It's really amazing Kitboga has built something like this - he knows this space extremely well and has the knowledge to understand what it takes to protect people from getting scammed.
The $2 / mo pricing is beyond reasonable if you're trying to protect your grandparents or non-tech savvy parents from getting scammed.
It's always nice to see a YouTuber diversifying and branching out into "real" business. And kitboga is one of the few YouTubers whose videos make an obviously net positive impact on the world, so he deserves success, and he's clearly got the promotional and technical skills to find it. Assuming this is actually "his" company (and he's not just a spokesman as some comments are implying), then best of luck to him, and I hope he's able to achieve his vision.
If nothing else, they sure do know the VC space: Using AI powered technology, fake virus pop-ups are identified and a warning message will be displayed.https://archive.is/5uG3f
What makes you read this as VC keyword stuffing rather than a straightforward explanation of how the product works? I assume they're using AI for content recognition and semantic analysis.
Call me a skeptic, but saying you're "very closely tied" sounds to me like he's getting paid to be their spokesperson and nothing more. It's not like he said he's a cofounder, investor, executive, designer, or any other real role in the company, he's just "very closely tied"
Honestly doesn't feel like much more than a celebrity endorsement.
Seraph Secure was completely Kit's brainchild. It was inspired by a victim he helped restore and years of scambaiting. He was a software dev before he started scambaiting so coding is a passion. He has limits so he hired a team of software engineers to help him develop it from the ground up. He also has had people from his Twitch community participate in testing and contributing ideas. The idea is to fill in the cracks that traditional blockers don't cover but to work with them. A unique feature is a guardian of an elderly or vulnerable family member will be notified with email/text alert if certain things occur on their computer. Common things from scams like downloading screen connection software, pulling up the tree command, net stat, etc not only causes a pop up warning but will notify the guardian that it is happening giving them a chance to stop the scam in real time. There's a lot more but, this is more than a celebrity endorsement.
The link now says he co-founded it, before I was just hearing "very closely tied," which to me is just really odd phrasing, it's something you say when you don't want to say very much.
Given that he is probably the single most recognizable figure in the space, and has been exclusively focused on it for many years, and additionally clearly has the technical skills and people skills to sell it,..., I really don't see a single thing that would make me doubt him being involved in some way.
Did he literally write every last line of code? Yeah I don't know but that sounds unlikely. Is it probably the case that he has some sort of financial stake in launching this, given his position and reputation? Yeah I think so. It doesn't seem remotely plausible that somebody hit him up like a week ago and offered him so much money that he'd be willing to risk the good thing he's already got going by shilling for some product he knows nothing about and has no control over. He is probably reasonably sure that he can influence the direction of the product of he is willing to place some of his own reputation on the line as it appears is happening.
Dunno, I'd rather think kitboga is actually involved. Parasocial relationship notwithstanding, he doesn't strike me as the guy to blur the line between project and brand deal.
Seraph Secure was Kit's idea. He hired a team and he has been working with them on it for a year. He did Alpha testing with some of his Twitch community and now opening up to the public. He is working on a Mac version, Android, and iPhone apps. After that the goal is to add more languages.
This sounds like it is a good first step and I appreciate someone is trying to tackle a problem that bilks people out of billions a year. Another thing that would help is hitting at the sources of revenue for these criminals. My mother was bilked of Amazon gift cards after she was told she had her identity stolen by Indian scammers and had to provide restitution. She was panicked that her identity was stolen and called me. The first thing I said was did they request gift cards? And of course that answer was yes. This was after she sent them $1500 and they wanted more.
Perhaps there should be some warning that is required before a gift card purchase that warns the purchaser of scams. I know some stores are doing this now when they see someone buying a bunch of gift cards, and sometimes preventing victimization. But perhaps legislation is needed here due to the scale of loss. I am not in favor of a nanny state, but sometimes people need to be told things.
Kitboga has shown in his videos where a victim will be at the store, and will either see a sign that warns about gift card scams, or is specifically told by the cashier, and still buys them.
Why? Because often the scammer already has remote access to their computer and has threatened to lock it permanently, or take over their bank account, or whatever else. Maybe they’ve already used the infamous Inspect Element to ‘zero’ their bank account. Scam or not, the victim believes that they’ve already lost.
You would need a cashier to have, essentially, Kitboga-level knowledge of current scams so they could accurately explain why the victim shouldn’t buy the cards, explain that their bank account is actually safe, and also ideally provide instructions on how to the scammer off their computer. That probably goes beyond the scope of most cashiers.
My guess is that stores that sell gift cards would not favor the passage of regulations that could endanger the profit they are currently making on gift cards. For them, this is basically free money, and may contribute meaningfully to their profitability. Grocery stores have very low margins, and have to deal with spoilage and expend labor restocking perishable goods every day. Gift cards are a breeze, by comparison. They don't go bad, or take up much space.
Probably a bigger percent of total GC sales by volume than by number of transactions. I assume legit purchases are $25-50, and scam-induced purchases are larger, perhaps much larger.
There also credit card churning. Though people who do that are certainly know what are they doing and not gonna be diswayed from buying gift cards by anti-scam warnings.
I think every store in the nearest town makes you talk to the manager if you want to buy more than $100 in gift cards at one time. I never considered that this is what that was for.
As a Indian, I feel sorry for her. A scammer also stole my ₹600 ($7.21, Its still a lot here) by fooling me that his mother needs the money for medicine and that he will return it.
Are PC-based scams really all that common these days?
