How To Get Riseup Invite Code
Note: In 2021, I'grand writing a new web log mail every weekend or so. This is entry 45 of 52.
On September 4, I answered my phone to hear the voice of a human in his thirties or forties: "I'1000 calling you out of nowhere, and this is a pretty foreign phone call and pretty foreign request, so bear with me." With an opening like that, how could I non keep listening? (I recorded what happened at the time but never got around to blogging about information technology until tonight.)
Just before the phone rang, I was at habitation in my high castle, right, reading obscure histories of northeast Oregon towns, digitizing quondam documents, or any it is I practice with my eccentric life when I'chiliad not substitute instruction, ghostwriting for dimes scraped off someone else's dollar, or otherwise answering to the trade economy's myriad commercial imperatives.
When my phone rang, I idea, Probably some other damn spam call. Those in the United States know how they've been getting worse in the past few years: another sign of the times, likely. But hey, the area lawmaking was 213. Los Angeles! Perchance, but maybe, opportunity was knocking. Hey, fifty-fifty anti-careerists tin can daydream.
Well, I was wrong. Opportunity wasn't knocking. Hilarity was.
Yous won't believe what happened side by side
After his fantastic opening line, the mystery caller then explains he's looking to get an email business relationship with Riseup Networks. For the uninitiated, Riseup is a longstanding Seattle-based provider of email and other tech services for millions of activists worldwide. They're a savvy collective with decades of meritorious history.
I've been using Riseup email—dal@riseup.net—since 2012. Back then, Riseup gave out email accounts to anyone who agreed, or clicked that they agreed, with certain basic homo decency principles, free of charge, donations encouraged. Present, Riseup no longer merely hands out email accounts. If I recall correctly, they stopped around 2016. Tightening things up; could be. Yet another sign of the times, likely. Currently, to get a Riseup electronic mail account, aspiring users need an invite code from someone who already has an account and is willing, in some algorithmic digital trust network sense, to vouch for them.
So, the mystery caller tells me he specifically wants a Riseup email invite code. I say I'm curious how he got my number—non because I'm offended, I explicate, but because as a journalist/researcher, I often dig up data on people, and I want to know his tricks.
Similar steam exiting the depressurizing coolant expansion tank of an overcompensating pickup truck's tortured engine system, he barks odd laughter. He tin can't aid but tell me he ran a search for "riseup.net" and came beyond my email address and telephone number in some online Freedom of Information Human activity filing of mine. When I used to conduct adversarial interviews more than ofttimes than I do now, I was amazed at how readily interviewees expectorated the information I sought. Today I empathize it'due south considering they're tightly wound bio-psycho-socially. If, like Kevin Costner at the climax of his cheesy Robin Hood movie, you aim your interviewing bow and pointer just right, they become spectacularly undone with unintentionally confessional words torrenting out of their big mouths. You might be surprised at how far playing dumb as an interviewer can get you in life, unless you watch the old detective show Columbo.
En garde!
To his black market credit, the mystery caller recovered his poise chop-chop. Of grade, under no circumstance was I going to give him, a total stranger, a Riseup invite code. But I wanted to see how this call was going to go down, and I recall he wanted to see, too. That meant at this signal in the conversation, the two duelists had taken stock of each other'due south lightsabers. The battle was at present to brainstorm in earnest.
He launches into a predictable sob story about how he lost his wife and dog and money and homework, could I please give him a Riseup invite lawmaking. Homo, that'south all he's got?
I tell him No, I don't give Riseup invite codes to people I don't know personally, ever. But I can tell him a good fashion of going about getting 1.
He doesn't empathise I'm hinting at volunteering. He tells me of some corner of the Cyberspace where people are, he says, selling Riseup invite codes. I tell him if a Riseup account is linked to scammers, it poisons the reputation of the account that invited the scammer in, or more generally poisons the trust network of e-mail accounts associated with the scammer, so don't bother.
With the embarrassing blowing of a demagogue, he pivots to his next attack.
Really? Really?
Then the caller tells me he knows, of all people … the founder of Bitcoin! None other than the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, whose legal identity, despite many theories, remains uncertain. Wow, someone knows the founder of Bitcoin and but so happened to call me on a random Saturday morning. Que suerte! Not.
Rule number one of an adversarial interview is to keep the interviewee talking. The more words they emit, the more likely they'll mis-step. So I ignore, sorta acting similar I, too, know Satoshi Nakamoto. Doesn't everyone?
Just wherever he's going with his Bitcoin founder thing is lost because I start laughing, unfortunately breaking character. Out of my typical benevolence, I tell the guy he should bring together the Riseup Cyberspace Relay Chat channel and volunteer his time, building karma that way until he earns an invite code.
The caller's totally not interested in ye olde effort. By this point in the telephone call, I'one thousand getting bored. Time to wrap this crap up.
He asks me a final time for an invite code. I say No. "Why are y'all against information technology?" he pleads. And I say, "For ane thing, considering I practise become these requests [past email] every other month or so, and they take up way too much time while I'm trying to get piece of work done. Bye!"
A half hour later, he text-messages me a giant poop emoji. The poor matter.
If you utilise Riseup Networks and tin can beget to, please donate to them!
This blog post, Quick, funny story about a phone scammer trying to get a Riseup e-mail invite code from me, by Douglas Lucas, is licensed nether a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (human-readable summary of license). The license is based on the work at this URL: https://douglaslucas.com/weblog/2021/eleven/13/phone-scammer-riseup-email-invite-codes/. You tin view the full license (the legal code aka the legalese) hither. For learning more than nearly Creative Eatables, I suggest reading this article and the Creative Eatables Frequently Asked Questions. Seeking permissions beyond the scope of this license, or want to stand for with me about this mail one on one? Email me: dal@riseup.net.
Source: https://douglaslucas.com/blog/2021/11/13/phone-scammer-riseup-email-invite-codes/
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