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Arrested Nigerian Email Scammer Facing Up To 30 Years In Prison (dallasnews.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the hello-sir-madam dept.

McGruber writes: Amechi Colvis Amuegbunam, 28, a Nigerian man living in the U.S. on a student visa, faces federal wire fraud charges in connection with a sophisticated email phishing scam targeting businesses. He was arrested in Baltimore and charged with scamming 17 North Texas companies out of more than $600,000 using the technique. If convicted, Amuegbunam faces up to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million.

118 comments

  1. $1 million fine? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    No problem. He can get wired from the deposed prince's sister.

    1. Re:$1 million fine? by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      No problem. He can get wired from the deposed prince's sister.

      If the deerly esteemed justice department first wires her the necessary funds to unlock the capitol. Hey, that might work...

  2. No! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Shit, how is he gonna pay me back now!

    1. Re:No! by unixisc · · Score: 1

      You too? I thought I was the one he wanted w/ whom he wanted to save his money

  3. I was overjoyed by russotto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...until I learned this was the North Texas scammer. It's the scammers who operate in the Eastern District of Texas who are the real problem there.

    1. Re:I was overjoyed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      North Texas != East Texas. When most people say "North Texas", they're actually referring to the DFW metro-plex. The Eastern District Courts are in "East" Texas or, as anyone else in Texas will call it, "That part you drive through really fast on the way to somewhere better". The courts that cause the most problems are all in small towns (notably Marshall, Tyler and Texarkana) and are going to pull from a jury pool that doesn't have much technical background. The reason they chose here instead of closely bordering Arkansas, Louisiana or Mississippi is fairly easy access for high powered law firms in Austin, DFW and Houston.

      Texas, like space, is big. (and many people would argue has the same average IQ per volumetric measurement of your choice)
      // * Given intelligence currently known to us
      // // Texas native and A&M Grad

    2. Re: I was overjoyed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *whoosh*

      I think everyone knows north isn't east. You missed the joke.

  4. Send more emails! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This time about how Mr. Amuegbunam needs $1 million to get out of jail and you'll get $10 million for helping.

  5. Nigerian Prince by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's no way to treat the exiled Nigerian Prince. If you assist in posting his bail money with bitcoin he will reward you with $600,000 (SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLAR).

    1. Re:Nigerian Prince by unixisc · · Score: 2

      Can I donate carbon credits?

  6. Good use for Predator Drones by BenJeremy · · Score: 1, Informative

    Nigerian 419 scammers, south Asian call centers running those "PC Tech Support" and other scams, e-mail spammers...

    The world would be a better place. All of those impact my life daily and far greater than any Al Qaida #2 in Yemen.

    1. Re:Good use for Predator Drones by AmiMoJo · · Score: 0

      Problem is that those countries are developed enough to document the innocent deaths that would result in extreme detail (like live CCTV video of it happening) and use it to shame the US. Drones only work where the murders can be ignored and or declared enemy combatants.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Good use for Predator Drones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh really? Is that so? That's funny because none of these impact my daily life at all, even though I get more than 100 spam mails a day.

      Have you ever tried using a spam filter, or are you just another random asshole who spams this forum with bullshit?

    3. Re:Good use for Predator Drones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You missed the worst of all: Cryptolocker and its ilk.

    4. Re:Good use for Predator Drones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know whether to laugh or worry at the Informative mod you have got. Lighten up cause we can light them up!

  7. One would think... by arth1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One would think that in 2015, executives would digitally sign their e-mails, and those who transfer money verify the digital signatures.
    Even in backwards Texas.

    1. Re:One would think... by txsable · · Score: 2

      Of the hundreds of emails I get each year, want to hazard a guess as to how many actually know what it means to "sign" an email? most think that means typing their name at the bottom. I had a user one ask me to help them set up a digital signature...by which they meant scanning a piece of paper with their signature on it to paste into Word documents. And that was for someone who would be considered an "Executive" level in academia.

