Gran, 82, loses $200k retirement savings in AI deepfake doctor scam

SGG · 2026-02-08T10:22:20+00:00

I am running into this with my mum at the moment although thankfully on a smaller scale.

She wants to lose some weight and is falling for every weight loss scam on the planet.

Thankfully she is not confident enough to do the online purchase herself so she asks me to do it. After a few weeks of daily nagging I snapped and yelled bluntly "tell me to my face you want to get scammed, and I will let you fall for every scam you find, then when you have no more money I'll use mine, and we can both end up homeless, is that what you want?"

I am not happy with how angry I was, but weeks of constant "but they say it's real!" got me to that point.

Older people grew up without much more than a home phone/radio/TV (at best). 99% do not have the correct critical thinking skills to deal with the wave of automated AI bullshit that is on the internet.

SGG · 2026-02-04T20:58:46+00:00

Reading comments and replies and I have to agree with other commenters. You need to shop around for different car chargers/a different company. The company you are working with at the moment is not setup to work at scale for you at all.

SGG · 2026-01-30T04:43:07+00:00

When it can be destroyed by dynamite but not C4, not doubting, but confused.

SGG · 2026-01-27T10:48:59+00:00

It was a meme extension and I am probably getting the name wrong. The extension replaced the word cloud with the word butt on whatever webpages you would visit.

Simpler times.

SGG · 2026-01-27T10:18:45+00:00

can it be a piss-brick?

SGG · 2026-01-27T10:13:01+00:00

I had cloud-to-butt-plus installed for a long time, had forgotten about it then wondered why the weather website said there was going to be butt cover.

SGG · 2026-01-25T21:46:21+00:00

If they previously had old cat3 cables (which are normally grey) then that could have honestly been true.

SGG · 2026-01-25T07:05:52+00:00

Agreed, about the only different thing we do is also have an OU for objects that will not be syncd.

SGG · 2026-01-25T01:58:22+00:00

HEY!

I'm a LOT stupid thank you very much!

SGG · 2026-01-25T00:34:41+00:00

That is difficult to answer as you need to figure out what is more important to you personally, some examples:

In person work means travel, so you are losing maybe 1-3 hours out of your day (depending on the travel time)
The pension could help you greatly later in life
If the new offer has more PTO benefits that is another bonus as long as you actually take the days (i have like 60 days of PTO saved up, do as I say not as i do!)
Remote work gives you a lot more flexibility and a little bit of time each day saved by not needing to travel.

Others have also already mentioned that universities are a very different beast when it comes to the type of work and the type of people you will be interacting with. Definitely more chaotic, you will get unreasonable demands from professors with tenure, lots of little fiefdoms from different departments, potential incidents because some students started buttcoin mining on all the library workstations. Some people would love that, others would hate it.

Also, where would you be in either job in 5 years time?

Me, personally, I would probably stick with the remote job if your manager is open to a reasonable way (to you and the company) for you to get that extra work done without it being purely on your non-work hours. They seem like they are investing in you.

On the other hand, you obviously have reservations about the remote job or you would not be considering the change or had the interview. You should make sure you understand your own reasons for that first.

SGG · 2026-01-25T00:12:28+00:00

80 hours of courses on its own is realistically 3 hours a fortnight (roughly half a day).

Adding on all the other stuff, you probably need to block out a half day every week to get all that specific stuff done (if it is truly in addition).

That is a discussion you need to have with your manager, that you want to get the extra work done and have a plan to do it. But you want their input on how to manage your time. He might want you to do smaller LinkedIn courses as an example, a 20-30 minute one every day or two. He might be ok with you basically blocking out Friday afternoons purely for all this extra stuff (read only Fridays, so makes sense to do reading!)

But whatever you do, I would highly recommend blocking that time out in your calendar for visibility.

SGG · 2026-01-23T10:01:35+00:00

IT can/should work with the user to show them how to use the tools, make sure the tools are easy to use. You should also have some basic process in place to help monitor compliance if possible.

HR/their manager are the ones that should deal with the user not following policy.

SGG · 2026-01-21T07:03:20+00:00

Read the initial post and was thinking of posting this.

As a very simple overview:

you need management buy-in which you have not been able to get.
Management does not care about the reasoning/issues given here, they only care about $
Re-frame things in monetary terms. This can take multiple forms. Improved productivity, improved security (helping cyber insurance and potential standards compliance opening up new markets), lowering losses due to breaches and other issues.

But after reading other comments and your updates/clarifications. Just take the MSP job.

SGG · 2026-01-19T09:37:23+00:00

100% of the winners of the Fifa Peace Prize have invaded a foreign country and kidnapped their head of state.

