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"Nigerian" Spammer Arrested
Roger_Wilco writes "According to The Globe and Mail, a "Nigerian" spammer has been
charged with with first-degree attempted larceny. Hopefully we'll get a few less of that spam now."
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You'd think the spammers would be more suspicious of someone that seemed so eager to give them her money. With the rate of reply to these things so low, the spammers might figure that the people who do actually bite are actually trying to shut them down. Ah well...we can dream, can't we?
"By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth." - George Carlin
Sounds like the drug war.
ymmv
we had a war on drugs. there are still drugs. we had a war on terrorism. didn't stop that either. why should a war on spam fare any better?
the problem with all these wars is that they are supply-side. as long as there is a demand, there were will be a supplier. fine the suppliers, arrest the suppliers... hell, kill them even. but while there still exist the droves of doe-eyed sheep (mix those metaphors!) who are willing to buy "spam-vertized" goods and services, there will be spammers.
this arrest will in the long and medium term acheive nothing.
2 1337 4 u!
Seems messed up to me. Shouldn't the bank be able to discover it is a fraud BEFORE clearing the money into your account?
At very least it seems to me there should be a maximum number of days the bank can hold your responsible for, after which the transaction is deemed void or legit.
Of course the laws are probably written in favor of the banking industry...
a) How the hell would anyone know that? b) After oil there is not much to make money from in Nigeria, so the breakdown would probably be something like: oil (98%), glass "diamonds" to American suckers(1%), scam(0.5%)...
>Spam filters do not work because there is no way
>to look at text and tell whether it is spam or
>not.
Seeded Bayesian strategies work pretty damned well. The problem is, most consumers are forced to download the mail before letting their spam filter check it.
I don't really care that the spams are in my inbox folder. I mean, I do, but the damage was done when I was forced to download the crap before checking it. That is the bigger annoyance.
If Cox cable would let me, I would just run my own inbound MX. I'd have a whitelist for inbound SMTP, and that would be that.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Although the site can be funny, I must say those who replied and never got any answer back from the spammer are those that truly wasted time. A spammer often sends huge masses of mail where each mail just take a second or so to send, and usually don't supply a valid reply address. Then these guys sit down, taking their time to write a 3 pages long reply that no one except those visiting TheSpamLetters.com will read.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I've done it, people I work with are doing it now.
That 419 guy lived in Canada, where most handguns are illegal. I'd love to see him show up at my house with his sharpened stick, I'd have to debate which piece of my arsenal to use, and he may get a chance to poke me one. Of course many states, including Utah, have Conceal Carry laws, so you never know who's packin'..
ps, people who go to Nigeria to "collect" are utter and complete idiots. Of course that should have been apparent when they got ripped off. Blinded by greed..
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
Sure you can mod this funny, but when a country has a forign policy where the CIA assasinates elected leaders and was funding dictators and terrorists for the last 50 years, yes, I think you're asking for it.