    2. Re:One would think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A lot of idiots won't even do that in person, they play fast and loose, and don't think for a second because it might cause them massive cerebral trauma.

    3. Re:One would think... by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 3, Informative

      > One would think that in 2015, executives would digitally sign their e-mails

      Unfortunately, building in digital signatures, means bundling good encryption into common email clients. They're tightly linked technologies, it's awkward if not impossible to have one without the other. That implies coping with the US Department of Commerce, whose regulations are at https://www.bis.doc.gov/index..... Note that similar versoins of those regulations were previously handled by US Customs, but suffered many legal challenges and wee simply transferred to the Dapartment of Commerce to avoid having to follow various legal decisions on their constitutionality and re-apply them as part of a different federal agency.

      These regulations are onerous for businesses engaging in telecommunications. They have effectively hindered and prevented such encryption and digital signatures from becoming widespread for at least the last 30 years. They've also prevented the widespread use of encryption at the Ethernet card or "data link layer": the regulations create unmanagable burdens for companies that want to sell the appropriate switches and network devices.

    4. Re:One would think... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      The problem is the backwards legal system, which thinks that high technology means clinging to fax rather than going to a fully secure PGP signature standard.

    5. Re:One would think... by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      I work in IT security. We have various levels of confidentiality, from "public" to levels where even the name of the level itself is already confidential. Everyone who as much as touches documents that are not "public" (i.e. pretty much everyone but the intern, and even there I'm not too certain) gets a three day training course concerning the tools of the trade. How to encrypt, how to decrypt, how to digitally sign, how to verify signatures, the whole deal and then some. Along with the information that failure to comply with these standards can lead to immediate termination. And since we're "only" dealing with financial and not military secrets, I have hope that they mean that you're just fired...

      You would think that people thus motivated and primed would know their security. Moreover, you would think that there are preventive measures in place that ensure you CANNOT accidentally fail to comply. You would think that these measures are being audited routinely and checked for their effectiveness. Instead you have people who ask you to send you a document with a funny security level name in plain text because they don't want to deal with that "security stuff".

      And you expect more from managers who never dealt with security at all?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    6. Re:One would think... by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      I don't know what koosbane you're on, linking to the irrelevant document, but there ARE already e-mail clients with encryption. The Commerce department is NOT the reason for lack of adoption of e-mail encryption.

    7. Re:One would think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is "Antique Geemeister". Please excuse the anonymous post: a new environment, with a mail system that is outside my control is presenting some difficulty updating my password.

      These were originally primarily available only in niche, UNIX based, mostly pure-text email clients. I see that they've finally enabled the use of digital signatures for Outlook based email, but those are S/MIME keys. And the support in webmail tools such as Gmail is not built-in. It's erratic and unreliable to apply after the fact. The S/MIME signatures also mean that the private keys require signatures from an SSL authority to be verifiable, unlike the chain-of-trust of GPG or PGP based keys. They also typically require one SSL private/public keypair _per user_, or means that your site must purchase and maintain signature authorities. That is a real cost both in signatures and in manpower to maintain much like website certificates.

      This does not mean that it wouldn't be useful. But it does meain that, for most people, they will not bother, and activating such signatures will in fact confuse many clients.

      Please, recheck your assumptions about shipping such clients with digital signatures and encryption enabled. It is also against Commerce Department regulations, to ship such clients from the USA to "barred" countries. I've worked with free software and open source authors who ran headlong into this problem back when the regulations were managed by US Customs. But the result is that they can't easily be included in public distributions. Please look into the history of PGP and Phil Zimmerman's legal difficulties to understand the chilling effects of such regulations, and look into the history of 80-bit versus 128-bit SSL keys to see its historic effects. Microsoft can do it with Outlook because they're a big company, with lawyers to spend time and money walking through the legal requirements. Most developers don't have that kind of luxury. The results have been very strange, for decades, as PGP and GPG were deliberately hosted outside the USA, and as other encryption technologies are also deliberately hosted outside the USA precisely to avoid these regulations.

