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.

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?

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? 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.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2024-11-19 12:53, micky wrote:

Alterna VPN, $10/week?

$520 /year?

I think I pay about $60 for 2 years.

--
"It would be a measureless disaster if Russian barbarism overlaid
the culture and independence of the ancient States of Europe."
Winston Churchill

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/19/2024 1:25 PM, Chris wrote:

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.

If paid by credit card cancel with the card.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Alan Browne wrote on Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:03:37 -0500 :

I think I pay about $60 for 2 years.

I currently use about three thousand public VPN servers around the world.
Down from about five or six thousand in the heyday of free VPN services.

The cost?

What cost?

It's free. And it always has been free. Always will be free prolly' too.

If you're intelligent, everything is legitimately legally free.

Only the ignorant masses pay for what is easily available for free.

They pay for stuff they can get for free because they're too ignorant to
know how to do a simple search such as "free vpn server".

Note: I only use VPN for privacy. If I were performing nefarious tasks, I'd take the VPN selection far more seriously - but for IP address changes,
it's ok to use a free VPN service.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

XPost: alt.privacy

Zaidy036 wrote on Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:44:59 -0500 :

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.

If paid by credit card cancel with the card.

Hi Zaidy,
You wrote much of my scripts on Windows so I respect your acumen.
For example:
REM nettoggle.bat by Zaidy036 20210207 on alt.comp.os.windows-10
set defgw=192.168.0.1
set "ip="
for /f "tokens=2,3 delims={,}" %%a in ('"WMIC NICConfig where IPEnabled="True" get DefaultIPGateway /value | find "I" "') do if not defined ip set ip=%%~a
IF "%ip%"=="%defgw%" ( %comspec% /c %windir%\system32\route.exe delete 0.0.0.0 %defgw%) ELSE ( %comspec% /c %windir%\system32\route.exe add 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 %defgw%)
exit

Since I respect you, I need to let you know something about what Chris said.
Be advised, what Chris wrote is simply parroting idiotic Apple propaganda.

Chris is completely clueless that no phone has more zero-day exploits
than the iPhone - which is reliably reported - not by Apple - but by
the US government.

Look here for data you won't see in Apple's (brilliant) propaganda:
<https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog>

The fact is an iPhone is the most exploited phone in history.
So cut the crap Chris.

Stop parroting (rather brilliant but meaningless) Apple propaganda.
None of the Apple trolls knows anything about Apple products.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 19. Nov 2024 at 18:53:13 CET, "micky" <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:

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.
I guess she was surfing and some website showed her that scaremessage.
Or someone sent her an sms, or...

Apple definitely does not send this kind of messages.
"Something" obviously did...

Lesson: NEVER install something that you are not really sure about.
She should have asked you before installing.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)