Computers The Everything Apple Thread

*Apple/ITunes phishing scam warning*

I just got this email in my AOL email junk folder:

From: no_reply@email.apple.com
To: Recipients

Your invoice from Apple
Today at 3:26 PM



Your Apple Email ID, was used to purchase " "Wildest Dreams" Album by Taylor Swift ($ 4,49 ) from the ITunes Store on a device that had not previously been associated with you.

If you made this purchase, you can disregard this email.

If you did not make this purchase, we recommend that you go to
http:/apple.com/support/cancel- 9823ER4

cancel the transaction, Confirm that you're the owner of the account and then follow the instructions.

For more information, see our frequently asked questions.

Thanks,

Apple Customer Support

And then after searching I found this:

Apple purchase scam (4/7/14)

Just a reminder to never click on a link in an email until you've verified that it's legitimate. Phishing emails look more legitimate than they used to, but there are still red flags to look for. In this email's case:

1. The email wound up in my AOL junk folder instead of my iCloud inbox, which is where all legitimate emails from Apple/iTunes are sent.

2. It's sent to Recipients instead of to my email address or my name.

3. The Apple logo in the email appears distorted (wider).

4. There's nothing else in the email that indicates it's from iTunes. No address, website URL or phone number anywhere in the email.

5. The link supposedly takes the user to a secure site, but the "s" that indicates a secure site is missing from the http in the URL. That's the first thing to look for, actually.

I reported the email to Apple.
reportphishing@apple.com
 
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I have a troubleshooting tip for iPhone and iPad users that I believe can help in certain situations.

An hour ago I discovered a problem on my iPhone: Some websites weren't loading, while others (including this one) did. I edited a document in Pages, and the document wouldn't save to iCloud. I opened a couple of apps; while one loaded its content without any problem and saved a change I made to it, the other wouldn't load its content at all.

I restarted my wifi and did a hard reboot of my phone. Neither helped.

Going on experience I gained with another problem I had several weeks ago (app updates weren't installing), I decided to try resetting network settings. This shuts down the phone for a few minutes like a hard reboot, and then entering the phone password as usual unlocks the phone. The only thing I'd lose is my wifi password; it's no big deal to reenter it. So I did that, and voila! It worked. The websites that wouldn't open opened. The app that wouldn't load loaded. The Pages document finished saving the minute I opened Pages.

So I recommend trying reset network settings when your Apple device is acting up and nothing else is working. You'd have to reenter your network passwords, so have those handy. It could save you the trouble of calling your service provider or visiting their customer service center.

Here's an explanation of what resetting settings on one's iPhone and iPad does. It's two years old and written for iOS 7 and 8, but it's still applicable, IMO.

Understanding the Reset Settings on iPhone or iPad
 
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*Apple/ITunes phishing scam warning*

I just got this email in my AOL email junk folder:



And then after searching I found this:

Apple purchase scam (4/7/14)

Just a reminder to never click on a link in an email until you've verified that it's legitimate. Phishing emails look more legitimate than they used to, but there are still red flags to look for. In this email's case:

1. The email wound up in my AOL junk folder instead of my iCloud inbox, which is where all legitimate emails from Apple/iTunes are sent.

2. It's sent to Recipients instead of to my email address or my name.

3. The Apple logo in the email appears distorted (wider).

4. There's nothing else in the email that indicates it's from iTunes. No address, website URL or phone number anywhere in the email.

5. The link supposedly takes the user to a secure site, but the "s" that indicates a secure site is missing from the http in the URL. That's the first thing to look for, actually.

I reported the email to Apple.
reportphishing@apple.com
Good advice, Amy. These things are rampant of late. I received two apple phishing scams in the last week. One was from "Apple ID" warning me of suspicious activity, claiming I had paid 104 bucks for some video game. I checked my credit card on file and of course, there was no purchase. There were two links to PDFs in the email. I reported both scams to Apple.
 
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Good advice, Amy. These things are rampant of late. I received two apple phishing scams in the last week. One was from "Apple ID" warning me of suspicious activity, claiming I had paid 104 bucks for some video game. I checked my credit card on file and of course, there was no purchase. There were two links to PDFs in the email. I reported both scams to Apple.

There's another red flag I just noticed: It's the way the price of the (fake) purchase is given; it's a bit odd. The $ and the first 4 have a space between them, and the two 4's are separated by a comma rather than a period. And it's inserted into the paragraph rather than given a separate line in the email. In fact, the entire email is a textbook example of how NOT to create a fake email that looks enough like the real thing to fool people. Unfortunately, some people will still be fooled, but there are so many red flags that smart people will pick up on them right away.
 
Really digging the IOS 11 beta... The tiled replacement for the cascading task view on my iPad is great!

IMG_0861.PNG
 
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Apple phones in recent years have had Touch ID fingerprint sensors, as any Apple user will know already. The iphone sensor until now has been under the home button. However, the iPhone 8 (or whatever they call it) is likely to move to a larger display making up almost the whole phone. Probably not literally the whole front of the phone, it will likely need a tiny bezel and just enough space somewhere with a slit for the front camera. The display will quite likely change from LCD to OLED.