      Unfortunately, the commonplace use of S/MIME for email digital signatures also presents other problem. There's a fair analysis of its vulnerabilities at https://luxsci.com/blog/can-smime-be-trusted-when-ssl-has-had-so-many-security-issues.html. The ease of using broken, stolen, or falsely signed SSL certificates present real vulnerabilities. In fact, email is so rarely digitally signed that for most of us, the presence of a digital signature should actually make us _question_ the validity of hte email.

    8. Re:One would think... by PhunkySchtuff · · Score: 1

      I believe encryption is built into Outlook, but I don't use it so can't comment on how easy it is to set it up and enable it.
      On OS X however, it is definitely built in to the Apple Mail app.
      If you have a private and public keypair for your email address in your keychain (a standard operating-system provided repository for secure items like passwords, keys and certificates) then Mail, without any additional configuration or prompting automatically enables signing and encryption for new emails.

      If you're emailing someone for whom you don't have their public key, all you can do is sign the email (there's a button with a check mark in a star to indicate if it's signed or not) If they email you back with a signed email, their public key is automatically imported into your keychain and then from that point on, you can encrypt emails to them (next to the signing button, there's another one with a padlock to indicate the encryption status)

      The difficult part is the whole web-of-trust thing involved in getting a digital signature, and the lack of most people's understanding of the importance of this. Oh, and last time I checked, Outlook on Windows was pretty painful when displaying encrypted emails - it doesn't decrypt the email for viewing in the regular message viewer, you have to double-click on the email to open it in a new window to view it. No, this isn't difficult, but when you're emailing people and they get annoyed that they have to double-click on your emails to view them, and not on anyone else's emails and they ask you to please stop doing whatever it is that you're doing that makes it behave that way.

      --
      Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
    9. Re:One would think... by KGIII · · Score: 1

      You were able to sign emails with Outlook a long time ago? Like 10+ years ago? I used to sign (it wasn't the easiest to figure out but do-able) emails with Outlook Express, even. Once it was configured it wasn't bad but the configuration process wasn't easy. It wasn't something where you created the security certificate within the client but imported it. With Outlook we used an internal CA (IIRC - it has been years) and I had it set up with OE at home but I'll be buggered if I remember how.

      Hmm... Google "digitally sign email outlook express" and it shall become clear. The feature was in Outlook as well but a different process - albeit still not intuitive.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    10. Re:One would think... by cstacy · · Score: 1

      I believe encryption is built into Outlook, but I don't use it so can't comment on how easy it is to set it up and enable it.
      On OS X however, it is definitely built in to the Apple Mail app.

      The difficult part is the whole web-of-trust thing involved in getting a digital signature, and the lack of most people's understanding of the importance of this

      The problem with encryption/signed messages is that people might trust their authenticity.
      Because all these messages are coming from compromised (infected) systems that
      can generate fake messages, keyboard capture passphrases, etc.

    11. Re:One would think... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      I just checked - apparently digital signatures/encryption (on my admitted single search result date) was Outlook 2007. Now, I recall doing PGP based signatures and encryption around 1993 with LaMail (yep, that one) among many others. The real issue here is that very few lay people have the slightest clue when it comes to certificates, authorities, or sharing public keys.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    12. Re:One would think... by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Nah, here's directions for Outlook 2k3 which is, S/MIME and I'm pretty sure it was available before that?
      http://windowsitpro.com/window...

      I didn't bump into it until later then you. Sometime in the late 1990s with some email app named something about a bat or something called Eudora (I think?) or something similar. I'd never seen it before but it was also in Outlook. Years ago, I used to participate and was an MS MVP in IE/OE, Shell, and for a couple of years, Office (which includes Outlook) which is why I sort of remember - except we also used it at the office and I had it configured in OE at some point back around those years.

