Smashing Security podcast #368: Gary Barlow, and a scam turns deadly

In my early 20s, people used to say, you know, you look a bit like Leonardo DiCaprio.

Shut up. Who said that? People that could see? People that weren't blind?

People with eyes used to say. People with eyes. It wasn't the woman from the Lionel Richie Hello video.

They have very small eyes and maybe they were looking directly into the sun.

Smashing Security, episode 368, Gary Barlow and a scam turned deadly with Carole Theriault and Graham Cluley.

Hello, hello and welcome to Smashing Security, episode 368. My name's Graham Cluley. And I'm Carole Theriault. And Carole, thank you for joining us. You are far overseas on a secret mission at the moment, aren't you?

I am very much so. So that means we should just get going so I can go back to doing my secret mission stuff. Fair enough. But before we kick off, let's thank this week's wonderful sponsors, Collide, Kiteworks and Vanta. It's their support that helps us give you this show for free. Now, coming up on today's show, Graham, what do you got?

I'm going to be saying take that to romance scammers.

And I'm going to head to Ohio and see what can go really wrong when one plus one equals three. All this and much more coming up on this episode of Smashing Security.

Now, chums, chums, specifically you, Carole, because you're the only person who can answer this question, who's on the show today. Do you have a celebrity lookalike?

No but I used to be told fairly often that I looked, I can't remember, Linda Carter the Wonder Woman girl.

Wonder Woman that's right well done because I have asked you this question before four years ago when we had Gary Kasparov on the show and you said Wonder Woman Linda Carter so I'm not a liar you're not a liar we ran your picture through an app which suggested Courteney Cox was your celebrity lookalike. Oh, I forgot that. I was compared to Henry Kissinger or Larry the Cable Guy.

One of them is much closer to the other. That's all I'm going to say.

But in my youth, I remember in my early 20s, there were two famous people who people used to say, you know, you look a bit like Leonardo DiCaprio.

Shut up. People used to say that. But people that could see, people that weren't blind.

People with eyes used to say. People with eyes. It wasn't the woman from the Lionel Richie Hello video who said I look like.

But they have very small eyes and maybe they were looking directly into the sun. Leonardo DiCaprio they used to say. And the other person he used to say was British singer Gary Barlow. He did loads of shows, though, the X Factor things, things like that. UK versions of it, Carole. UK versions. He's not Paula Abdul. Oh, right. He's not Simon Cowell. He didn't go over to America to do them. Wow, that's cruel. He's a pretty talented guy. He is a really talented guy, but he's not Elton John, is he? But he's a songwriter. He plays the piano. He's a human wind machine. He was a frontman of this boy band, Take That, for years and years. I think he still is, which has had number one records around the world, but not really very much in America. Okay, but the two of you out there that don't know about Gary Barlow, I hope you're enjoying this. Well, now everyone knows what I look like. Leonardo DiCaprio mixed with Gary Barlow. Why wouldn't you know, I'm getting on in years and, you know, I'd to think I could turn a few heads.

Well, well, she says that she added Gary as a friend on Facebook. And Gary replied to her. He said Gaza, Gaza, Gaza. He said, hey, he said, I was going through my s and comments. I don't know how Gary. No, please don't do that. I was going through my likes and comments, he said, and my heart chose you and your profile really attracted me. So I decided to get this private account just to text my fan because my manager has access to my official account. Hope you can keep this a secret between the two of us.

This was the initial. Hi, how are you?

This is the initial hi, how are you from Gary Barlow himself to the granny who works in the pizza parlour in Colchester, Essex.

So, OK, we all know that I don't manage a social profile with any skill, right? We all know that, correct. But I wonder if this is really the best way to open up a conversation with someone. You know, it just seems a bit strong because you'd have to have a lot of faith in your profile being pretty awesome to capture the likes of Gazza Baza.