This means that the fingerprint sensor needs to go under the display rather than under the button which means that the sensor needs to be able to pass a signal through a larger depth of material. Doing this with the existing capacitive technology is somewhere between difficult and impossible, so that's not likely to happen (unless they etch into a portion the display, or put the sensor on the back or side of the phone instead, but that is not likely either). Apple has been working for several years on ultrasound technology which allows a fingerprint sensor to pass a signal right through the display, but sources indicate that they have not successfully developed the technology in time.

It's therefore thought possible that touch ID is not going to be included on the next iPhone - no fingerprint sensor. I'd say there's a 50/50 chance or slightly better that this is true. However, Apple is not likely to have an iPhone with no biometrics, but they may announce a phone with iris or some type of eye or facial recognition.

Because of the challenging difficulties with this year's phone development, there is no guarantee they are going to be able to hold their usual September event, with a possibility that the phone's production will be delayed. However, my guess is that they'll carry on the usual early to mid September event, just needing to ramp up the actual production and sales a bit slower than usual. This may mean iPhone 8 sales are a bit scarce worldwide until early 2018. Anyway, we should find out soon. Within this month we would expect Apple to announce a date for their September event.

The other news from this year is a likely price hike. They are perhaps going to try and do more like a $1000 phone this year instead of a $700 phone.

Apple is also working on a revolutionary display technology where each individual pixel is LED, however this is not likely to be used in a iPhone anytime soon. Maybe in the 2020s.
 
I thought my iPhone was broken :mad: !!!

Yesterday, I was suddenly experiencing very annoying issues with my iPhone 6s ... while I was reading an article, it would suddenly "restart" (not showing the complete "Apple" logo, but the "clock" for a few seconds, then followed by the need to enter my pin code again), happened about once a minute.

Phone was not seemingly not charging any more (no increase in battery percentage although plugge int) and the phone was getting quite hot to the touch when connected to the charger. Until I finally turned it off completely, it would vibrate with that kind of new start maybe once a minute, which became a bit of a nuisance quickly. Was afraid a cable had come off inside the phone or something like that and that I would have to send it in for repair (warranty is expired, of course) ...

I upgraded the software to IOS 11.2 today, and all the problems are gone, and the phone is working fine again ...
 
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Apple apologizes for iPhone slowdown

Apparently online speculation about forcing customers to buy newer phones spurred the apology. I'm starting to really get creeped out by the control these companies have over our devices.

Well, with the killing of net neutrality, it’s probably going to get worse. :(
 
New phishing scam, and a rather good one, unfortunately!

I just became a victim of a phishing scam ... received this email on my apple ID email address:

phishing.JPG

So as I checked with my kids and they credibly explained to me they had NOT purchased any gems in Mobile Legends (which is a game I know they are using now and then), I clicked on the "cancel" link and came to this website, which looks EXACTLY like the apple website (apart from the web address):

phishing 2.JPG

On the next page, I was asked to enter my email address, my personal details, my bank account number, birth date, passport number as security question and so on.....

If there had not been the problem that after entering all this information, only an empty page came up, if there had been something like "Congratulations, your apple ID has been reactivated", I would likely have been happy about it and not followed up further on it.

However, as there was no answer, I called Apple, and they told me that I had likely been a victim of a phishing scam.

So I now had to cancel my credit card ...
 
New phishing scam, and a rather good one, unfortunately!

I just became a victim of a phishing scam ... received this email on my apple ID email address:

View attachment 13911

So as I checked with my kids and they credibly explained to me they had NOT purchased any gems in Mobile Legends (which is a game I know they are using now and then), I clicked on the "cancel" link and came to this website, which looks EXACTLY like the apple website (apart from the web address):

View attachment 13912

On the next page, I was asked to enter my email address, my personal details, my bank account number, birth date, passport number as security question and so on.....

If there had not been the problem that after entering all this information, only an empty page came up, if there had been something like "Congratulations, your apple ID has been reactivated", I would likely have been happy about it and not followed up further on it.

However, as there was no answer, I called Apple, and they told me that I had likely been a victim of a phishing scam.

So I now had to cancel my credit card ...

Ouch, man! No matter how identical something looks to the site you expect to see, the URL is the first thing you should be closely examining... I'm sorry they got you with this :(
 
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I’ve been seeing that crap for months now. I know they’re scams because I know for a fact I haven’t bought what they’re telling me I bought. Also, I get those emails coming to my primary email address, and that’s not the one that gets the official iTunes emails.

I always check the email sender address, and when it’s obvious phishing, I forward it to reportphishing@apple.com
 
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So last week I upgraded from an iPhone 6 to an iPhone XS, and I’m quickly getting used to the latest iPhone technology. But there’s one iPhone feature that’s been around for a while that I always forget about. I always keep my phone locked in the portrait orientation, because I don’t like it flipping back and forth from portrait to landscape. So it’s easy to forget that if you flip your iPhone from portrait to landscape when you’ve got the Apple Calendar open to the daily view, it’ll switch from list view to a grid view, if that’s what you prefer.