      Ah! Heh...

      Here it is in Outlook 2000...
      https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-...

      I thought I remembered it from at least that early - it may have even been in an update to an earlier version but I'll be damned if I'm gonna go dig it out.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    13. Re: One would think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Scanning a digital signature is something you do once, so there's little incentive to spend time and learn if you have the support who does.

      Meanwhile, digital emails would be daily, for years, and once setup (by IT support), it's trivial to continue.

      I don't think you understand what your job is.

    14. Re:One would think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Because all these messages are coming from compromised (infected) systems

      Many do, but certainly not all. There's a great deal of what many spam experts would call "low hanging fruit" that doesn't even bother working its way around such security measures. As long as some of the spammers make enough money to _believe_ that it's profitable, the spam without the most elementary precautions will continue. It doesn't even have to make money: as long as someone can sell the spam service as their business, they'll continue, even if it loses money in the long run.

    15. Re:One would think... by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      From my understanding in the age of unencrypted emails, emails for security purposes are considered postcards. Any business that wires money based upon a postcard deserve to lose that money. Preventive measures that need to be taken, monitoring of all web site registration for looks like addresses and the triggering of immediate investigation and monitoring. Financial institution should also be legally forced to enable regional blocks on money transfers, if you have no intention on sending money outside of your country or only restricting transfer to a list of economic fraud extradition countries, you should be able to do this, to the extent that it should be the default and you are required to take active steps to enable it and do so upon a repeated basis (ie default you country only, next step countries with extradition for economic fraud, then good fucking luck you are going to need it and of course are you fucking nuts as the final setting for Nigeria et al).

      Email seems to need a full shake up, encryption, confirmation of originating address location and identity and even hardware locking (emails from known bits of hardware pre established on the server ie trusted user on trusted hardware).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    16. Re:One would think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea... they put their signature at the end of the mail.. is that not secure enough? :D

    17. Re: One would think... by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Was your goal to make sense? If so you have mightily failed. What the fuck does any of that mean? Ever seen a non-digital email?

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    18. Re:One would think... by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      I'm aware of certain types of encryption being considered "munitions" and having restrictions placed on export. For example the rules tripped up the WebTV devices. But that's not the case anymore and hasn't been the case for a long time.

      After all, you can buy Symantecs commercial version of PGP, download Thunderbird (with built-in S/MIME) and practically every Linux distro has GnuPG installed by default. And Outlook has had S/MIME support for years.

      As for webmail, you shouldn't be using it, except via a proper e-mail client over IMAP. Then you can just use PGP or S/MIME in the client.

    19. Re:One would think... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      It likely was in Outlook 97, since it was required for the DoD email contracts. I seem to vaguely recall something about that. Skimming that 2k3 page makes me grimace in pain. The solution I was using in 1993 was automatic based on preferences per user, with a default. Signing or encryption was automatic if selected and you had the target user(s)'s public key(s). Eudora was one client that interoperated pretty well, I can't remember the rest. I used several back then. It was a very different world.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  8. Re:FPMITA time? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Everyone loves a good rape joke... nitwit.

  9. That's stupid. by feufeu · · Score: 1, Troll

    One should get a life sentence (to which 30 years might be pretty close depending on your age) for murder, but for a financial scam ? That will be pretty costly for the taxpayers and would not be much more of a deterrent to his colleages than, say 3 or 5 years in prison. Let's hope the guy gets to pay the money back and then some and somehow kept away from computers for 30 years...

    1. Re:That's stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, he should get a life sentence. He's lucky they don't hand him over to his victims to get beaten to death.

    2. Re:That's stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, he should get a life sentence. He's lucky they don't hand him over to his victims to get beaten to death.

      No, the accused, if convicted, should be deported after being fitted with a non-removable steel collar that will kill the person as tiny darts inside the collar are released. A cock-and-ball cage to keep the cretin from breeding as well.

