[Annoying] Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, or some other such nonsense.

[Iowatech]

An article from Slashdot shows the plight of an elderly person who probably got taken advantage of by dialer hijacker malware.
Now there's something I haven't heard about in over a decade.
I was on Compuserve dialup for quite a while back in the day, and at least there the modem dialing commands including the phone number were part of the Compuserve software. Dialer hijacking malware would change the phone number to a 900 number or a similar service in a foreign country, so that a person would have to pay a massive charge per minute which would go to the scammers. As 900 numbers and their ilk are legal services the person who got duped was required to pay the bill.
One of the selling points of the decent antivirus programs then was to prevent exactly this from happening.
Something to think about.

[CompyTech]

Re: Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, or some other such nonsens

This elderly person was paying like $50 a month for landline service, and had AOL dialup?! I wonder if his computer was running Windows 98?!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[fixthecopier]

Re: Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, or some other such nonsens

It's sad. We have elderly bring computers in that they paid way to much for, have little to no features and they bought them from big name stores. One poor old vet brought in a tower that was so simple, it looked like something a jr high student did for his first project. He paid 4 or 500 from Best Buy.

[theengel]

Re: Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, or some other such nonsens

What pisses me off is when some old guy calls me to install a printer for $95. They insist I come in and do it even though I offer to walk them through it on the phone. I finally agree, and usually charge 1/2 $. While I'm there, I find out they have kids or grandkids who could've done it but who haven't visited them in months. I had one widow whose boy was an IT pro.

[fixthecopier]

Re: Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, or some other such nonsens

I learned with my father that older people don't understand the new stuff. It changes too quick for them. After he passed away, I got mom to get a new computer and she is learning fast, but still has lots of questions. Getting them to change for the new and improved anything is hard. We have folks come in to get old outdated printers fixed, because it is the one their mom or dad is used to.

[theengel]

Re: Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, or some other such nonsens

My dad actually taught me to work on printers. He's retired from the field now. I had to work hard to get him to break away from his old LJ 4000 to a 4250. Now I'm trying to get him to use a M600.