Ironically I couldn't read the article due to the deluge of ads

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I have noticed that it is possible to lag a browser sandbox very badly in some ways like making it deal with stack overflow (the condition not the site). Chrome can’t handle text files past a certain size and goes nutty. So if you put enough into frames maybe you could really stun it while a malware message shows.

My mother had this same thing, closed her laptop in a panic and it was gone when she restarted

In the old days newspapers used to be fined for allowing fraudsters to take out ads in the classified section. Jail time wasn't out of the question either.

Once again reality reminds us that ad blocking is personal infosec.

> The locker fills the screen, hides the cursor, swallows the usual exit keys, and lags the browser, all to manufacture the sense of a broken machine and pressure the person into calling the number on the screen. Nothing on the computer is actually locked, but in the moment it is convincing enough to push people toward the scam.

Tell me again why the browser has to be its own Turing-complete platform? Rather than a document reader as it was designed?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is the equivalent of 80s viruses having full control over the machine they run on, without any real mitigation outside of prevention.

Web apps were a mistake. So was always-on connectivity where any given program could connect to remote services in the background.

In fact, allowing computers to completely take over the world to the degree it has today was a mistake, at least as implemented by the tech overlords of the 90s and 2000s that built things to be the way it is now.

Really, this is just the continuing fallout from the dotcom bubble. A few companies vaulted to mega status, the rest died. And those remaining companies have destroyed the world slowly.