Our Maire has just shared this on panneau-pocket .
Seems that some people are receiving a letter (supposedly) from Ameli which seems totally OK… all about guarding personal details etc… but…
“Dans le cadre de la politique nationale de protection des données personnelles et de lutte contre la fraude, la Caisse Nationale d’Assurance Maladie (CPAM) met en œuvre une nouvelle procédure de sécurisation de l’accès à votre compte Ameli et à votre Carte Vitale. Cette démarche vise à garantir que seuls les titulaires légitimes puissent accéder à leurs droits et prestations, en renforçant les contrôles d’authentification et la protection des données sensibles”
The letter goes on to ask the person to “scan the QR code” and this is where it all goes wrong.
Ignore the letter and Do Not Scan the QR Code is the advice from our Maire
I found a QR code reader yesterday that operates in a browser so nothing is installed on the computer and it “just” decodes the QR code and displays it so you can see where it’s going. Most legit people seem to mention the URL as well as the QR code but I had an email that didn’t, so I checked…
The War of the Oaken Bucket was won by Modena after they had the foresight to supply their spy in the Bolognese camp with a Doro fliptop with a Reglomobile sim. He was then able to predict exactly when the bucket would be available for nicking.
I don’t even scan the codes on WiFi routers. I’m sure I remember a case where someone managed to substitute the QR code on batches of routers from a well known company for nefarious purposes but can’t find it online. Think it was on el Reg.
That’s really weird as I learned all about the War of the Oaken Bucket only yesterday. It was on an episode of Horrible Histories, which I am a great fan of. Not sure any phones were involved though
Get a QR code reader which gives you the opportunity to review the destination of the link - I use “QR Reader” from the Play store which seems OK - there are loads of others.
The one in the letter above expands to a link to qrco.de - a well known hosting site for QR code scams.
To a point I’d rather have an app on my phone/laptop which does things locally - than use a browser based app which needs an internet connection. Just decoding the QR code presents no risk.
I read about one (The Three Hundred and Thirty Five Year War) that only ended in 1986. It was between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly and it never involved any actual fighting and ended with a peace treaty in 1986. This “war” began when the Dutch declared war on the Isles of Scilly during the English Civil War but forgot to sign a peace treaty, resulting in a bloodless conflict that was forgotten by both sides until its official end. They probably communicated it using one of these (which isn’t smart!)
A bit like Berwick on Tweed. I forget the details but wasn’t it forgotten about when Britain signed a treaty with Russia?
Yes it was for some reason included individually at the outbreak of the Crimean war and was fogotten about in the ultimate peace treaty. To the relief of everyone, including me as I was a regular at the transport cafe there just outside the dock gates where we use to park overnight and eat, it was sorted out in 1966.