You know, like I said, there are those of us who've been hit by the beauty stick as we fell out of the tree and have fallen, hit really hard. Gorgeous. Some of us are just put in this position where we can do this. And so this Barlow chap bombarded Granny Janet with compliments, telling her that he had split up from his wife and that he had a secret.

He had a secret that he wanted to share with Janet.

Janet and Gary Barlow started texting every day, sometimes from nine o'clock in the morning till three o'clock in the morning. What? Yes. I don't know when she was making pizzas. She's making pizzas,

Sleeping for a few hours. She says I haven't

Showered in weeks, but I carried on and he was saying that I've got rehearsals now, I'll text you later. I believe in God, my marriage has broke up. I've got a lot of music, I'm a very busy person. And then he would come back on and all I kept questioning is I'm sure you're not Gary Barlow.

So in a long string of messages, Gary Barlow was telling her how he loved her and praised her dancing videos because she'd posted a few videos up on Facebook of her doing little jigs around the place. Maybe to some of their songs, Could It Be Magic and Shine. That was one of theirs, wasn't it?

I don't know, I don't really know Take That.

You don't know Take That? Okay, all right. But every now and then Gary would say, oh I've got to dash off because he had an important meeting or to be practicing for a concert. And Janet told the Daily Mail, who she was recounting this story to, she said to them, the words were really posh. He said, I'm in a meeting now and I'm practicing for a concert. Now, I don't know what's posh about those words, but she says that was posh talk.

Well, it depends where Janet lives and who her neighbors are. But maybe she lives in an area where people Don't have meetings or don't practice for concerts, perhaps. Right. I thought you read my profile, Gaza.

I hope you're not posing as a fan. He said, I have to be careful because I've been hurt several times from people out there who are actually journalists, pretend to be fans and end up faking stories about me. And Janet assured him that she was a genuine fan of his.

Yeah, 100% not a journalist. I'll keep this between us, Gaza. Love you too.

So last month in March, Janet got really, really excited about her budding new romance and she couldn't resist any longer. And so she pressed the button to make an audio call to Gary late one night.

You meant video call, didn't you?

No, an audio call. It was an audio call that she tried. Gary didn't answer.

Oh right, right. Because they've only been texting so far. They've only been

Texting so far. Only been texting so far, okay, with you. And Gary said, Gary messaged back, don't be so fast, woman. With time, you'll know me very well. I told you about calling me. My management are monitoring me. So just text me instead.

First of all, I did think it might have been him. There was a picture with Betty. He didn't have many friends on there, but he started saying things. And I kept saying to him, are you Gary Barlow? Are you Gary Barlow? He said, yes, I am. And if you think I'm not, stop texting.

I'm feeling there's a little pink flag now. Like a little bit. Just

A tinge of red, maybe. A tinge of red, blushing. So Janet has also got a little bit of a blush about her. She started to get suspicious and she realised the man she was speaking to couldn't be the real Gary Barlow. As she told the newspaper, Gary Barlow would not talk to someone like me. He's too famous, she said. I just thought this isn't Gary Barlow. She was actually smart, right? She's a smart woman. She saw

The red flag, the blessed flag. She said, you're not

The real one. And he kept on replying. He said, you're lovely, you're kind, but yes, I am Gary Barlow. And eventually, Janet managed to persuade this person who was posing as Gary Barlow to reveal the truth.

He was texting me to about three in the morning. And I said to him, I want the truth now. I don't think you're Gary Barlow. And he kept saying, I am. I said, he said, can I have your WhatsApp number? So I said, can I have your WhatsApp number if you tell me who you are? Because he kept saying he had a secret, but he wouldn't tell me the secret because he had to learn to trust me. And the secret was, he wasn't Gary Barlow.

He was a chap based in Nigeria, who he said was a big fan, an admirer of Gary Barlow and liked singing and liked his songs and had fallen in love with Janet, and wanted to help out his family and just needed some money to get some food in Nigeria. Jesus.

