AI is undoubtedly the technology of the year for hacks and scams. While scammers are busy using AI to make scams more convincing, scam baiters are fighting back with ingenious grandma-style AIs that keep scammers busy for hours on end. There have also been some spectacular busts of scam centers. What’s next, AI scammers chatting with AI scam baiters? Now, that would be entertaining.

Resources

• Meet Daisy, the AI 'granny' chatbot that wastes the time of phone scammers
• SpaceX disables thousands of Starlink devices being used by Myanmar scam centers
• China sentences 5 to death for building, running criminal gang fraud centers in Myanmar's lawless borderlands
• Myanmar has declared a 'zero tolerance' policy for cyberscams, but the fraud goes on
• Content creators, banks use AI to waste scammers' time
• Kitboga on YouTube: I Built a Bot Army that Scams Scammers

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Ever get your hair cut and wonder, "Is my barber part of an international scammer ring?" In November 2025, the FBI arrested Victor Marion, the owner of Mecca Barber Shop in San Diego, and eighteen of his buddies for scamming elderly victims out of $40 million with the classic tech support and refund scams, and for laundering the funds through the shop. Come along and find out how the scams worked, and learn what's next for Marion and his friends.

Resources:

• 22 charged in elder scam targeting over 500 seniors: FBI San Diego
• Feds: Barbershop owner led California-based laundering cell in $40 million elder fraud scheme
• Case Number 25CR4061-TWR-01, reviewed via Pacer

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If Facebook has seemed scammy for the past few years, it's not your imagination. A leaked internal document shows that Facebook, and its parent company Meta, are well aware that many of their ads and posts are scams, but they make too much money off of them to do anything about it. Get all the details on this scathing report from Reuters that has rocked the scambuster world.

Resources

• Reuters report: Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show
• Maggie McGaugh on YouTube
• Pleasant Green on YouTube

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Do you tap "Accept" without reading subscriber agreements? Those long-winded documents can strip away your legal rights, and even hijack your face, your voice, and your life. Let's peek inside the dystopian world of Subscriber Agreements for streaming services and see what little goodies they hold for us.

• Netflix in Your Neighborhood Privacy Policy
• Netflix Privacy Policy
• Disney+ Subscriber Agreement
• Disney agrees to have Florida wrongful death lawsuit decided in court
• What Do Consumers Understand About Predispute Arbitration Agreements? An Empirical Investigation
• Disney wants to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit because of a Disney Plus agreement

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October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and it's time to clean house! Let's get rid of all those dust bunnies (weak passwords) and vacuum under the sofa cushions (no multi-factor authentication) and even do a check under the bed for that half-eaten Pop Tart (vulnerable emails). Hear about a few instances where poor cybersecurity led to unfortunate consequences, so you can avoid the same fate.

Resources

• $61K, gone just like that for Oro Valley couple.
• Dream Kitchen Renovation Ruined by a Scam
• PassGAN: A Deep Learning Approach for Password Guessing
• Historic UK KNP transport firm collapses after ransomware attack
• Hacker leaks account data of 12 million Zacks Investment users
• Researchers Instantly Crack Simple Passwords With AI
• Lost $45k to Wire Fraud Scam on E*TRADE – Even with MFA Enabled.

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AI is great for researching topics and digging up information. But what happens when people start to humanize their chatbots, and think they're talking to God? Or that they are God? Let's look at what makes AI come up with delusional theories, and why it tells people they're right even then they're wrong.

Resources

• People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
• Towards Understanding Sycophancy in Language Models
• I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

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There's a new scam going around, where a thief gets you to unlock your phone under the guise of needing to make a call, then runs off with the phone and sends themselves all your money through your apps. Learn how to protect yourself and your money with a simple smartphone trick for iPhone and Android.

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The finale of HBO's Silicon Valley series pointed up a subtle parallel to the real-world challenges in vulnerability reporting—rather than risk going to jail, Pied Piper chose to burn the company to the ground. For decades, white hat and gray hat hackers had no place to report cybersecurity flaws without fear of legal hassles. Nowadays we have Bug Bounty programs, where hackers get paid to find and disclose security flaws, and even get some cash for their work.

Resources

• Internet Scanner Finds Security Holes
• CERIAS - Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security
• A history of bug bounty programs & incentivised vulnerability disclosure
• Wearing Many Hats: The Rise of the Professional Security Hacker
• Hacking the Pentagon

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