Scamming the scammers

Apate’s aim is to defeat global phone scams with conversational AI, taking advantage of systems already in place where telecommunications companies divert calls they can identify as coming from scammers.

Kafaar was inspired to turn the tables on telephone fraudsters after he played a “dad’s joke” on a scam caller in front of his two kids while they enjoyed a picnic in the sun. With inane chatter, he kept the scammer on the line. “The kids had a very good laugh,” he says. “And I was thinking the purpose was to deceive the scammer, to waste their time so they don’t talk to others.

“Scamming the scammers, if you like.”

So AI bots are wasting the scammer’s time, and (I like this bit particularly) they are learning what is most effective at doing that. Link (1,100 words): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/07/ai-chatbots-phone-scams.

Scammers are trying to make a “sale.” If you waste their time, they can’t be scamming someone else. My own experience is that a phone scammer usually asks for the expiration date on my credit card early in the conversation, so I just say, “Oh, the card’s in the other room, hold on a second.” Then I put the phone on the desk and go on with other stuff for ten minutes.

Some things to watch for:

Scammers can use a fake Caller ID. The number that is displayed is not trustworthy.
Government agencies don’t contact you via phone. I got a very realistic-sounding scammer pretending to need my Medicare number in order to send me a new card. She even knew the first two and last two letters/numbers… which in fact are the same for everyone, or something. (I told her I’d check with the Social Security website.)
“Windows” doesn’t call you either. It’s a scam.
If you think a caller is a scammer, don’t even pick up. That tells them that at least they found a real person, and you’ll get more calls. (Unless you want to chat and waste their time.) A real person will leave voicemail.
Never use the word “Yes” with a phone scammer. Supposedly this can be recorded as proof that you agreed to sign up for something.
Email: No real site will email you asking you to enter a password. Hover your mouse over the link. That will show you the actual link, which can be entirely different from the displayed link.

And just two of many good news items from Fix the News:

A ‘liberal, democratic, non-discriminatory, non-sectarian Bangladesh’
Following the ‘people’s victory‘ after student protests in July, the country’s new caretaker leader, Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, has called for a ‘new Bangladesh‘, promising free, fair, and participatory elections and emphasising the role of citizens in deciding the government’s fate. It’s still early days—but if even half those promises are met, it will be a huge victory for democracy. Time

US cancer death rates have fallen by a third since 1999
A new CDC report has found that cancer death rates dropped from 200.7 per 100,000 people in 1999 to 142 per 100,000 in 2022. This equates to roughly three million additional Americans alive today due to reduced cancer death rates over the past two decades. The decrease is credited to advances in treatment, technological innovations, and lower smoking rates. Baltimore Sun

Polling problems

This does not bode well for pre-election polls…

These are strange times for survey science. Traditional polling, which relies on responses from a randomly selected group that represents the entire population, remains the gold standard for gauging public opinion, said Stanford political scientist Jon Krosnick. But as it’s become harder to reach people on the phone, response rates have plummeted, and those surveys have grown exponentially more expensive to run. Meanwhile, cheaper, less-accurate online polls have proliferated.

“Unfortunately, the world is seeing much more of the nonscientific methods that are put forth as if they’re scientific,” said Krosnick.

…In one test of opt-in polling, 12 percent of US adults younger than 30 claimed that they were licensed to operate a nuclear submarine. The true figure, of course, is approximately 0 percent.

Full article (approx 2,800 words): https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/06/the-job-of-pollsters-has-become-much-harder-heres-how-theyre-responding/.

And more good news from Fix the News:

Medicare negotiates prescription drug prices in US for first time
The White House has secured new, lower Medicare prices for ten of the most costly drugs, potentially saving billions of dollars a year for taxpayers and beneficiaries. The reductions, which range from 38% for the blood cancer drug Imbruvica to 79% for the diabetes drug Januvia, take effect in 2026. ‘No one should be forced to choose between filling their prescriptions or filling their grocery carts.’ NPR

Kids these days

So I was tired of “Things are so terrible! Kids these days! The world is coming to an end!” when people suffered a stolen bike or a dog owner not cleaning up after their dog. I noticed these markings on my walk, took a couple pics, and tried to be funny on NextDoor:

Comments generally fell into three categories:

(a) They got the humor and added to it: “I see them doing it sometimes. They’re bold. They wear yellow safety vests and act like they’re some kind of construction crew!”

(b) Literal: “It’s construction markings.” Got it in one try.

Here’s the whole thread:

This was long enough. Good News next week.

Breakthroughs giving new hope in treating cancer

At the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, the world’s largest cancer conference, doctors, scientists and researchers shared new findings on ways to tackle the disease.
The event in Chicago, attended by about 44,000 health professionals, featured more than 200 sessions…

The world’s first personalised mRNA cancer vaccine for melanoma halves the risk of patients dying or the disease returning, according to trial results doctors described as “extremely impressive”… Patients who received the vaccine after having a stage 3 or 4 melanoma removed had a 49% lower risk of dying or the disease recurring after three years, data presented at the conference showed.

Delegates were briefed about two new tests aimed at providing an early warning sign for two of the world’s most common cancers.

The first, for prostate cancer, involves a DNA sample collected with a simple spit test. Trial results suggest it is more accurate than standard tests. It works by looking for genetic signals in the saliva that are linked to prostate cancer. The second, a blood test, predicts the risk of breast cancer returning three years before tumours show up on scans. The breakthrough could help more women beat the disease permanently.

60% of patients diagnosed with advanced forms of lung cancer who took lorlatinib were still alive five years later with no progression in their disease, data presented at the conference showed. The rate was 8% in patients treated with a standard drug, the trial found.

Doctors hailed the trial results as “off the chart”.

Full article (950 words with lots o links): https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jun/07/what-are-off-the-charts-breakthroughs-cancer-treatments.

And more good news from Fix the News:

Fewer children are dying from air pollution: The State of Global Air (SoGA) 2024 report has recorded a 53% drop in air pollution deaths between 2000 and 2021 for the world’s population of children under five. Deaths from household air pollution have decreased by 36%… 14.7 million fewer people go hungry in Brazil: A new UN report shows that severe food insecurity has fallen by a colossal 85% in just one year, from 8% in 2022 to 1.2% in 2023… China’s carbon dioxide emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2024, the first quarterly fall since COVID-19, and the first ever structural decline due to growth in renewables. Electricity generation from wind and solar grew by 171 TWh in the first half of the year, and the increase in the number of EVs on China’s roads cut demand for transport fuels by approximately 4%.