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Why 'Nigerian Scammers' Say They're From Nigeria
angry tapir writes "'Nigerian scams' (also known as '419 scams' but more accurately called 'advance fee fraud') continue to clog up inboxes with tales of fantastic wealth for the recipient. The raises the question: Do people still fall for this rubbish? The emails often outline ridiculous scenarios but promise millions if a person offers to help get money out of a country. The reason for the ridiculous scenarios seems obvious in retrospect: According to research by Cormac Herley at Microsoft, scammers are looking for the most gullible people, and their crazy emails can help weed out people who are savvy enough to know better. Contrary to what people believe, the scams aren't 'free' for the scammers (PDF): sending an email might have close to zero cost attached, but the process of getting money out of someone can be quite complicated and incurs costs (for example, recruiting other parties to participate in the scam). So at the end of the day, the scammer wants to find people who will almost certainly fall for the scam and offer a good return."
is therefore a good tactic, perhaps when we get these we should make a response, to lower their average rate of return.
The real answer is because they are actually from Nigeria. I think the researchers are over-thinking this problem.
The article didn't explain why Nigeria, instead of (say) Kenya or Uganda -- or Sri Lanka or Bolivia or Uzbekistan.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
It could be the same phenomenon that causes Intelligent Design advocates to exclaim - "My gosh, it's inconceivable that it wasn't deliberate!" ; 419 scams are just a successful phenotype (or memotype?) that happens to fit a niche. Their total incompetence selects a very particular kind of credulous idiot that previously would not have been available in such numbers, but the internet produces a global village, with a ready supply of village idiots. Interpreting it as being an intentional tactic may be reading too much into it.
Suppose an hour's worth of stalling on our end costs them an hour of their time. Is it worth it? Well, if there's a million of us doing this and only (say) 50 scammers, it'll keep them busy for a couple of years. Kind of like how sending 100 HTTP requests from your computer to a website can bring a large server farm to its knees... if you have tens of thousands of other computers doing the same thing at the same time.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
These people are desperate and without work in their country except for criminal con tricks such as this so the most compassionate thing you could do is ignore them and continue to educate your community about the trap.
How weird. Would you also advocate compassionately letting drug smugglers through but educating people on the harm of drugs, if they come from third-world countries?
You are using your (first world) time
Some call this "entertainment".
Lot's of people have different hobbies.
There are people who like to play the latest "Call for Warfare" on their "PlayBox"
There are people who like to hack a Linux into their toaster.
There are people who like to build an all purpose robot using a cluster of arduinos
And then, there are the people who get their kicks from baiting scamers (the whole "feeling superior by scamming the scamer"). All in all it's a rather cheap form of hobby, because it doesn't require much beyond time. But on the other side it's less healthy than going outdoor for some sports.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
But is this really such a low risk passtime?
The idea is yeah, yeah, 3rd World dimwits, let's see how stupid they are. But I would think that con artists of all cultures might have a certain sophistication about them, and if they lack sophistication, they might have some "muscle" they could apply if you got them angry.
I say, if you really, really know what you are doing, have your fun, but unless I knew these guys couldn't figure out personal info on me, I wouldn't poke them with sticks just to get a reaction.