Technologies
2022 Black Friday: Make Sure You Avoid All the Elaborate Scams
Scammers don’t take a break during the holidays. Learn what to watch for to protect yourself.
This story is part of Gift Guide, our year-round collection of the best gift ideas.
Black Friday arrives the day after Thanksgiving — which is Nov. 25 this year. It’ll be a day filled with deals on items like headphones and TVs, but with all that potential money flowing from customers to stores, cybercriminals are unfortunately looking to steal some of it.
Scammers work year round, but they turn up their efforts during the high-spending holiday season to exploit the spirit of giving.
The scams range far and wide — as retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart roll out deals over the holidays, fraudsters create elaborate websites to trick you into spending money on products you’ll never receive. You may receive text messages or emails claiming you’re eligible for a refund for an item you never purchased, just so thieves can get your credit card information. You might even be enticed into donating to a charity that provides homes for abandoned puppies — only to find out it doesn’t actually exist.
Scams come in all shapes and sizes, but there are always red flags to help spot them. Here’s what you need to know about Black Friday scams and how to avoid becoming a victim this holiday season.
For more about security and privacy this holiday season, check out how to protect yourself from identity theft, how to protect your phone app privacy, and the most common cryptocurrency scams.
Fake websites and fraudulent apps go ‘phishing’
In a phishing scheme, the goal is for hackers to get their hands on your personal information, like your credit card number, social security or account password. Pretending to be a large retail corporation, the fraudsters send out an official-looking email or text message, usually with a link to a fraudulent website designed to look just like a legitimate site.
Researchers at security firm Avanan discovered that hackers were sending out spoofed Amazon order notification emails. The email resembled your run-of-the-mill order confirmation, except that the order is false and the charge is significant.
Naturally, if you believe you’re being charged for a substantial amount, you would want to reach out to Amazon. But in this instance, if you use the link in the phishing email to get in contact, you’ll be redirected to a fake Amazon webpage with a false phone number to dial. If you call, the fraudsters won’t initially pick up, but they’ll soon call back, asking you to provide your card number, expiration date and CVV to «cancel the order.» And just like that, they’ve got your information.
These types of attacks are commonplace throughout the year, but expect a surge in messages claiming to be from Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Target or other large retailers during the holidays.
If you receive an email asking you to update your payment method or requesting other personal information, contact the company’s help desk to make sure the email is legit before you do anything else.
Other ways to identify a phishing email, according to the Federal Trade Commission and StaySafeOnline.org, include:
- The sender’s email address looks almost right but contains extra characters or misspellings.
- There are misspellings or bad grammar either in the subject line or anywhere in the body.
- They address you with generic terms («Mr.» or «Ms.» or «Dear Customer») instead of by name.
- The message warns that you need to take immediate action and asks you to click a link and enter personal details, especially payment information.
- The messages promise a refund, coupons or other freebies.
- The company logo in the email looks low-quality or just plain wrong.
Credit card skimming goes all-digital
You’ve seen it in movies. A hacker places an object over a card reader, disguised to look like part of the ATM, and then waits for people to swipe their cards. A day or week later, the thief takes the object — known as a skimmer — back and collects the mountain of stolen card information stored inside, which they can then use to make purchases, withdraw money and more.
Instead of using physical hardware to steal payment card numbers, hackers can insert malicious code directly on a website to do the same thing as traditional skimming, but with online payment information instead.
Regarding e-skimming incidents — sometimes called Magecart attacks after the name of the software used — Tim Mackey, principal security strategist for Synopsis, a digital security company, warns, «There isn’t an obvious way for the average person to be able to identify if or when a website has been compromised. The only potential tell-tale sign might be that the website itself doesn’t quite look ‘right.'»
Mackey suggests a few strategies you can can use to protect yourself:
- Don’t save your credit card information on retail sites.
- If possible use a third-party payment method like Apple Pay, Google Wallet or PayPal.