So I could see his point, but it's wrong what he's done because he intimidated Gary Barlow and how many people are going to be vulnerable? A bit like me, I'm very vulnerable and I haven't sent him money, but I have felt guilty because he's poor. He asked me to download something, what would cost for a card to download and they tell me how much it'd be so I can go and see him and I can go and see his concerts but I didn't do it. I said no I haven't got the money.

But what she's done now is she's channeling her heartbreak into a mission. She's warning other lonely hearts about these online con artists and she said this. I thought these are very wise words: it ain't just Gary they're impersonating, there's a whole army of fake Thom Joneses and Michael Barrymore's out there as well. That's a nightmare movie. Can you picture that? Can you imagine? Well, I've seen World War Z with all the zombies invading. Can you imagine an army of Thom Jones?

Have you ever been targeted in a romance scam? Do you think you've ever been targeted?

You know what? I have been told just this week that there is someone on Facebook claiming to be Graham Cluley Hacking Services, who will break into social media accounts for you. That's the headline. They've got an AI-generated image. Doesn't look anything like me. It looks very handsome. Does it look like Leonardo DiCaprio? It looked more like Leonardo DiCaprio when he was about 23 than me. But yeah, so maybe. But I don't know if that then turns to romance. Who knows? If anyone is having a romance with me, let me know. I'd be very interested. Carole, what's your story this week?

Alright, I'm going to start with a chap called William Brock. Now you don't know William Brock, he's an 81 year old. And let me set the scene, this is 11am on a Monday morning late last month. And William is chilling at home in his South Charleston town in Ohio when suddenly, dun-dun-dun, the phone rings.

That's a strange ringtone, can I say. Normally they go brr, brr, rather than dun-dun-dun.

It was my scary music. Because this is scary when the phone rings. Because it seems that William Brock has been receiving not so nice calls during the last few weeks. Oh, no. Threatening calls, targeting him and his family and demanding cash. Okay, that would be scary. This was late at night, you said?

No, no, 11 a.m. 11 a.m. on a Monday morning.

To be honest, I think when I get to that age, I'll be scared of anyone knocking on my door any time, day or night.

Right, even the Amazon guy. We know how you feel about them.

If Amazon did knock on my door, that'd be great. So our buddy here, William Brock, he opens the door and finds 61-year-old Lolita Toland Hall standing there and she says, hey, I'm here to pick up a package. Well, Brock is having none of this, right? Because he's just talked to the scammers and what does he do? What does he do? He whips out a gun. He whips out a gun that he's had in his belt, cowboy style, demanding that she identify herself and who she works for. So hang on, let me tell you. So he's been getting calls for weeks from scammers who've been making threats to him in some way, asking for money or something. Otherwise, they're going to come around and duff him up or do something unpleasant.

We don't know. And then Lolita turns up on his doorstep. And so he whips out his pistol.

Because she's there. I'm here to pick up a package. And he's just been told, you know, he's had an extortion call. So he thinks it's the scammers, right? It's the scammers showing up.

So gaining access to his house in order to top it. All right.

So he takes his gun out because, you know, no one gets the best of William Brock. Right. He goes, who are you? And so she says, and who do you work for? And, you know, identify the scammers that you're in cahoots with. But she stammers and starts backing away, right? Because she probably didn't expect him to be armed. And says there's a mad person shooting a delivery person.

Well, Graham, look, we all know, listeners and I all know that you have a bit of a short fuse. You've been coming up with nitpicks a lot more. And I need to know that whether or not, in your opinion, do you think Brock's response was excessive? Well, I tend to take the viewpoint that there's very few occasions when it's all right to shoot somebody as a general rule. I've actually taken that so far that, listeners, I don't have a gun. Top of that. Four times.

Although he did call 911 afterwards, which is very thoughtful of him. Afterwards. Well, you know, it would have interrupted the shooting, I suppose, if he'd done it. Yeah, I mean, his hands were full. He was holding her phone in one hand, right? Oh, so she wasn't an Uber driver picking him up to take him to the bad guys? No, she was there to pick up the money parcel. Right, so they're like, we're going to hurt you or give us some cash. Oh, nice cheery story, Carole. Thanks for choosing this one.

