All the psychological tricks of a good one...
Let me list those while I am telling the story of half an hour of lost attention and a trap almost jumped into.
Using the authority of famous people
The bad guys were capitalizing on the YouTube algorithms that would shove videos in your face based on your previously watched ones. Since I am often looking at stuff about crypto, investing, entrepreneurship, and the like, I fit the target audience quite nicely.
A Live video of a certain Musk, a certain Dorsey, and a certain (lady of the) Woods talking about Bitcoin. What's not to be hyped about? So, I went into it out of interest in the things they would say.
It took me quite a while to realize the topics were kind of months old and they were not live at all. Many other things happened before that.
A small video conference window as if streaming within a larger Promotion-screaming frame. It said Ark Investment were giving away some crypto to those who would first send smaller amounts from their wallets. Same old, same old but...authority used. It was Ark Investment, come on, Cathie Wood's company, it sounded legit. And so did the channel the video was playing on, and believing it was a live show...oh, the damage it will do.
It is still doing! I go to my home page and I find this "live" thing again. The mindless algorithms!
Does it get stopped in any way? Well, yeah. But it appears again from another similar channel, another "giveaway" domain. You're lucky like me if you can wait and see the change after the video goes inactive. The new version was among the Suggested stuff on my home page, again. As I said, twenty four hours later, it still is.
The Expected Instant Gratification
"We will immediately send the double amount back you"
back you
Was this error always there? Hard to see. The greedy side of us shrouds everything.
Was there a link outside the video window? I think so. Usually, I hover above any link to see if the domain is the same as the one written in the link title. Some links might be programmed to open on a hover, though. Or at least that was an option back in the dark ages of the second decade of the XIX century.
Anyway, I did visit the site to see what they would offer there.
Some...
Sense of Urgency...
...at last. The giveaway would be active only while the limited amount of coins lasted. A total of 35 000 000 USD worth.
You could see something that resembled a hash verification display. A wallet address to send to, after you picked your coin. A calculator to tell you how much double your sacrifice is. The blockchain-monitoring site displayed was not an active link, though. I could not go there, I only saw what they allowed visitors to see. The verification was only displayed as if in real time but not verifiable.
Funny.
Another funny thing was...
The wallets displayed that sent coins in did not match the wallets displayed that got the double amount. The recipient wallet you had to send to always matched the one provided on the site. A QR code to made it easy, a button to copy it to your clipboard. That's how you take care of customers and your business.
Yet another funny thing...
The comments were disabled for the channel that would play the video. Not the usual situation with this kind of casters (the moderator of the conference) who like the engagement.
The numbers did not add...
Or they did too much. Watching the "transactions" being displayed, I noticed some integer numbers of Bitcoins which would pass the 35 000 000 USD mark in a matter of minutes. But it would not end.
(And still hasn't as of Jan the 23th, ANNO 2022)
Easy to spot the telltale signs in hindsight.
But them bad guys depend on you being emotional and in a hurry for the quick buck. You might say there isn't such a thing as a quick buck but have you watched bucks running? I have. I mean, I have been airdropped, I am being airdropped, I might continue to receive bonus assets in the future. Sometimes we do get lucky and we do gain quite the fortunes as if out of thin air, never mind the time spend into the field.
The best way to protect people is to educate them about the dangers out there foundation of our brave new world.
Few would rather educate themselves, though. My guess is more people out there will get burned badly. I even guess there will be people who would fall for this more than once. Like this..."live"
trick with authority-ladden characters is powerful, indeed.
Those who're afraid of bears should not venture into the woods, though...
That pun attempt did not go tremendously well.
Peace and Prudence!
Yours,
Manol