- Enable purchase alerts on all your credit cards.
- Disable international purchases on all credit cards.
- Only make purchases over your home network or cellular network, never on a public Wi-Fi where your payment could be intercepted.
Avoid the ‘Secret Sister’ gift exchange — it’s a pyramid scheme
Originating on Facebook, this sketchy gift exchange among internet strangers plays off the popular workplace practice of «Secret Santa,» a game where each person in a group buys a present for one other randomly selected group member, without the gift-giver revealing their identity.
Instead, in Secret Sister, it’s a pyramid scheme dressed up in holiday clothes, according to the Better Business Bureau. The «Secret Sister» exchange invitation promises you’ll receive about $360 worth of gifts after purchasing and mailing a $10 gift for someone else. A variation includes swapping bottles of wine. And there’s even «Secret Santa Dog,» in which you gift money to a «secret dog.»
Unfortunately, bad math hasn’t stopped this scam from resurfacing year after year. If you fall for it, you’ll probably be out 10 bucks when you don’t receive any gifts in return. You might lose personal details too, because the scam involves sending your name, email address and phone number to people you’ve never met in person.
The Better Business Bureau recommends you deal with any request to become a Secret Sister by ignoring it — do not give your personal details to online strangers. You can also report the invitation to Facebook or whichever social network you were approached on.
Your donations might be going to a ‘faux charity’
During the holiday season, it’s not uncommon to give back to the community. In fact, nonprofit organizations typically see an increase during the fall. The last three months of the year make up 36% of all charitable giving during the year, according to Blackbaud Institute, which creates fundraising applications.
Unfortunately, scammers take advantage of this generosity to make a bundle for themselves.
The way these charity fraud scams typically work are by impersonating other successful charities. And it’s no wonder they work: The scammers come up with real-sounding charity names, create credible websites, run successful social media campaigns — and they’re persistent.
Scammers typically call you using local phone numbers, which give you a false sense of security. However, it’s incredibly easy to spoof an area code. Next they’ll make their pitch, and it’ll be a good one. It will tug at your heart-strings, but they’ll never actually specify how they’ll help. And they may even claim that you’ve made a donation before, and suggest that you make another, and that if you do, it’ll be tax-deductible. And it’ll all be a lie.
If you get a call from a charity and sense some red flags, the AARP and FTC suggest that you do the following:
- Do your research. Use a watchdog like CharityWatch to get more information about a charity and learn how credible it is. Or use Google.
- Pay close attention to the charity name and website. False charities like to mimic other popular charities. If it seems too close in name to another, it might not be real.
- Keep track of your donations. Even if you accidentally donate to a scammer, you need to ensure that the donation isn’t recurring.
- Don’t give away all your personal information. Of course it’s normal to provide your card information, but don’t do the same with your Social Security number or bank account number.
- Don’t make a cash donation. Unless you’re certain about a charity’s credibility, don’t give away cash, gift cards, or cryptocurrency.
For any charitable donations that you make, you can also use the IRS tax-exempt organization search tool to make sure that the charity you’re contributing to is legitimate and that your gift can be deducted on your income tax return.
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Technologies
Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for May 24, #713
Hints and answers for Connections for May 24, #713.
Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.
Today’s Connections puzzle has a fun variety of categories. The purple one appeals to my English major heart. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.
The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.
Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time
Hints for today’s Connections groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Goo-goo.
Green group hint: Not shirts.
Blue group hint: City that never sleeps.
Purple group hint: Acclaimed writers.
Answers for today’s Connections groups
Yellow group: Baby gear.
Green group: Kinds of pants minus «s.»
Blue group: New York sports team members.
Purple group: Black women authors.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections answers?
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is baby gear. The four answers are bib, bottle, monitor and stroller.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is kinds of pants minus «s.» The four answers are capri, jean, jogger and slack.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is New York sports team members. The four answers are Jet, Met, Net and Ranger.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is black women authors. The four answers are Butler, Gay, Hooks and Walker.
