• daannii@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Remember those viruses that were around a few years back. They would lock your computer unless you paid like $100. I believe most said something like . This isn’t a legit copy of windows. Pay now or you can’t login.

    And if you paid. It was of course just stealing your credit card. But a lot of stupid people did it.

    I remember I got the virus once and I had to use another computer to get rid of it by making a boot flash stick. … I can’t recall the details but there wasn’t any way to fix it on the computer because it locked you out of everything.

    Maybe around during windows 7 of 8?

    Anyway. I bet that’s where they got the idea.

    • jeffep@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      If you’re talking about ransomware (?), they are actually famous for great customer service and not stealing your credit card details. If people don’t trust them, noone will pay. So they offer live chats with real humans to help you set up a bitcoin wallet etc., to ensure smooth processing.

      The business has developed further though, not if you don’t pay they often threaten to release the data on the web.

      • daannii@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        Yep. That’s what I was referring to. I also didn’t know they were semi legit. Lol. That’s kinda ridiculous.

        No I never paid or even considered paying. I just got some fix from somewhere to get rid of it.

    • Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I don’t remember the viruses, I’ve never been a windows user.

      Thanks for the background on the meme, I would never have figured that out.