https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/style/scams-identity-theft.html

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Digital life is cluttered with bogus text messages, spam calls and
phishing attempts. You can try to block, encrypt and unsubscribe your
way out of it, but you may not succeed.

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Welcome to Scam World

Toma Vagner

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Welcome to Scam World

You open your eyes and grope for your phone. You check your inbox and
discover dozens of spam emails that made it past the filter.

Tapping over to Instagram, you find a request for a supposed brand
collaboration in your DMs. Your WhatsApp notifications, meanwhile,
consist solely of strangers asking you to invest in a cryptocurrency
exchange.

A recruiting manager has contacted you through LinkedIn to say they
are "impressed with your unique background and journey" and want to
discuss "exciting job opportunities" at several Fortune 500
companies.

While scrolling social media on your lunch break, you see Tom Hanks
promoting a dental plan and Taylor Swift peddling a cookware
giveaway. (Or at least that's what seems to be going on.)

On the way home from work, you receive a text alert from FedEx, with
a tracking number and a link to update your delivery preferences --
except you don't remember any pending shipments to your home.

Should you click the link? Pick up that call? Pursue that job
opportunity? Is the person who texted you "hey" just now from a
number you don't recognize someone you actually know?

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