Technologies
Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, May 20
Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for May 20.
Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.
Today’s NYT Mini Crossword is a fun one, and now I’m singing the song from 1-Across in my head. Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.
The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.
Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword
Let’s get at those Mini Crossword clues and answers.
Mini across clues and answers
1A clue: «Pink ___ Club» (Chappell Roan hit)
Answer: PONY
5A clue: Instrument that might be made with a comb and wax paper
Answer: KAZOO
6A clue: How bedtime stories are often read
Answer: ALOUD
7A clue: On edge
Answer: TENSE
8A clue: Short Instagram video
Answer: REEL
Mini down clues and answers
1D clue: Less colorful
Answer: PALER
2D clue: Layer of the upper atmosphere
Answer: OZONE
3D clue: Totally pointless
Answer: NOUSE
4D clue: Hit a high note in a high place, perhaps
Answer: YODEL
5D clue: Kit ___ bar
Answer: KAT
How to play more Mini Crosswords
The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.
Technologies
Want to Speak to Dolphins? Researchers Won $100,000 AI Prize Studying Their Whistling
The scientists studied a bottlenose dolphin community in Sarasota, Florida, uncovering evidence of language-like communications.
If any dolphins are reading this: hello!
A team of scientists studying a community of Florida dolphins has been awarded the first $100,000 Coller Dolittle Challenge prize, set up to award research in interspecies communication algorithms.
The US-based team, led by Laela Sayigh of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, found that a type of whistle that dolphins employ is used as an alarm. Another whistle they studied is used by dolphins to respond to unexpected or unfamiliar situations. The team used non-invasive hydrophones to perform the research, which provides evidence that dolphins may be using whistles like words, shared with multiple members of their communities.
Capturing the sounds is just the beginning. Researchers will use AI to continue deciphering the whistles to try to find more patterns.
«The main thing stopping us cracking the code of animal communication is a lack of data. Think of the 1 trillion words needed to train a large language model like ChatGPT. We don’t have anything like this for other animals,» said Jonathan Birch, a professor at the London School of Economics and Politics and one of the judges for the prize.
«That’s why we need programs like the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, which has built up an extraordinary library of dolphin whistles over 40 years. The cumulative result of all that work is that Laela Sayigh and her team can now use deep learning to analyse the whistles and perhaps, one day, crack the code,» he said.
The award was part of a ceremony honoring the work of four teams from across the world. In addition to the dolphin project, researchers studied ways in which nightingales, marmoset monkeys and cuttlefish communicate.
The challenge is a collaboration between the Jeremy Coller Foundation and Tel Aviv University. Submissions for next year open up in August.
Dolphins are just the beginning
Researching animals and trying to learn the secrets of their communication is nothing new; but AI is speeding up the creation of larger and lager datasets.
«Breakthroughs are inevitable,» says Kate Zacarian, CEO and co-founder of Earth Species Project, a California-based nonprofit that also works in breaking down language barriers with the animal world.
«Just as AI has revolutionized the fields of medicine and material science, we see a similar opportunity to bring those advances to the study of animal communication and empower researchers in this space with entirely new capabilities,» Zacarian said.
Zacarian applauded Sayigh’s team and their win and said it will help bring broader recognition to the study of non-human animal communication. It could also bring more attention to ways that AI can change the nature of this type of research.
«The AI systems aren’t just faster — they allow for entirely new types of inquiry,» she said. «We’re moving from decoding isolated signals to exploring communication as a rich, dynamic, and structure phenomenon — whish is a task that’s simply too big for our human brains, but possible for large-scale AI models.»
Earth Species recently released an open-source large audio language model for analyzing animal sounds called NatureLM-audio. The organization is currently working with biologists and ethologists to study species including carrion crows, orcas, jumping spiders and others and plans to release some of their findings later this year, Zacarian said.
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