Current reports say that the sheriff's office is still investigating the scam calls to Brock and the package delivery order through the Uber app. So basically, part-time Uber driver pops around and pick up the package.

So Brock is in trouble now because it seems to me he's murdered somebody, right? Well, yeah. Let me show you this link so you can see. Oh, yes, please share that link. Jeepers. No, no, no. So you can, there's a few stills in the article I've put in there for you in the show notes. Oh, my goodness. So this is a shot through the windscreen of the two of them. He's holding his gun.

Right. She's backing up, trying to get into her car.

He's very close to her. And he's got a gun pointed out. She seems to be saying, what the hell's going on? What the hell's wrong with you, man? Yep. And the two move away from view of the camera, and then multiple shots spaced out from each other can be heard, followed by Hall screaming for help. So well I feel terribly sorry for this woman and her family. Jesus, right. No, the cops are still working on all that but we have learned that Brock has been charged with murder. And the reasons being that he did not call 911 soon enough and because there was no active threat presented by Miss Hall at any time during the encounter. Well, I'm not a lawyer Carole. I know you think I am—

No, no I don't even think you're Leonardo DiCaprio so—

I don't know. I mean, they clearly have some culpability. Well— It's huge. Yeah. You also have to feel a little bit sorry for the scammers because it's they're just trying to do a money scam. They weren't planning to go as far as anyone getting shot or anyone getting hurt.

I bet they're bricking it right now. So the moral of the story, Graham, if we have any morals here, is I think I'd say report scams to the cops. Well, that's one more. I'd also suggest maybe don't own a gun.

Yeah, I think I share the opinion that guns often make situations much, much worse.

And obviously we're liberal European types. And so that's why we feel that. But yeah, bit posh. I guess.

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That's the only reason I stay alive.

I fancy a bit of exercise, you know, I'd like to dabble. Yeah.

Well, you are very, very fit, Carole. Thanks, man. Not in that way, but you know what I mean. And so I've joined a gym recently. So, you know, do a bit of treadmill and do a bit of swimming, you know, play badminton and things.

What, instead of getting your own pool?

Yeah, exactly. Instead of going around the paddling pool. And so one of the things I did, I did this on, I think it was Sunday morning, got up bright and early, and I went to my pick of the week, which is BoxFit. BoxFit. Oh, my God. Now, BoxFit, I thought maybe it is something we get exercised by jumping up and down on Amazon cardboard boxes, you know, because you've got to tear them apart, break them down in order to get into the recycling. No, box fit is to do with boxing. That's what I... Have you ever done this, Carole?

No, I think I know a few people that have. But no, I don't really like gyms at all. I have no interest in gyms.

Well, very wise. Well, you've got your swimming pool at home in the underground gymnasium.

Yeah, I have a yoga mat, dude.

Exactly, and all those sort of things. So, box fit is high-intensity cardio workout using gloves and pads. So, I went along to this thing.

Surely this is heart attack inducing for someone of yours. Absolutely. Absolutely. Is this really a pick of the week?

There was a, no, this isn't a nitpick. This is a pick of the week because it was actually quite fun. It was exhausting. I have no coordination whatsoever. I have no control over the left-hand side of my body. You know, I don't really know why I have a left arm at all, other than balance. I don't seem to do anything with it. So, you know, it's just.

Flopping around. I'm just imagining. It's just

Seriously, you want me to move this thing? Are you kidding me? I'm just not very skilled with my left arm and my left leg. I don't know why. So it's all like you have gloves, you have your big boxing gloves, and you're partnered up with someone else. And there's like punch, punch and uppercut noise. Oh, my God, it is knackering. But we're not actually punching each other in the face yet. But I was with this one guy who was walloping — he was so strong, it was like bloody hell. And afterwards I said, "Oh, you must have been coming here for ages." He said, "No, it's my first time." And I thought, oh dear, I'm a bit weedy in comparison. And it was quite the workout. But if you want to improve your agility, strength, and overall fitness, I found it quite fun. And it's quite social as well because we were basically getting hit...

