Slashdot Mirror
Nigerian Scammer Gets the Laptop He Deserves
wiredmikey writes "After switching to a Mac recently, I decided to put my old laptop up for sale to help recoup a little of the Mac cost. I received an email almost immediately from a girl named Rebecca and we had this email exchange." My favorite part is the fake letter from the FBI demanding tracking numbers.
It's not enough that Hollywood keeps remaking their old movies, even the internet is doing the same. This is a remake of the old P-p-p-powerbook story.
P-p-p-powerbook!
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Ah, you've discovered our brilliant form of counter-espionage. Hollywood floods the planet with ridiculous stereotypes and bizarre portrayals of American society as part of a disinformation campaign to fool foreign powers. You and I might simply roll our eyes at a bad movie, but two invasion attempts were aborted due to concerns about the throngs of gun-toting mobsters and "masked avengers" in every American city. Several terror plots fell apart as the organizers became convinced that they had been overheard by CIA surveillance satellites bristling with parabolic microphones. And thousands of PRC agents wasted nearly five years trying futilely to "hack the Gibson."
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
The scam consists of: I pretend to pay you money, you send me valuable goods, but I really kept the money, and get the goods, too.
That's unfair, obviously -- to the tune of $400.
What actually happened: I pretend to pay you money, you send me a pretend laptop; I really keep the money, you really keep the laptop.
Since everyone has what they started with... how's that unfair? Maybe they had to pay customs a percentage of the fake price, so they lost a few bucks. You could say that, taken as a single incident, the outcome is unfair. (Then again, it could be viewed as a very fair penalty for attempted fraud.) But it's nowhere near their fraudulent gain from a successful scam, and since they have many more successes than scambaits like this, the fraudsters are still coming out way ahead.
You can take your moral equivalence and shove it up your ass, if you can find room next to your head in there.
You can't even tell her son is a boy and yet you're telling her she should be worried after sharing his picture? Worried about what, exactly? Nigerians are gonna come steal her kid? Slashdotters are gonna came take her daughter?
Yeesh. THe Olsens became two of the most powerful kids ever to rule in Hollywood in large part because of this whole "online" thing. The entire internets knew their real name, their dad's name, the SCHOOl they went to, the house they lived in - some even went so far as to track down yearbooks, scan the pictures from the yearbooks and post THOSE online. So far they haven't lost their Millions to kidnapper payoffs... although they do seem to be disappearing from the shelves at WalMart...
Get real. These are 419 scammers - the abbot and costellos of criminals. How are they gonna use Google when they can't even speak Engrish?
Hey, since you seem to have two laptops - how about giving your extra one to a Nigerian?
I think we've all seen what these people do when we give them access to computers.
Real-life cops love the way guns are held in movies because the ballistic accuracy is basically zero when you hold a gun sideways.
[citation needed]
Here's your citation.
http://www.slate.com/id/2238560
Although, accuracy isn't zero, but it is much lower.
Bullshit. The inherent ballistic accuracy of a weapon is not changed because the weapon is held in a different manner. Instead (and the article says this) accuracy is a problem of the shooter, and that it's hard to use the top-mounted sight.
:P
If you're gonna cite something make sure it actually supports your argument.
PS: whoever modded you is an idiot for not checking your source.
Ditto.
It's all about the shooters control of the weapon. Vertically aligned, there is lots of strength against the recoil. There isn't as much horizontally. The "kick" is up relative to the weapon, due to the fact that you're always holding it below the center of force.
For those who don't understand, go to the gym. On a machine where you can fully extend your arm, such as a machine for the biceps, push and see how much you can push straight up. Then try a machine where you are pushing across your chest. Unless you've been exercising specifically to strengthen those muscles (and ignoring the others) you will see a significant difference. ... and, yes, it's harder to see through the sights. :) I'd give a description, but I don't usually sit at the computer with a weapon in hand, unless I'm expecting some unwelcome company. The black van left a couple days ago, so I think I'm safe.
Hmmm, what was that noise on the back porch?
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I've actually broached this subject with a couple of different Nigerian guys that I went to Graduate School with. They told me how Nigeria has such an ethnically diverse population (literally thousands of ethnic groups with their own distinct languages), that the only way the government can work is if everyone speaks English (courtesy of the old British Colonial occupation). The problem is that everyone speaks their native tongue at home, and only learns English in school and some times they don't learn it until they are high school aged. For most Nigerians, English is not about getting the grammar right, but about being understood. As long as the person to whom you are talking gets the gist of what you are saying, then that is enough. All of the Nigerians I know (a dozen or so) either were tutored prior to applying to US graduate schools, or attended private schools that drilled British English with a strong focus on speaking English like it was their 1st and not 2nd language.
The up shot of all this is that those Nigerians who could have proofed such emails are too busy working legitimate jobs to waste their time helping out the scammers, and the scammers are to illiterate to realize that their poor grammar is a dead giveaway.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde