Floods of FUD

When I start up the Chromium browser on my Raspberry Pi OS machine I have started to get floods of pop-ups from frameboxxindore.com with FUD: your computer is in danger, renew your McAfee antivirus now and suchlike rubbish. How do I stop it?

I don’t know how to stop it. But these are the types of things to consider depending on the severity: Remove Chromium and purge its settings; delete all cookies; check AdBlocker (Redshield) is activated; block the domain; install ClamAV and do a scan.

A final thought: install Pi-hole.

Ghostery reports 30+ blocked items (with the count increasing over time) associated with a domain takiparkrb dot site on the main page of that framebox site.

To me, that suggests that the site has a problem.

Pi-hole indeed; no home should be without one.

How do I stop it?

Somewhere along the way you landed on a malware site that hijacked your browser, it probably tricked you into accepting or allowing something.

Typically the site frameboxx tricks you into allowing it to send you notifications (I’m sure you’ve figured out that the antivirus you’re urgently supposed to install is anything but benign).

The hard way:

If it’s like Chrome, try chrome://settings/content/notifications and look for the section about being allowed to send notifications. Turn em off, any site you don’t recognise.
Wander around and see if you can find the URLs for new tabs and the main opening page (I bet they point somewhere different now), and also the default search provider.

The easier way: hard nuke. chrome://settings/resetProfileSettings
(shouldn’t delete your passwords and history, but will reset everything else)
If that link doesn’t work, go to Settings, Advanced, and rummage around there for the reset options.

Gavin, going forward, assume that anything on the internet is out to trick you. If you don’t have complete trust in a site, do not give it any permissions or allow any notifications no matter how much it begs and tells you the sky will come crashing down without it. Some sites may need extra stuff, but these are usually e-commerce for linking with card handlers ^{1 2} or indeed your bank ³ but those are sites you’re actively engaged with. For everything else, blank refusal. No exceptions. There are few things on one site that can’t be found elsewhere.

that suggests that the site has a problem.

I think that site is the problem (or, at least, a part of it).

¹ I trust you use a one-time virtual card and not your actual real bank card, which I trust is blocked for online purchases.

² This part doesn’t apply to certain Acorn dealers that have yet to join the twentieth century, never mind the twenty first. :/

³ It’s quite depressing the rubbish that most bank sites try to link in to, it’s like security is something we must take seriously while they only pretend. But, then, what can we expect from an organisation that tells you, by email, that you should never follow links claiming to be from the bank in unsolicited emails…and then provides a link for further information. 🤦

Thanks for that, Rick. I have now looked a bit closer at the Chrome settings, and the pop-ups have stopped.
Danger is not only online. Last week a chap in a white van, with two kids, stopped outside my neighbour’s house. He came over and said excuse the noise while I work on your neighbour’s garage roof . Then, Oh look you have got a slipped tile on your roof. I will send up the drone to take a picture . Then Too windy. The lad can go up and take a picture . Before I could stop him he was up there. When he was down I was shown pictures of damaged ridge tiles and all sorts of stuff. He said it would cost £2000 to put right. I told him that I was not the sole owner of the house, it would have to be arranged through a solicitor. He then took himself off, and the next day I got someone I trusted to go up and see if the lad had done any damage. Luckily he had not. I soon discovered that my neighbour had not employed him, that he had no drone, that the pictures had been prepared beforehand and that this scam had been going all round the neighbourhood.

I will send up the drone to take a picture . Then Too windy. The lad can go up and take a picture

Wow, it’s astonishing he got that far into his patter. You’re too trusting.

If an unknown unsolicited person started talking about drones or people doing any picture taking, I’d pull the phone out of my pocket and make damn sure they can see me entering 17.
That’s the rozzers.

Already had that issue with the bloke that turned up at half nine. Now my tolerance for strangers is set very low.
And strangers that want to start photographing the place? I’ll have the police on the line before they reach the end of the sentence.

the pictures had been prepared beforehand

Bastard was probably looking for cameras, alarms, poorly secured windows…

Wow, it’s astonishing he got that far into his patter.

“Did you know you’ve got a couple of cracked tiles on…”

[interrupting] "oh, have I? Thanks for that, I’ll get my nephew to look at it and sort it, he’s in the trade¹. " They leave, mumbling a bit.

¹ Bit of a stretch, he’s an architect, not that it matters as this dormitory village is full of builders.
And plumbers, electricians, mechanics, as well as doctors, nurses, pharmacists…

My parents use me like that when those “Microsoft” people phone up about their “you have a problem with your Windows”.

Besides the fact that, due to my parents daftness, I make them use a Mac, the “oh, our son works in IT…” makes them hang up pretty quick.

If I’m not busy, I’ll string con artists along for a bit before dropping them some hint or other. Waste their time when mine isn’t valuable, save some other poor sod.

Sometimes they get upset with me for wasting their time – “If you knew it was a scam, why didn’t you say so earlier?” type of thing. “If I told you earlier then you would already be trying to scam someone else, that’s why” is my usual response.

ROFL – that’s a response I’ve yet to get!

A few times I’ve ended up having interesting discussions with folks in India working for scamsters not very happily but putting food on the table at home by doing it. They can’t stay on the line for long once we switch into Hindi (often Marathi at their end and Hindi at mine, but they’re like enough that we understand each other) because their supervisor (who barely understands Hindi or Marathi, having grown up in a wealthy family and had an English medium education) thinks they’re chatting with family.

Sometimes they get upset with me for wasting their time – “If you knew it was a scam, why didn’t you say so earlier?” type of thing.

I had one going for quite some while¹ and when I finally got bored I told him that I couldn’t play any more and that I worked in IT support. He swore a little and hung up.
The amusing part was him calling back almost immediately to say two words: “***k you!”

¹ While I was prepping the slow cooker evening meal, so none of my time wasted. :)

I kept one going last year until I couldn’t take any more and uttered “Is your mother proud of what you do?”. Silently hung up.

“Ooh, I don’t have an Administrator password – my nephew has that.”

Waste their time when mine isn’t valuable, save some other poor sod.

See, this is what I tell my parents, they’re retired, they would only be sitting around or wondering if obvious scam emails are genuine or not, might as well keep the scammers talking for a while.

I do feel somewhat sorry for those doing it, most of them believe it is a real job and they’re helping people, but I do wonder how long that belief lasts.

I do feel somewhat sorry for those doing it

I definitely feel sorry for those poor souls in India for whom it IS a real job, and who know only too well that they’re not helping the people on the other end of the phone – but they’re feeding their families in difficult circumstances.

It’s perhaps an unfortunate consequence, but whenever I receive a call (always on the landline) from someone with a strong Indian accent, I’m automatically suspicious.

When they start chatting crap about “I’m calling from Microsoft”, I usually string them along for a few minutes and then matter-of-factly say “I’m using an Apple Mac”. 90% of the time they cut off the call at this point, although I have had them swearing at me.

Best one recently was a chap claiming to be calling from BT about ‘your internet connection’. I simply pointed out that my internet connection is not via BT. He became more and more angry and threatened to ‘have my connection cut off’.

I do have the BT call screening service, which has greatly cut down on the number of these calls I’m getting, but hasn’t cut them out completely. Ah well.

We’ve given up bothering with a landline.

Over here, there’s a government mandated opt-out system (bloctel.gouv.fr). While it has various exceptions (public surveys, companies you’ve done business with, etc) it does also carry a heavy penalty for abusive calls – up to €75,000 per call (suck on that OFCOM).

There’s also a nice catch that would deal with all of those Indian callers (I’m not sure where France outsources their stuff to), they’ll simply unwind the chain of command to figure out what company in France is offshoring this, and go after them.

Consequently, as a person with both numbers inscribed on Bloctel, the only nuisance calls I get are from the Banque Postale (allowed, they’re my bank, but the people that make the calls work the same hours I do so I never actually get the calls, only notifications) and wrong numbers.

If OFCOM had a spine, had teeth, and didn’t do utterly idiotic things like fining companies fifty thousand for a million robocalls (or 5p/call) then maybe you’d have peace and quiet too. But, then, the so-called regulators in the UK are pathetic. OFCOM, OFWAT, OFGEM, the ICO… none of them fit for purpose.

But, then, the so-called regulators in the UK are pathetic. OFCOM, OFWAT, OFGEM, the ICO… none of them fit for purpose.

This. I feel inclined to put a link to your post on my website… 8~) …or maybe just cut and paste it, attributed to “a good fiend in France”.

If OFCOM had a spine, had teeth, and didn’t do utterly idiotic things like fining companies fifty thousand for a million robocalls (or 5p/call)

If only they weren’t beholden to a set of money grubbers who are funded by the private entities that run the companies providing the services.

This, again.