I was targeted in the Westminster honeytrap | Hacker News Reader

I was targeted in the Westminster honeytrap

bbc.com

13 pointskeepamovin27 comments

Just ask to send a quick selfie with the nose being hold like it stinks with the hand while doing rotating with the other hand over one's head. *

* The trick is here to realize that WhatsApp is mostly used with a mobile (especially when horny writing..) and you can't make a selfie where you need both hands. You need to put your phone aside with a timer or find other solutions. That takes time, needs a few tries for "where to put..", *does it look good..." Etc.. And you'll see it afterwards in the pic sent. If it's generated, then you'll pretty fast get a reply with a selfie where both hands are doing exactly like wanted..

Thank me later. Bye.

Yeah this "pose photo" idea is a good way to quickly vet if people are real -- or at least it was before AI!!!

Now you have to ask for something "impossible" like using two hands to do sth (implying, still needing the mobile with one of the hands and no one had three of them) if it's a scam, they may be just put it in Generative without questioning. If it's a real human, there might be a response "how should I do that with two hands? photoing with the third??" or it takes a while, because it's an unpreparable, surprising situation. So the camera will be re-put to different positions, with checks how the photo looks like and eventual re-doings, because the photo looks like s*iat. Generative would deliver without questioning in perfect quality within a few seconds.

Just like when one writes you "just woke up. Still on bed" and you demand a photo and get one sent, showing perfectly makeupped beautiful face - "SO, WHEN EXACTLY DID YOU HAVE TIME TO PUT MAKEUP ON?" the face

Ok but they could just ask a friend to take the picture. Doesn't have to be really that hard haha! :)

Usually, when you're horny, there's no friend around to help you :) At least, with me it's like that.

And even if they ask, it takes a longer time as it takes with Generative. That's your differentiator for friend or scam :)

Or, other possibility is to ask to take a pic out of their window and then take that pic and put it into reverse image search. If it's found somewhere else, it's a scam.

I think they’d just wait. I don’t think there’s a good way. It’s not a real differentiator. probably FaceTime is the best.

I guess people just have to go back to the old ways - meeting in real life! or accept that they may be talking to a bot. Ha ha ha! :-)

That this "honeytrap" worked so easily really says a lot about the low calibre of people holding high office.

If you offer up a nude selfie to someone who texted you 10 minutes prior or just matched with on grindr, you are not qualified to write, review or even vote on legislation for the country.

In an alternative world we just stop giving so many shits about nude selfies. Someone messages you and sends you a nude selfie in 10 minutes and you feel like sending one back? If everyone is of age, then who cares. Just two freaky people being freaky. Even if one is likely not who they represent, that’s not a knock on the victim.

The fact that nudity and sex drive is stigmatized is the very thing that empowers these scammers.

That's a solution too I suppose, but, ah...harder to get to for the whole society than just punishing scammers. Although if you can give yourself that attitude it's probably pretty empowering haha! :) Nothing to hide, nothing can be used to blackmail you with.

But, I wonder how that will work going forward with AI generated photos? Suppose it could cut both ways. Like, if you're okay with everything in your life, nothing can be used to blackmail you with -- but what about fake stuff, that people lie about, could that still be used to pressure you? Maybe, maybe not -- depends on the person I suppose.

Not for me, I don't think anyone could get to me with lies, and i don't have anything to hide. But I'm more like what you're talking about: self empowered attitude. It's not for everybody perhaps, but works for me. Hahahaha! :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badger_game

I am now learning that:

"A famous person known to have fallen victim of the scheme was the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton%E2%80%93Reynolds_affa...

"Yeah but you are clearly the same person as yesterday," I said. At this point Abi appeared to admit that she was indeed Charlie. "I was sad you blocked me," she said. I twice asked Abi "who are you?", getting no clear response, before she replied: "What are you expecting me to say? I was horny and I messaged you. That's kind of it." For want of a better phrase, I was now really creeped out. I blocked Abi again. But I was surprised by how violating it felt to have someone being so strange to me over my phone.

Omg, it's all playing on male psychology and sexuality. It's pretty fuckin predatory.

Did you expect some tamer form of extortion?

Huh, but what I'm saying is it's surprising to target male sexuality and psychology. And it's predatory.

Why is that surprising? And all extortion methods are predatory by their very nature.

Huh, but what I’m saying is it’s predatory to target male psychology and sexuality.

well yes. I'm a bit confused what you're suprised about. We're talking about a major case of extortion. Extortion is indeed extremely predatory. The whole point is that you do something so deeply unpleasant that the other person is forced to do what you want. So yes, it involved deeply unpleasant methods.

I guess I'm just surprised that people can be so awful and target you when you're vulnerable in your most intimate interactions and psychology.

But I feel this whole line of questioning around "why surprising? why special?" sounds like it wants to dismiss or diminish how bad this is. Is that commenters like yourself and Festro are intending? Are you guys trying to normalize this?

I think it's wrong to not be surprised. To hold onto morality and expect things should be different! Haha :)

Hardly surprising at all. It's one of the oldest tricks in spycraft.

Spies, liars and scammers. Thick as thieves it seems.

I think it is surprising that people can be so bad, and abusive. It sounds like you want to say it's not so bad afterall. Is that your intention?

It also relies on the targets being gormless - no shortage of that in our MPs (leaders - I hate to use that term).

Everyone has gormless moments.

Not everyone has top secret clearence and likes to compromise themselves whenever the oportunity presents itself.

True. But Whitehall/Westminster has frequently been a den of iniquity, that's no surprise, right? At least to some extent. But most MPs do not have security clearances at the SC or DV (security check or developed vetting) levels unless their roles necessitate it. UK clearances are different to US. Being an MP in itself does not require access to classified information.

I guess so, but I mean, believing in love and happiness and ... sex... is not gormless? I mean the quoted interaction is a pretty low bar. Probably a lot more sophisticated lies that happen. Just awful that you can't trust people like that, in your intimate moments you can't trust, when you're supposed to be able to. I don't think that's about gormless, I think that's about other people being awful. These liars and scammers.

Yeah that is the "honey" part of the trap. Slightly different than e.g. an ssh honey pot

That’s pretty much standard practice for espionage and extortion, at least during the last few centuries, and probably more.

Men are known to be vulnerable to these kind of manipulation attacks, and the exploit is common in the wild.

Since production support on humanity was EOL before written history, it hasn’t been patched.

We are unfortunately stuck with whatever we can patch together based on reverse engineering the product and hacking in what we can sort out.

It doesn’t help that forking and pull requests are total chaos, and there is zero consensus as to what represents the current build, much less the SOTA.

It’s so common, in fact, for people to get together in pairs or small groups for recreational forking that the current builds are now in the billions, with no version control whatsoever.

It’s just total damn chaos.

Hahaha, yeah man. Totally! Hahah! :)

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