    3. Re:That's stupid. by gordguide · · Score: 1

      One should get a life sentence (to which 30 years might be pretty close depending on your age) for murder, but for a financial scam ? That will be pretty costly for the taxpayers and would not be much more of a deterrent to his colleages than, say 3 or 5 years in prison. Let's hope the guy gets to pay the money back and then some and somehow kept away from computers for 30 years...

      You clearly don't understand the US legal system, nor the real-world implications of elected legal officials.

      Let's deal with the latter first ( the real-world implications of elected legal officials) ... in order to be re-elected Sheriff, Judge, Prosecutor, etc as is the common practice in the USA, you need headlines that support your effectiveness as someone who, to use the short answer, is "tough on crime". Therefore all headlines will:

      A) ... refer to the longest potential sentences
      B)... ignore the implication of any sentence with regard to inmates serving less than the final legal sentence due to rules regarding "Time Off for Good Behavior" which is mandatory due to Supreme Court rulings on the Constitutional prohibition of "Cruel and Unusual Punishment"
      C) ... ignore the implication of any Federal Sanctions that may apply on time served due to overcrowding of prisons in a given State
      D) ... ignore the implication of the granting of Parole, which varies from State to State but could concievably make the inmate eligible after serving as little as 1 year.
      E) Note that most States will not keep an inmate on Parole for the length of the original sentence; in many cases the longest time Parole will be in effect is around 5 years.

      Note that compared to State Justice Administration, The Federal Government will, on the other hand, maintain Parole for the length of the original sentence, and has the least generous time off for Good Behaviour (not eligible until 1 year is served, and the least number of days off per month served compared to any US State.

      As to the former ( the US legal system), news headlines always quote the sentence the accused is likely to face should they plead "Not Guilty"; in reality they will be offered a Plea Bargain that will "save the State the cost of an expensive trial" and will result in, typically, a vastly lower maximum sentence (due to a different charge being applied from the agreed upon Plea Bargain).

      It's not strictly correct to say something along the lines of "no-one ever gets the 30 years for this crime" since people who insist they are innocent or have other principled reasons to refuse the Plea Bargain will surely be sentenced to the 30 years (or some other reduced but still long sentence). Also there are occasions when the Prosecutor does not offer a Plea Bargain to the suspect; that could be political (see "I have to be re-elected", above) or practical; it's somewhat rare but can't be ruled out completely. Still, re-read B) above.

    4. Re:That's stupid. by feufeu · · Score: 1

      First, I really don't understand the US legal system and am pretty glad that I am not subjected to it.

      Second, thanks for taking the time to explain, honestly.

      Third, in my humble opinion the length of a prison sentence should not be a function of which person is implied in the legal process at any level nor of any other variable that has no relation to the crime committed itself, like prison overcrowding as you mentioned. Perhaps there shouldn't even, under any circumstances, be the *possibility* that someone could serve 30 years for mere theft/fraud w/o violence...

      I am naive, I know.

  10. Wait... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're telling me... That the Nigerian scam thing, was actually run by a Nigerian!? I thought it was just a name they gave it.. oh wow

  11. My solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every time the PC Tech Support scammers call me, I claim to have detected a virus on THEIR computer :)

    Maybe next time I should tell them I am Microsoft.

    It gets a few minutes worth of entertainment before they give up at least.

    1. Re: My solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I kept them on as long as I could until I couldn't remember what the screen looked like to keep fooling her. Then I said I needed to switch phones as the battery was low. Then I played "can you hear me now"? game for a moment. She put her supervisor on and I kept it going for another 2 minutes. My mistake was not intermittently saying I could hear them instead they thought the call was dropped.

      I would love for Howard Stern to get a phoney phone call where two Indians are trying to do it to each other.