All the ones I get are things like fake package deliveries or nonexistent tax debts, which I don't see this as protecting against.
Thinking about it, though, I wonder if there would be a market for a more premium service where all calls/texts from unknown numbers are routed through a call centre in the Philippines and the spam/scams are filtered out.
> Are PC-based scams really all that common these days?
Ultra common. My mother in law fell for one: only 350 EUR but still...
I confiscated her Windows laptop and had her buy a Chromebook.
Most private Windows installations are security nightmare where a single click on "Yes" installs malware with admin rights: some things just never change and that's why so many people get scammed.
A Chromebook with the DNS set to 1.1.1.3 [1] goes a long way to protecting grandma...
[1] 1.1.1.3 is CloudFlare's anti-malware+anti-porn DNS: I know, I know, it's CloudFlare and some here don't like them... But I actually like CloudFlare, especially their stock I bought @ 48 USD so now I root for them!
I mean, is that not also the case on Unix machines (ignoring stuff like Android for the time being).
It's hardly that much more effort to type sudo and enter a password, the problem is and has always been the users. By that I mean the vast majority of Windows users haven't got a clue what they are doing.
Linux is more secure not due necessarily to any active interest in security. If anything, we are vastly more skeptical of the security industry than the average windows admin in a traditional company. The design of the operating system really has very little to do with practical security these days, it's all down to the users.
It's also the case that a lot of non-malware on Windows behaves like malware. Microsoft supports and enables in various ways what are essentially backdoors for vendors to install rootkit esque junk in enterprise managed computers.
Linux kernel devs aren't going to be nearly as receptive to do such a thing because of the obvious problem of attack surface enlargement. Microsoft is not concerned at all about the actual security of their computers, they are concerned with looking like they care about security to their business partners that have a massive financial interest involved in ensuring that their biggest cash cow platform and set of users cannot ever stop paying protection money. And they'll make sure to feed your data to their AI models behind your back while they are at it.
The security industry is the only industry I'm aware of that can have worse and worse results year over year yet continually maintain a positive reputation and receive more and more investment and funding without any demands ever being placed on them to deliver measurable, permanent security improvements. The whole thing, from top to bottom, is itself a kind of scam.
You'd think Norton, McAfee et al would be interested in selling this kind of a product. Not that I trust them much nowadays, but it seems like an obvious opportunity that fits well with their other business.
I wonder if there is some way to prevent the scam where the scammer is editing the html using the browser developer tools to change the web page on the fly to show as if the victims bank account was incorrectly deposited.
Does anyone know if they plan a localized (specifically: German) version? If this actually works well, I'd be interested in getting this for my dad, he's older and not always clear since his aneurysm.
In the stream today I recall Kit saying something about how they would like to localize it at some point. He didn't give any ETAs for the feature, though.
I sometimes challenge myself and see how long I can keep scam callers on the line.
Don't hang up! "Just hangup" is a government conspiracy to increase scammers effectiveness.
I've found the strategy of just responding "yes" to every question to be a good balance between time wasted and expended cognitive effort. Obviously, you'll want to be careful to not engage in any contract, but when they're calling to reduce the interest rate on my visa/mastercard or amex debit card (uhhhhhh), it works.
# Never hang up.
Just don't talk..leave the phone on, though. They are paid to scam, snd to scam you need information from the recipient - no talking = no income.
You'll end up on a blacklist (as a timewaster!).
But a good one to be on.
If by democracy, you mean unlimited majority rule, you'd be right regardless of how susceptible the population is to scams. But I suspect you don't mean that.
Rather than one big democracy, you have dozens. New York, California and Texas get to do whatever they want but they don't get to tell each other how to live. Then people like me can move somewhere with low taxes that leaves you alone and those who want it can move Uncle Sam into their guest bedroom. We will all get together if someone invades. Like a weaker EU.
Technically sure, but in practice states have little difference between them. Any issue of consequence is federalized, can't have a low tax state with federal taxes being so high for example.
Those states have a hell of a lot more variance in their government systems than other modern republics, e.g. in Western Europe. I think your calibration is way off on this topic.
Do you see a problem coming up here? "Why should we protect X if they don't do things the way we do?" (This sentiment already exists in the US today, it would just get more common)
Beacuse they would do the same. We currently have mutual defence pacts with nations that do a lot worse than any of your neighbors would do. Don't have to like someone to engage in a mutual defense.
id love to peek into the alternate timeline where America still won the revolutionary war, but stayed not united. what kind of empires and alliances would have formed? what wars would have been fought? would technological advancements have stayed regional or even come to fruition at all? what would the borders in the Americas even look like?
Yes, if only we made you dictator and subjected ourselves to your capricious whims, you would surely rule over us benevolently and somehow stop the foreign scammers from conning our grandmothers. Sounds like a great plan!
What then? A non-democratic republic, e.g. a dictatorship of a committee? A monarchy, which is little more than a dictatorship crossed with religion/tradition?
I'd suggest that anyone coming into a comment section with vague anti-democratic platitudes is not worthy of a good faith discussion over their precise meaning. If they're unwilling to state their position outright, I think it's entirely fair to chalk them up as a dog-whistling fascist in the current climate.
I invited him to clarify his remarks and he has not chosen to do so. Being deliberately vague when criticizing democracy is a bad look but whatever he really believes is evidently even worse.
The $2 / mo pricing is beyond reasonable if you're trying to protect your grandparents or non-tech savvy parents from getting scammed.