Microsoft Helping Nigeria Fight Scammers

encodics writes "News.com is carrying a story today about how Nigeria is asking Microsoft for help in fighting scammers." From the article: "Microsoft will provide technical expertise, training and other security resources to Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which is tasked with fighting cybercrime in the country. Nigeria was initially slow to respond to the problem of '419' e-mail scammers operating in the country, who were duping unsuspecting Internet users out of thousands of pounds by promising a share of the secret multimillion-pound fortune of a deposed African dictator. "

Comments

The trouble with these scams is...

[pmike_bauer]

These scams apparently work, otherwise they would be dead by now. The sad thing is that anyone in the West would be so greedy as to help some stranger transfer millions of dollars out of a cash-poor country such as Nigeria or Uganda.

Re:Isn't that a bit like

[zippthorne]

Yeah recommended by a government organization.

Many of the "drink-the-coolaid" cults we are so fond of ridiculing use protein deprivation to make their victims more suggestible. The all-grain diet has certain advantages. So if you know that reducing protein consumption turns populations into sheep, would you as a responsible arm of the ruling elite suggest a level that was appropriate? or a level that satisfies more aims than just health.

I agree on the first point: cattle are not very land efficient*, but the jury's still out on the second.

*but McDonald's is very cattle efficient. You could eat three whoppers and still fall under the 7 oz limit, and what percentage of the cow gets rejected from fast-food-burger patty production?