  12. I can help! by ravenspear · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dear Mr Amuegbunam:

    I have been requested by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company to contact you in the hope that we may be of assistance to you. Your countrymen are quite distressed at the reporting we have read which states that you are being held and are in need of funds to make bail. We can help you in this matter. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company has recently concluded a large number of contracts for oil exploration in the sub-Sahara region. The contracts have immediately produced moneys equaling US$1,500,000. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company is desirous of oil exploration in other parts of the world, however, because of certain regulations of the Nigerian Government, it is unable to move these funds to another region.

    You assistance is requested as a Nigerian citizen to assist the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, and also the Central Bank of Nigeria, in moving these funds out of Nigeria. If the funds can be transferred to your name, to your United States account, then you can forward the funds as directed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company. In exchange for your accommodating services, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company would agree to allow you to retain 10%, or US$150,000 of this amount. This should be enough for you to post bond.

    However, to be a legitimate transferee of these moneys according to Nigerian law, you must presently be a depositor of at least US$10,000 in a Nigerian bank which is regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

    If it will be possible for you to assist us with this initial required deposit, we would be most grateful and can proceed with the funds transfer.
    Please call me at your earliest convenience at 18-467-4975. Time is of the essence in this matter; very quickly the Nigerian Government will realize that the Central Bank is maintaining this amount on deposit, and attempt to levy certain depository taxes on it.

    Yours truly,

    Prince Alyusi Islassis

    1. Re:I can help! by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Best comment EVAARRRR

    2. Re:I can help! by sconeu · · Score: 1

      I clicked on this story hoping for a comment like this.

      Thank you.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    3. Re:I can help! by jargonburn · · Score: 2

      Prince All-you-see Is-losses? Beautiful! XD

    4. Re: I can help! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sir our ma'am win the internet today

    5. Re:I can help! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No! No ! No!
      You can't just go and say US$1,500,000
      Some people don't understand all the numbers and commas. It's just confusing.
      You have to spell it out afterwards just to clarify, so if would be:

      US$1,500,000 - (One million, five hundred thousand US dollars)

    6. Re:I can help! by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Hah! I didn't catch this the first time. Kudos to the OP.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  13. People were stupid enough to believe this in 2005? by Nutria · · Score: 1

    They are the ones who should be thrown in jail, on a charge of Stupidity Against Humanity.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  14. If I were world dictator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Immediate death penalty. Or be forced to share a lifetime cell with Rosie O'Donnell. On second thought definitely the cell.

    1. Re:If I were world dictator by Opportunist · · Score: 0

      You can't get that past the 8th.

      Hell, you can't even get that past me, and I'm the one who suggested hanging him from his nuts from a crane at 50 feet so everyone can enjoy watching him dangle and eventually fall. There ARE limits, we're civilized after all.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re: If I were world dictator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Somehow i doubt jail will be able to hold this guy tho. I fully expect him to walk out the front door with a load of cash after he generously sells the jail back to the authorities at an affordable price to help with overcrowding ;)

  15. Nigeria called... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They want their prince back.

  16. Re: "scamming" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please move to Cuba. It is made for you.

  17. Seems extremely excessive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    People have gotten far less for murder.

    1. Re:Seems extremely excessive by Iamthecheese · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It doesn't seem excessive to me. These people target the unintelligent, the naive and the desperate. It doesn't look like a lot of money until you realize it's taken from the pockets of those least able to afford it. That money represents thousands of ruined lives. If you ask me I say string that fucker right up.

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    2. Re:Seems extremely excessive by fibonacci8 · · Score: 1

      Be careful, or your advice might get him to plead freedom of religion.

      --
      Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
    3. Re:Seems extremely excessive by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      This is not about killing a person. This is scamming businesses!

      Have some standards and priorities, man!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  18. Re:People were stupid enough to believe this in 20 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obligatory related web comics.

  19. Far more importantly... by Laconique · · Score: 1

    There are actual companies and people under 80 that fell for it??? I always thought that these Nigerian emails were completely useless...

