A Lebanese lady who had her credit card information stolen and used to make several transactions reported the incident to some journalist in Al Joumhouria last week. And unfortunately for us, the latter decided to take matters in her own hands to investigate the issue and came up with some really messed up conclusions.
According to the journalist, it seems like TV receivers now pose a threat because they can get infected by a virus named “talk talk” through the satellite dishes, in addition to a new device that costs $200 to build and can steal a card information by simply placing it next to it… yeah a sane person holding a degree in journalism is actually convinced about that. Make sure to read the full article here.
I have no idea how on earth is a TV receiver supposed to steal some card information… but a simple Google search shows that “talk talk” is actually a telecom operator in the UK that had some of its customer data stolen a while ago, so there isn’t any virus by that name. Moreover the $200 device is impossible to build but there exists what is called a “skimming” instead which involves actually swiping the card.
Next thing you might read in Al Joumouria is most probably about a car-theft gang that is teleporting cars from Beirut to Brital!
Update: I definitely did not mean to endorse punishing journalists by the previous title. The idea is just that such articles cannot be justified at a time when information resources are very accessible and facts can be easily double checked.