shown had they actually done that.

And it also still bears the same hallmarks of the other scam emails: claiming to have put some kind of backdoor on my computer, claiming to have recorded me masturbating at my desk (despite the fact I don’t do that and also don’t have a webcam), etc…

Though I find it ironic that they point you to blockchain.com to create a Bitcoin wallet. Ironic in that I also link there for all wallets I see in these emails. Though what’s heartbreaking is seeing the balance of those wallets as not zero when I first look at them. And such was the case with the wallet linked below.


Hello

I know your password!

I infected you with a malware (RAT)/(Remote Administration Tool), some time ago and since then, I have been observing your actions. The malware gave me full access and control over your system, meaning, I can see everything on your screen, turn on your camera or microphone and you won’t even notice about it, yes such things exist, you can Google it!
I have also access to all your contacts, I collected everything private from you, pictures, videos, everything!

And I MADE A VIDEO SHOWING BOTH YOU (through your webcam) AND THE VIDEO YOU WERE WATCHING (on the screen) WHILE SATISFYING YOURSELF!

I can send this video to all your contacts (email, social network) and publish all your private stuff everywhere!

You can prevent me from doing this!
To stop me, transfer exactly: 400$ with the current bitcoin (BTC) price to my bitcoin address.

If you don’t know how to get bitcoin, Google – “How to buy Bitcoin”, it’s very simple for example with credit card. The wallet you can create here: https://www.blockchain.com

My bitcoin address is: 13zk33SCAt5KGrMSR1ktL4Tkow4sVck4Qg

Copy and paste my address – it’s (CASE-sensitive).

You know this all isn’t a joke, you got the proof above!
I think it’s a very good price compared to the damage and hell it can bring into your life!

After receiving the payment, I will delete everything from you and you can life your live in peace like before. I give you 3 days to get the bitcoins!
Don’t share this email with anyone, this should stay our little secret!

Blackmail variant – 2023-05-18

This one is a slight variant to the previous variant. It merely adds a line claiming a specific password. I’ve touched on this before where passwords from data breaches are being plugged into these blackmail scams to make it look like they’ve hacked into your email when they’ve merely spoofed your email address – which is stupid easy to do. Though the password they claimed to have used to access my email isn’t a password I’ve ever used. Instead it’s a username I’ve used on various other sites and not the username I use to access my email. (Still redacted it for consistency.) Plus my email is on a self-hosted mail server, so… they aren’t accessing it anyway, and the username also isn’t what I use in any way to access that mail server.


Hi,

I am a hacker, and I have successfully gained access to your operating system.
I also have full access to your account.

When I hacked into your account, your password was: [REDACTED]

I've been watching you for a few months now.

The fact is that your computer has been infected with malware through an adult site that you visited.
If you are not familiar with this, I will explain.
Trojan Virus gives me full access and control over a computer or other device.
This means that I can see everything on your screen, turn on the camera and microphone, but you do not know about it.
I also have access to all your contacts and all your correspondence.

Why did your antivirus not detect malware?
Answer: The malware I used is driver-based, I update its signatures every 4 hours. Hence your antivirus is unable to detect its presence.
I made a video showing how you satisfy yourself in the left half of the screen, and the right half shows the video you were watching at the time.

With one mouse click, I can send this video to all your emails and contacts on your social networks.
I can also make public all your e-mail correspondence and chat history on the messengers that you use.

If you don't want this to happen, transfer $1490 in Bitcoin equivalent to my Bitcoin address (if you do not know how to do this, just search "buy bitcoin" on Google).

My Bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) is: 1LzGn637qgKdsw7UH6S2A17vEbwL8ytHXY

After confirming your payment, I will delete the video immediately, and that's it. You will never hear from me again.
I will give you 50 hours (more than 2 days) to pay. I will get a notice, when you open this email, and the timer will start.
Filing a complaint somewhere does not make sense because this email cannot be tracked like my Bitcoin address.

I never make any mistakes.
If I find that you have shared this message with someone else, the video will be immediately distributed.

Best regards!

Other Bitcoin wallets associated with this:

Blackmail variant – 2023-05-15

This one is substantially different from previous ones I’ve received. Though it still bears the same hallmarks of alleging to have video of me in front of a webcam – that I don’t have – and threatening to release said video unless I give them a substantial sum.


Hi,

I am a hacker, and I have successfully gained access to your operating system.
I also have full access to your account.

I've been watching you for a few months now.

The fact is that your computer has been infected with malware through an adult site that you visited.
If you are not familiar with this, I will explain.
Trojan Virus gives me full access and control over a computer or other device.
This means that I can see everything on your screen, turn on the camera and microphone, but you do not know about it.
I also have access to all your contacts and all your correspondence.

Why did your antivirus not detect malware?
Answer: The malware I used is driver-based, I update its signatures every 4 hours. Hence your antivirus is unable to detect its presence.
I made a video showing how you satisfy yourself in the left half of the screen, and the right half shows the video you were watching at the time.

With one mouse click, I can send this video to all your emails and contacts on your social networks.
I can also make public all your e-mail correspondence and chat history on the messengers that you use.