    1. Re:Far more importantly... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      The actual scary part is that there are businesses that apparently fell for it. You know, businesses. The kind of things where the people there claim they're "professionals" when they do shit for you, often shit you're not supposed or even allowed to do yourself because you're not a "professional".

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  20. Good start to 2016, but don't you want to do more? by shanen · · Score: 1

    Glad to hear this news and I think his prison time should be calibrated against the amount of other people's time he wasted. He should be sentenced to RESPOND to each of the spams he sent. If he works 16 hours a day and can respond to each spam in one second, then it would take him a year to "pay off" his first 20 million spams. Even better if his clicking finger falls off first.

    Anyway, I want to help do something to help SOLVE the ancient spam problem. I want to BREAK the spammers' business models. I am NOT suggesting that the spammers can become decent human beings. I'm just suggesting that the lack of money would drive them away from spamming and move them under less visible rocks.

    The key number is NOT the low marginal cost of email. The important number is the SMALL ratio of suckers to the LARGE number of people who hate spam. If we had better anti-spam tools, just a small percentage of the spam-haters could cut the spammers off in their most sensitive organs: their wallets. If we got in the middle of the spamemrs' business models, if we could disrupt ALL of the spammers' infrastructure and pursue ALL of the spammers' accomplices, then their money would dry up. We could even help the spammers' victims, saving the fools from themselves and help corporations protect their reputations and customers (even though I think most of those corporations could do it themselves if they actually cared about the customers who are foolish enough to trust them).

    Imagine an iterative spam-fighting tool that would cycle between automatic analysis and human confirmation, with reputation taken into account. The spam could be analyzed quite accurately, especially using the humans' privileged information, and the countermeasures could be targeted much more aggressively. How can the spammers continue to display their criminal intentions WITH contact information for the victims?

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  21. Dont they have a phone there? by invictusvoyd · · Score: 1

    If I had received an email to wire $100000 from a company executive I'd surely call up and verify.

  22. Re:Good start to 2016, but don't you want to do mo by CaptQuark · · Score: 0

    Why not just have a charge-back system where every email that gets flagged as Spam costs the sender a penny. Until you pay the fine, you're not allowed to send to more than 100 additional emails before your sending ability is frozen.

    Legitimate businesses will hardly ever receive more than 100 Spam flags if they offer an opt-out method that actually works. ISPs that continue to host personal domains that don't comply with the charge-back run the risk of being flagged as Open-Relay mail systems and their emails refused.

    20 million emails flagged as Spam would incur a $200,000 fine, payable before the next batch of Spam emails could be sent. End of profitability.

    --

  23. Re:FPMITA time? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    What is the purpose of the fine? Seems like he won't be able to pay it, so...

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  24. Paid holidays in the next 30 years? by ruir · · Score: 1

    Shot him and make sure all the victims cannot have children. There are already too many stupid people in this world.

    1. Re:Paid holidays in the next 30 years? by EmeraldBot · · Score: 1

      Shot him and make sure all the victims cannot have children. There are already too many stupid people in this world.

      Alright, so please tell me, when is your appointment with sterilization clinic?

      I'm sure you very quickly see the problem with your faulty logic. Frankly speaking here, you are just as mistaken as these people - maybe not gullible enough to engage in an email scam, but most certainly gullible enough to think yourself the arbiter.

      --
      "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
    2. Re:Paid holidays in the next 30 years? by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      you are ....... certainly gullible enough to think yourself the arbiter.

      Looks like most people here are arbitrating, including yourself. Why pick on ruir particularly? It was his spelling rather than his logic that immediately struck me as a problem.

    3. Re:Paid holidays in the next 30 years? by ruir · · Score: 1

      I am a non-native English speaker and I welcome all constructive comments about my English. I also often post without much thought and more than often my mother tongue gets in the way.

