04/09 - Wet Wednesday

Behavioral Lab [AXVD8051S37AY] Marketplace survey (~1.5 minutes)(~ 1 minutes) - $0.15 | PANDA

Underpaid

Unrated

Unrated

$7.20 / hour
00:01:15 / completion time

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Pros:

Cons:

Catchability: Great (HIT Last Seen: 10 seconds ago)
Qualifications: Total approved HITs >= 100; SurveyGroup [8557] DoesNotExist ; Exc: [14688405-458444] DoesNotExist ; islfvr8491 >= 100; HIT approval rate (%) >= 95; Location In US;

To read Behavioral Lab's full profile check out TurkerView!​

 

Amazon account hacked!

Looks like I won’t be Turking today (at least not for now). If anybody has experienced this or has any ‘techie’ knowledge, advice, etc., please share/help!

I woke up to many emails I thought were spam from someone imitating Amazon (I rarely get spam anymore, and never from Amazon). I didn’t open them and went to log in to my account to start turking. I immediately learned my account was disabled. So, I went and read through all the emails, and someone got into my account and tried placing a $1700 order for video games and car parts (I mainly buy books and rarely over $100, so thankfully, whatever Amazon has in place flagged that as ‘suspicious’).

Interestingly, the attempted purchase was in the next state and not from Nigeria or India (or any other well-known scammer area)…

I’m clueless as to how this could happen. I NEVER share my password, don't click on email link unless I know they are legit, I’ve never been on the dark/deep web, I do not look at/visit porn sites or any other type of site where things like .exe auto-downloaders may be present, etc. I simply Turk, check the news, read books online, etc. I admit I'm not updated on any Malware/virus issues (I used to use Malwarebytes, CCleaner, and AVG for virus).

Oddly, my Facebook account was compromised (still haven’t gotten that back) last month in the strangest circumstance. I used Facebook Messenger to contact the author of an article (the only way I could find to contact him), and my account was hacked/compromised days later. That was the 1st time I’d used Facebook at all in YEARS! I put my email in my message so he could communicate with me that way instead of Messenger, and I think that was the mistake (though it shouldn’t be). It was the same email I used for logging in to Facebook (and is the same for Amazon – I only have 2, my Gmail & internet provider). So, either this author is an a-hole/hacker, his account was compromised, or somehow someone got access to my message and used my email to take over my account.

What should I do besides changing passwords, stronger authentication methods, etc.? I’m afraid that might not be helpful. What if there’s an auto key logger on my computer to record any new password I make, etc? I can’t create a bunch of new emails/switch everything over to those, buy a new computer, and start ‘fresh’. I don't have a backup HD to save all my files and wipe everything/restore my desktop (don't know how to do such anyways... and I'm still ancient - running Windows 7 Home Premium )

I know I’m not the first person this has happened to, but man… this sucks – very scary!

Thanks for any advice/help. Stay safe, my fellow Turkers.

 

Could be a phishing attack, could be your passwords are old and are posted on websites from hacked website databases, could be an exploit related to your old operation system you are using. They don't really give out updates to old operating systems like windows 7 so they are somewhat vulnerable, so i recommend changing passwords to everything and updating windows to at least 10 or even 11 if your system allows. You could also use google drive/one drive to backup any important files. Good luck!

 

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Title: Decision-making survey ($1.20 / 7 min)(~ 7 minutes) | PANDA
Requester: Hengchen [AVFDQWCSJSN3H]
TurkerView: [ $15.26 / hour ]
Description: We will ask you to imagine yourself in a scenario, and we will ask you questions about how you would respond if you were in that scenario.
Duration: 40 Min
Available: 18
Reward: $1.20
Qualifications:

• Total approved HITs GreaterThanOrEqualTo 100,
• Exc: [-91904749-458448] DoesNotExist
• islfvr8491 GreaterThanOrEqualTo 100,
• HIT approval rate (%) GreaterThanOrEqualTo 95,
• Location In US,

[3IXQCB6XI8LI9EM8QLB5ZYCCVW4ITT]​

 

Prolific being real weird today. Showed me like 10 studies that all gave errors of study ended by researcher or I am not eligible.

