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From: Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: misc.phone.mobile.iphone
Subject: Re: Alterna VPN, $10/week?
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2024 18:25:33 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:
> Alterna VPN, $10/week? 
> 
> Is that really what it charges?   A friend told me that. 
> 
> The whole story is she got some sort of message on her iphone that she'd
> been hacked, and it encouraged her to install something to prevent harm.
> It might specifically have pointed to Alterna, not sure. 
> 
> So she installed Alterna VPN and even though she thinks she already has
> a virus checker, it said it found 17 viruses.  17!!  Hard to believe.
> And how dangerous would that be?   What do typical iphone viruses do?
> Anything terrible?**  
> 
> Should she be able to find a list of the 17 viruses it removed?  In the
> app?  On the phone?   Knowing what they weere seems worthwhile to me. 
> 
> After that, she saw it was going to cost $10/week to keep the app.
> That's a lottt of money. But she could find nothing in the app to
> cancel.  Is that normal for iphone subscriptions?   Together I found
> where she could go to Settings or on the web, account.apple.com.  She
> had trouble logging in to account.apple.com, and then once in, coudln't
> find subsciptions.  I don't have an iphone so I can't omcpare my
> experience, but is this this strange that she coudln't find
> Subscriptions there.     Even if cancellation must be through one of
> those two methods, shouldnt' there be a noticeable sentece in the app
> saying, To cancel, got to Settings" or is everyone supposed to know that
> by now?
>   She did find Subscriptions in the Settings and cancelled and it was
> only in the free trial stage, and it said it was now expriring 2 days
> from now.  All is good. 

I agree that removing subscriptions could be easier. 

> But I wonder about that first message. Does apple or something really
> send messages that one has been hacked and suggestions to install a
> particular app or kind of app?

Nope. 

> And how could she have 17 viruses if she's running an AV program,
> probably the one recommended early on. 
> 
> She's about 75, still afraid to do anything on the phone now.  Earlier
> she was unwilling to use her MAC because it wasnt' recently updated.
> PC's get software updates too, but aiui they are either for new
> features, or to close vulnerabilities.  Onne can still use them without
> the updates and it won't make infection more likely, right?   

Wrong. Updates are there to secure the device/computer from vulnerabilities
as well as adding new features. Not updating is a Bad Idea™

Also
> unwilling to use her husband's PC because of this, I guess for fear the
> creepy crawlies that are part of her aura now will harm his PC. 
> 
> 
> **I'm not sure if she uses her phone for banking or credit cards, but
> assume someone does, but they never save their password, not even in a
> password encrypition app.   Still when you type in the password, it's in
> memory for at last a while, until it's overlaid.  Are there any viruses
> that can find a password there, even though you only entered it, didnt'
> save it. 

I'm afraid all you've described above is scam101. Hopefully it was just an
attempt to get her to buy an extortionist service. 

A VPN has nothing to do with viruses and the message either came from
elsewhere or was simply a further inducement to keep the app. iphone
viruses are extremely rare. iOS doesn't normally need an antivirus as all
apps are installed from the app store which has lots of security controls
to remove malware long before anything gets installed.