In the face with straight fingers. So fun, this is what Graham thinks is fun, you know.

We were laughing. We weren't hitting each other anywhere vulnerable. We weren't likely to cause any pain.

You didn't get punched in the nuts, so therefore it was really fun.

Exactly, exactly. Normally I'd have to pay more for that kind of treatment. Oh my God. Anyway, so BoxFit is my pick of the week. Carole, what's your pick of the week?

Okay, so I have a family member who is rather enchanted by creative souls that dream up unique gizmos that can make life a little better. So this family member tends to trawl crowdfunding sites looking for brilliant ideas, and if this person finds one, boom, they'll buy it and check it out.

This is a family member. When you say a member of your family, you mean it's definitely not you. Is that what you're saying?

Well, let me carry on. You tell me at the end if you think this was me. Now, some of these gizmos that this family member has purchased have not worked out so well. I remember one was this kind of weird headgear apparatus that you would wear in a plane to hold your head up. So you have a strap around your forehead and a strap around your chin to hold your head up whilst you were sitting there with your eyes closed, drooling and snoring.

Because there's that horrible thing, isn't it, when your head's lolling around when you fall asleep? You wake up and...

Your neck hurts and all that. So that...

Sounds like a sensible intervention. Right. Except that the straps go behind the headrest across the TV screen of the person behind you. Not so popular, not so popular. So a pocket-sized washing machine?

Yeah. I'm going to give you a link, Graham, to check this out while we're reacting here.

Okay. We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, of course we will. Okay, so listeners, I want you to imagine a large whoopee cushion with a kind of watertight opening that you can unscrew and get inside the whoopee cushion. And in this, you shove your dirty clothes inside the whoopee cushion, you add water and detergent, and then you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. Normally I use a thing called a shower if that's the case.

Okay, okay. I'm going to give you a situation. I want to know what you do. Okay, so imagine you're at a hotel for an event, and your butt sneaks out a little toot, but actually it turns out to be a little poop. But you're about to go on stage.

Yep, that is a frequent... yeah.

Do you pull out the Washi and, you know, get yourself all started and shakey, shakey, shake? Do you go commando? Do you not worry about it because no one's getting close enough? What do you do? Sticky Pickles is coming back soon, ladies and gentlemen.

So I've soiled myself, I've soiled my trousers.

You only have one pair. You weren't going to stay there, you know. You only have one pair of pants.

Right, your pants are soiled. So these American pants or British pants — sorry, is it underpants?

British pants, yes.

Okay.

Unless you've had a very big accident.

Yeah, well, okay. I'm just trying to understand exactly what the parameters are here. So if I'm just about to go on stage, this isn't a situation that has arisen, can I just stress that right now?

It does occur to me that your pants would be wet, right, because it doesn't dry them.

Right. So is it going to be better with going out with a great big damp stain coming through my trousers rather than an invisible poop contained within my underpants? I think you've answered your own question there.

I don't want to actually know the answer. Okay, now I must repeat, I have no idea if this is any good. But as this family member likes to celebrate these innovations and creativity, and I thought this was a little bit charming as an idea. I mean, I don't know if you were on a cruise or if you were out...

Camping. But there are cleaning facilities on cruises and in hotels and things.

They cost a lot of money. I've had stuff cleaned at hotels before.

Well, how much does this gadget cost?

That is a very good question. Let's find out. $99.

$19? Well, that seems rather expensive. Oh, that's for three of them. Why would you need three of them? How much pooping are you going to do? Wow. That's me, folks. Excellent. Excellent. Good quality. And listeners, if any of you try out the washi.

Don't blame me. Never leave home without it.

Because you never know when you might need it in an emergency.

Keys, check. Phone, check. Wallet, check. Pocket-sized solar-heated washing machine. Shit.

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Until next time. Cheerio. Bye bye. Bye. Thank you.