 

Title: [A survey] Online Purchasing and Reviewing | PANDA
Requester: Professor Song [A1EF32CQJ6HWX]
TurkerView: [ $12.88 / hour ]
Description: To understand how company responses (to consumer reviews) shapes consumer behaviors
Duration: 20 Min
Available: 1
Reward: $1.20
Qualifications:

• Masters Exists
• HIT approval rate (%) GreaterThan 85,
• Total approved HITs GreaterThan 50,
• Location EqualTo US,

[3EGCY5R6YGWI044V3SED1SIF0F4YAR]​

 

same, maybe 10 min ago

 

Yea same here, I felt like fighting for my life lol

 

I'm sorry this happened. I am also on Windows 7 and have never had any issues. I'm afraid a lot of problems originate from Facebook. Several friends have had their accounts hacked and literally taken over. My advice is very strong passwords with upper and lower case, as well as special characters. Always use a separate email for Amazon that is not connected to any social media accounts.

I hope you can get your Amazon / Mturk account back! Hopefully you can get an actual person on the phone, to thank them for keeping the hacker from spending your money and get you back up and running again.

Good Luck!

 

Run your email(s) through https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to see if they've been compromised. Redo your passwords if they have. Instead of the standard 8-12 length captial letter, number, symbol nonsense lilke Temppass$2 go with a passphrase that's longer, but easier to remember. Something like Iliketoeattoast. The first one gets cracked in 3 minutes from brute force, the second takes about seven years according to password testing sites.

 

Also, this isn't the 90s. Porn sites and other "unsavory" places aren't the ones that are going to get you. Amusingly, they are usually much much safer websites BECAUSE they were the hit so hard early.

 

50 min nap

 

Thank you, everyone, for the helpful info and advice. I was able to get back into my Amazon account, change my password, update to more secure authentications, etc. (I’ll try Facebook tomorrow – enough stress for today!)

@InfiniteChanges – thanks for the mention of https://haveibeenpwned.com/. I knew of the site, but had forgotten about it. As it turns out, the email connected to Amazon was indeed pwned (but not the one connected to Facebook). Apparently, there was a data breach with the site Dailymotion (I did not even know about it) back in 2016. The site stated:

Dailymotion: In October 2016, the video-sharing platform Dailymotion suffered a data breach. The attack led to the exposure of more than 85 million user accounts and included email addresses, usernames, and bcrypt hashes of passwords.

Compromised data: Email addresses, Passwords, Usernames

I’m going to change passwords, update all info on the sites I use, do the whole malware/virus updating/scanning, and hopefully everything will be fine.

AD BLOCKERS < – that’s the one thing I didn’t have. Connected with the whole porn/unsavory website and things downloading on your computer, I had forgot about ads themselves or on compromised websites (just learned the term Malvertising!) that can download malware and exe files, etc. So, I will do that as well.

Thanks again!

 

Altsuss [A1ATES40ZPE477] Academic survey(~ 5 minutes) - $1.00 | PANDA

Unrated

Unrated

Unrated

$15.32 / hour
00:03:55 / completion time

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Pros:
Instant approval

Cons:
Number guessing task

Catchability: Okay (HIT Last Seen: one minute ago)
Qualifications: Exc: [14676064-458472] DoesNotExist ; Total approved HITs >= 50; islfvr8491 >= 100; HIT approval rate (%) >= 90; Location In US;

To read Altsuss's full profile check out TurkerView!​

 

Altsuss [A1ATES40ZPE477] Academic survey(~ 5 minutes) - $1.00 | PANDA

Unrated

Unrated

Unrated

$11.25 / hour
00:05:20 / completion time

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Pros:
approved instantly

Cons:

Catchability: Okay (HIT Last Seen: 2 minutes ago)
Qualifications: Exc: [14676064-458472] DoesNotExist ; Total approved HITs >= 50; islfvr8491 >= 100; HIT approval rate (%) >= 90; Location In US;

To read Altsuss's full profile check out TurkerView!​

 

Prolific truly awful today.

 

maybe if I go to sleep then try to turk again in 1 - 5 hours, it will be awesome again like it was earlier today. sometimes that works!