If you don't want this to happen, transfer $1490 in Bitcoin equivalent to my Bitcoin address (if you do not know how to do this, just search "buy bitcoin" on Google).

My Bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) is: 13yQcMFQSf7ixzJrNceCDL4E1jVHEVqrcY

After confirming your payment, I will delete the video immediately, and that's it. You will never hear from me again.
I will give you 50 hours (more than 2 days) to pay. I will get a notice, when you open this email, and the timer will start.
Filing a complaint somewhere does not make sense because this email cannot be tracked like my Bitcoin address.

I never make any mistakes.
If I find that you have shared this message with someone else, the video will be immediately distributed.

Best regards!

Other Bitcoin wallets associated with this:

Blackmail variant – 2023-05-08

Another variant.


Hi, .

I am a professional hacker and have successfully managed to hack your operating system.
Currently I have gained full access to your account.

In addition, I was secretly monitoring all your activities and watching you for several months.
The thing is your computer was infected with harmful spyware due to the fact that you had visited a website with porn content previously. ╰-⋃-╯

Let me explain to you what that entails. Thanks to Trojan viruses, I can gain complete access to your computer or any other device that you own.
It means that I can see absolutely everything in your screen and switch on the camera as well as microphone at any point of time without your permission.
In addition, I can also access and see your confidential information as well as your emails and chat messages.

You may be wondering why your antivirus cannot detect my malicious software.
Let me break it down for you: I am using harmful software that is driver-based,
which refreshes its signatures on 4-hourly basis, hence your antivirus is unable to detect it presence.

I have made a video compilation, which shows on the left side the scenes of you happily masturbating,
while on the right side it demonstrates the video you were watching at that moment..ᵔ.ᵔ

All I need is just to share this video to all email addresses and messenger contacts of people you are in communication with on your device or PC.
Furthermore, I can also make public all your emails and chat history.

I believe you would definitely want to avoid this from happening.
Here is what you need to do – transfer the Bitcoin equivalent of 1450 USD to my Bitcoin account
(that is rather a simple process, which you can check out online in case if you don’t know how to do that).

Below is my bitcoin account information (Bitcoin wallet): 1NEV8SZ5PocCEBs5Q3oXx8mF7KHfYi2BtD

Once the required amount is transferred to my account, I will proceed with deleting all those videos and disappear from your life once and for all.
Kindly ensure you complete the abovementioned transfer within 50 hours (2 days +).
I will receive a notification right after you open this email, hence the countdown will start.

Trust me, I am very careful, calculative and never make mistakes.
If I discover that you shared this message with others, I will straight away proceed with making your private videos public.

Good luck!

The concept of basic principles is foreign to too many

This one’s a doozy. From r/AITA, “AITA for breaking into my MIL’s bedroom?

Throwaway cause some of my in-laws use reddit. We are pregnant with our rainbow baby and we couldn’t be happier. On Friday we had our 12 weeks sonogram and got plenty of pictures to take home.

My MIL and FIL came to visit so they could see them and, eventually, the pictures disappeared. I asked them for help to find them but they were just nowhere to be found. My MIL was pretty eager to leave and that didn’t sit well with me, after they left I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

So on Sunday we went to their place for lunch and, when I went to the bathroom, I went into their bedroom and found the pictures in her nightstand. I was fuming. We were planning to give each side of the family copies of the pictures and a framed one (and we told them), but of course she just wanted them all. I confronted her when I came back and she just said “she thought they were for her” which is clearly a lie (I asked them for help to find them for crying out loud, and was visibly upset).

It’s not the first time she pulls something like this and, while my husband defended me in front of them when she protested for my snooping, he then told me I’d crossed a line when I opened her drawers. I know it wasn’t the nicest thing to do, I regret having to stoop to her level but I was just so angry. So AITA?

Small Update: I had a talk with my husband, he apologized for “scolding” me and confessed that, ever since he was a boy, he’s been terrified of his mother’s meltdowns and does anything he can to avoid them, so my confrontation kind of triggered him. He also said that he’s realised that some things like me and our baby will always come first.

He’s willing to go to therapy to learn how to establish and maintain strong boundaries with his mom, so we’ll see how it goes. Thanks everyone for your kind opinions, even if you think I was TA (I know I was).

And unsurprisingly the result is NTA – Not the Asshole. There were some more reasonable heads in the group, though, labeling this as ESH – Everything Sucks Here. And that’s my verdict.

On the one hand, the MIL stole from her. And I want to make it abundantly and explicitly clear that I in no way defend the MIL’s actions, and nothing I say herein should be interpreted as defending, excusing, or condoning what the MIL did.

But the OP then violated MIL’s privacy by snooping around. Sure it was with the intent to recover stolen property, but that can’t justify her actions. Why not? Simple. What if she didn’t find them in the nightstand? Would she have searched the bedroom? How much of the bedroom did she search before finding them in the nightstand? Would she have searched the entire house if she didn’t find them in the bedroom?

Finding the pictures doesn’t retroactively justify the search. Let me repeat that for those in the back: finding the pictures does NOT retroactively justify the search!