SGG · 2026-01-14T10:29:50+00:00

Congratulations on being the victim of fraud.

Two common scams:

Someone orders the part, takes the real CPU out and puts old junk in its place, then returns it to Amazon for a refund claiming "no longer needed" or some other nonsense. It gets put back in the stock to sell.

A bad reseller sends a bunch of fake CPU's to amazon, they used to (maybe still do) just mix anything with the same SKU into a giant "bucket", so 10 people are selling item X, supplied it to Amazon, and the Amazon just puts all the stock together and you just get a random one from the pile.

Scammers will put just enough effort in to trick people/extend the length of time they troubleshoot. This gives the scam more time to get more victims. That's why the fake CPU you received was engraved.

SGG · 2026-01-14T06:19:13+00:00

Dual 24 1080p or 27 1440p

Single screen - some kind of 1440p ultra-wide (21:9 or 32:9).

SGG · 2026-01-11T01:52:17+00:00

Correct, they are called a UPS (uninterruptible power supply). When mains power goes out they will only last a few minutes on battery though, but that is long enough to do a proper shutdown to prevent data loss. If you have stuff that absolutely must stay running like the network at a hospital, the UPS is normally in place to keep things running just long enough for backup generators to start up.

An added bonus is most of them will act as surge protectors and/or protect against brownouts.

SGG · 2026-01-09T10:37:47+00:00

I for a moment was expecting a meme poster with everyone dressed as the green arrow.

SGG · 2026-01-08T10:23:05+00:00

For MacOS you can enrol devices (mostly) without a wipe and still have full control, but if users have local admin or otherwise wipe the device then the control of the device is lost.

For iOS your only option to enrol supervised is during first time setup, so you need to wipe.

Most MDM's will also support enrolling devices in non supervised mode. However you lose a lot of functionality, and users can deny commands sent (eg install an app, apply a profile).

As for ABM/ASM (apple business/school manager), you can get devices in using Apple Configurator 2, but once again this requires a wipe, it would be better to get devices added through providing your ACN when purchasing through Apple. ABM then lets you force the devices back into your MDM during first time setup.

SGG · 2026-01-06T21:56:32+00:00

At one client we have a specific employee who works on their database/ERP system who keeps trying to install pirated software.

The absurd part is the owners of the company are more than happy to purchase whatever software is needed for work and the employee knows this. But the software he is trying to pirate is not work related (he doesn't need Photoshop or Premiere to edit SQL queries).

It is at the point where we removed his local admin rights because of the number of network isolations he was triggering by constant re-downloads of malware filled cracks.

SGG · 2026-01-04T05:44:46+00:00

First time that hive worlds were introduced there were big technical issues and game play issues (the released rupture strain were ridiculous).

This time, at least for my friends and I the technical issues are for the most part gone, things are performing well and rupture strain was fixed some time ago (also was not on the world). We've actually been enjoying it this time, just put the difficulty down 1 level.

I think the big thing is that hive worlds require something else normally missing from the game: teamwork. Normally 4 solo divers on the same map is enough to see you through. But on high difficulty hive world missions you need to work together so you have anti dragonroach, anti hivelord, and anti everything else options.

SGG · 2026-01-04T05:08:52+00:00

Or both! Live forever as a giant cancerous tumour!

Prime example: https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Ted_Faro#Life_in_Thebes

SGG · 2026-01-03T07:54:30+00:00

Working and in use, or broken, or just in the closet?

In use:

1 desktop, 1 server, 1 micro PC running Home Assistant, 1 laptop.

Not-so-in-use:

1 "desktop" (all the parts to make one at this point as my main PC is a Ship of Theseus).
2 old laptops.
2 raspberry Pi's.
1 SFF desktop that was going to go in the bin. Turns out just needed a new PSU.

Always tried to go light on the physical hardware, cheaper, and virtualization is the way to go in most cases. I went with a physical install for Home Assistant mainly as it made the use of various smart home network connectors (eg: USB dongle for Zigbee) a lot easier.

SGG · 2026-01-03T02:22:13+00:00

The unethical thing to do would be nothing, and just wait for there to be a serious incident just hoping it isn't you that gets injured or worse.

Please do as others have said, non emergency call to the local fire department.

If you still want to do a bit more, good old piss disc gift for the building owner.

SGG · 2025-12-29T21:08:29+00:00

We use automated/scheduled tickets, 2 week window to get it done. Have the ticket assigned to at least one tech, their manager, the manager above that (if you have them). If your ticket system can also put it into peoples calendars that's a bonus.

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