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Nigerian Scammers Brought to Justice
KaushalParekh writes "Almost all of us get those junk emails from someone in Africa usually promising millions of dollars if you give them your bank details. Finally good to know that they are being caught by the authorities and punished. These are also known as 419 emails named after the Nigerian penal code for fraud. As an interesting aside, fooling these scammers by responding to their emails is a fun passtime for quite a few who call themselves baiters. Check out the trophy pictures of these spammers.. pretty funny."
Did they also have yellowcake?
See Subject
[kelso]
BURN!
[/kelso]
In some ways, I kinda laugh when I think people in Nigeria can scam people in the USA out of money. You would not think some spear chucker could outsmart an American. I guess that is where stereotypes distort our image of the world. In my mind, there are three kinds of Africans. The whites in South Africa that are more wealthy than the avarage American. The tribal blacks, aka "spear chuckers" who go hunting for food, and the blacks who live in the cities who I know little about outside of the movie Roots. Too bad for me, if only there were some good books on South Africa. At least Ice Cube gave us Dangerous Ground. Props to him.
And I also think, if I was poor and had nothing, and could trick a rich wealthy fat elephant into giving me money, based on the elephants own greed, it would be a source of pride to do so. A kind of "fuck you" of sorts. What is the saying, about giving a person just enough rope...
That is how I used to think, until one day I saw some papers about money to be released to my mother, from a lawyer in Africa. She said all she needed to do, to collect her international lottery prize was send $20,000 for lawyer fees, to settle releasing the claim to someone from out of the country. Hmmm. She never entered any international lottery. "Shhh..." she told me, "They don't know that".
I got a flashback from a drunken night in high school, where I came home the next morning at noon to find an envolope which said Ed McMahon selected me as a $1,000,000 winner. I smoked so much weed the night before, that is my defense to believing it. I think I blew $120 on subscriptions to 8 different magazines that day.
Anyways, it turned out to be a scam. Luckily, my mother did not send any money. My mother is poor, and it would be horrible to see one poor person rip off another poor person. It takes the Robin Hood out of the story. However, if it was a millionair who lost $20,000 I would say tough shit.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
This dim bulb has been attending the monthly meetings for the Chicago chapter of 2600 group for about 7-8 months now. He has had some extreme problems with the caveat "nothing illegal should go on at the meetings". Thus, the poor guys who arrange the meeting have had to have words with him, and several of his pothead posse about drinking and doing drugs on-site. Even after SPECIFICALLY being told not to.
After he failed to find kindred souls, and other assorted mental defectives to go down with him, he started getting obnoxious and demanding access to projects being worked on by private groups within the mainstream 2600 setting.
When he politely got told to fuck off, he proceeded to hack his way in. Not to demonstrate he could. Not to show people the various insecurities inherent in their system. Simply so that he could circumvent what he perceived as access "restrictions" on himself.
When called to the carpet, he merely responds with "well if I'd been asked to clean it up, I would have". Patent BS from first to last. Every last problem he's ever caused, he's out the door before any chance is made to inspect the systems and ask for them to be cleaned. Causing more work for the people who own them, and now have to take them out of service for reinstallation.
About this time, it was discovered by the group at large that this idiot damn-near got mobbed off a stage at Defcon 2004 for preaching what he called "Hacktivism" or "Civil Disobedience". Nothing civil about it. It amounted to "Fuck their shit up. Hack their websites. Break their property." And he had to be escorted away by security for his own safety....you could see the feds popping out the cell phones to make the calls.
In short, this "hacktivist" is nothing more than a petulant, willful child. One for whom NOTHING is a barrier, so long as HE gets what HE wants.
He's not an activist. He's not even really an idealist, though he purports to be. He's just another dumb, selfish ass who will eventually wind up in jail.
I wish him copious butt sex....On the receiving end.
Find out the TRUTH about Jeremy Hammond.
http://tinyurl.com/
Yeah, it seems that for years now I've been paying bank fees for cashier's checks for nothing. I'd long thought that a cashier's check *can't* bounce unless the *bank* has insufficient funds. The bank is supposed to satisfy itself that your payment to them is secure before issuing a cashier's check. But it seems that, if this was ever true, nowadays it isn't.
So *is* there some instrument I can buy that is guaranteed payable unless the bank itself is bust?
I'd long thought that a cashier's check *can't* bounce unless the *bank* has insufficient funds.
That is the case for a genuine cashier's check. The way the scam works is that the scammer forges the check.
Your bank doesn't detect the forgery, and can't until it gets to the other bank, who gets a check that doesn't gybe with their records.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So *is* there some instrument I can buy that is guaranteed payable unless the bank itself is bust?
Sure there is. Just get a cashier's check from the bank itself, and do it in person.
Of course, you can do better than that. Just buy Krugerrands, Canadian Maple Leafs, Chinese Pandas, etc. There are a bunch of bullion coins to choose from.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."