It’d be one thing if the pictures were in plain sight – though the MIL was clearly smart enough to ensure they weren’t. That OP had to go searching in closed drawers to find them puts her squarely in the wrong. Again, finding the pictures doesn’t retroactively justify the search!

* * * * *

“Defending principles is extremely difficult. But necessary.”

I said those words about 7 years ago with regard to Brock Turner, or rather the aftermath of his criminal trial. And herein those words ring true once again.

When I posted the above to Facebook, the feedback was… far from supportive, to say the least. And the responses, much like the responses on the Reddit thread, all took much the same position that the theft not only justified the search, but that the OP would’ve been in the right to show up at the MIL’s house, knock on the door or even just break in, and search the entire house till she found what she was looking for. That your protection against unreasonable searches – which the OP engaged in – means only the government is so enjoined.

And anyone who believes such really needs to study up on tort law.

Yes the Fourth Amendment enjoins the government. But underpinning the rights protected by the Bill of Rights (not created by them as many assert) are base principles without which the rights wouldn’t be a valid concept. The Second Amendment comes from the basic principle of self defense, that the only legitimate violence is to counter the immediate and illegitimate violence of others. And the Fourth Amendment comes from the basic principle that a person’s home is their castle, in which they have a very reasonable expectation of privacy. Inviting someone into your home doesn’t mean the invitee can just… snoop around, regardless of their rationale.

Rights govern how the government interacts with the people, but principles govern how we interact with each other. Something enshrined in criminal and civil law.

As such, the Fourth Amendment aside, the theft doesn’t justify the search. Finding the photos in the MIL’s bedroom does not retroactively justify her actions. If her actions can’t be justified by not finding the property, finding them doesn’t automatically make her actions justified. Again, it all comes down to base principles.

Starting with the Golden Rule when I said this in several variations:

As I said, how would you like it if someone just searched your home on the mere *allegation* you took something from them, even knowing you’re completely innocent? Would you just stand by and let them do it? Or would you demand they leave and call the police if they refused?

I think we all know the answer. But! it’s also clear you also expect to be able to freely search someone else’s home on the mere allegation they took something of yours… That’s why you don’t want to acknowledge that the OP is in the wrong. How dare someone invade your privacy, but Lord forbid if someone doesn’t let you invade theirs, or dares to say you’re in the wrong for doing so…

And the person to whom I made that comment said this in reply:

This isn’t a random “someone.” This is the MIL with a history of similar behavior. Perhaps you would have like for the DIL to call the cops on MIL, and have her arrested and the property searched pursuant to that arrest and warrant?

To which I said this:

Doesn’t matter that it’s the MIL, and it doesn’t matter that MIL has a prior history of similar behavior. None of that justifies the DIL’s invasion of the MIL’s privacy.

Again, would you let your neighbor search your home on the mere allegation you stole something from them? And would you search your neighbor’s home on the mere allegation they stole something from you?

Going through the police should only be a last resort. But DIL would’ve been free to threaten to bring in the police if the MIL didn’t return what she reasonably believed she had, then actually reporting the theft to the police if she failed to return the photos. The threat of and actually filing a lawsuit is also an option.

Searching the home is not a viable option, though. What if the pictures weren’t in the bedroom? Would OP have been justified in searching the house for them? Or is only searching the bedroom reasonable merely because she was able to do so somewhat covertly?

That they ultimately were found there is immaterial in determining if OP was in the right since, again, that OP found the photos in the nightstand cannot be used to retroactively justify her actions. You have to look at her actions in the moment, not in hindsight.

Often, unfortunately, the only reasonable action when you’ve been wronged in some way – e.g. something was stolen from you – is to just walk away from it. In this instance, it would’ve been to request new copies of the sonogram and the other photos from the physician, and then just cut ties with the ILs or, at the least, make sure they never again step foot in their home.

Part of the problem we all have is this desire to see all wrongs righted. Which unto itself is perfectly fine. The devil is in the details.

Reality, though, paints a far more bleak picture. There is no righting the vast majority of wrongs. No closure for the wronged. No justice for the wrongdoer. Crimes go unsolved. Many murder victims and missing individuals are never found, or forever remain unidentified when remains are recovered. Meaning family of the missing and unidentified are left with unanswered questions.

But let’s pull back from the bleak and think of the more common ways that we are “wronged” by someone.

Easily the most common anymore is being ghosted, or disconnected or outright blocked by someone on social media, regardless of the reason. For some reason it’s common to take that as a personal affront, where the blocked individual sees it as if they were insulted to their face. And as with everything else, there are healthy and unhealthy ways to respond.

And when someone blocks you on a social media platform, the healthy thing to do, the only reasonable thing to do, in my opinion, is… just walk away from it. Accept it and move on. Don’t contact the person in any other way. And as much as you’d want closure – to know why you were blocked – just walk away from it. Leave it one of the many unanswered questions of life.

And in the above case… the sonogram and other pictures can be reprinted. And the OP can deny the ILs access to the OP’s home since she apparently has a pattern of suspect behavior.

But searching their home for the pictures was beyond unreasonable. And it’s disgusting that many readily defend her behavior.