  25. Re:FPMITA time? by Z00L00K · · Score: 0

    Deported and he will continue. Solitary confinement or high-security prison in the white power section is what he needs.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  26. Re:Good start to 2016, but don't you want to do mo by EmeraldBot · · Score: 2

    Why not just have a charge-back system where every email that gets flagged as Spam costs the sender a penny. Until you pay the fine, you're not allowed to send to more than 100 additional emails before your sending ability is frozen. Legitimate businesses will hardly ever receive more than 100 Spam flags if they offer an opt-out method that actually works. ISPs that continue to host personal domains that don't comply with the charge-back run the risk of being flagged as Open-Relay mail systems and their emails refused. 20 million emails flagged as Spam would incur a $200,000 fine, payable before the next batch of Spam emails could be sent. End of profitability. --

    And who exactly decides and administers these charges? Is a Credit Card number now compulsory for an email account? Do we tie all of the world's email services under a single company responsible for this? What about spam web pages?

    --
    "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
  27. Re:"scamming" by sonamchauhan · · Score: 1

    No, not really. Not for your definition of scam anyway. As it is, even our bodies are sophisticated factories: they turn a massive profit on low-cost input (food, water, air). So, if tomorrow someone (say, a non-profit firm) kidnapped you (quite literally), branded you, made you their slave for life, would you deserve sympathy?

    So profit is not the culprit. Profit is natural. The scam occurs earlier in the process (monopolies and kleptocracies leading to unnatural profits), or later (in what people choose to do *with* profits they've booked).

    That's what governments are here for: laws, taxation, protection of the weak ... that sort of thing.

  28. Re:FPMITA time? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, totally. Dude scams some businesses out of a few bucks, he should totally be hate-crimed. Ass.

  29. Re: FPMITA time? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's give him to the KKK.

  30. A Student ? by nukenerd · · Score: 1

    On a "Student Visa"; WTF is he studying? Economics? Sounds too good at already to need any further study.

    Why the hell do these people get given student visas anyway? It's time the West dropped its patronising attitude and put down its supposed "white man's burden".

    1. Re:A Student ? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      1. Import students.
      2. Train students.
      3. Ship students back to where cost of living is very low.
      4. Offshore work to new ultra-low-pay skilled labor pool.

    2. Re: A Student ? by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      They don't get given student visas they have to pay $160 and satisfy a number of criteria including being accepted on a course at an accredited educational institution which won't be free.

  31. May he rot by vikingpower · · Score: 1

    in hell, while being impaled on a daily basis with a rusty butcher's knife.

    --
    Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
  32. Re: "scamming" by jblues · · Score: 1

    Different to the USA in so many ways, but life expectancy is about the same: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

    --
    If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
  33. Re:Good start to 2016, but don't you want to do mo by Rei · · Score: 1

    There are some "virtual cost" proposals out there, along the lines of proof-of-work problems for delivery of messages from people not a whitelist. In such a case I hope that the standard would recommend having a "send and whitelist" button right next to the send button in email clients to encourage people to whitelist people that they plan to exhange emails with, and/or autowhitelisting after a given number of exchanged messages. Whether a client has whitelisted someone should be transmitted in the header data, so that legitimate mass-mailers (mailing lists, website notifications, etc) know immediately during the subscription process that the user whitelisted them when they sent that "subscribe" email. Another useful item would be a special link format that mailing lists can use in the body such that when the user clicks on it it prompts asking whether or not to whitelist the source. That is to say, the current "Click on this link to complete your subscription" that takes you their website will first involve your mail client prompting you about whitelisting, then will actually follow the link.

    The choice of proof-of-work algorithm to limit the rate that non-whitelisted emails can be sent out can be compute problems (ala hash cash), though ideally more memory-lookup time than compute, since it improves slower and isn't as easy to "supercompute". Another possibility is having third-party servers required for providing part of the data on challenge-response problems, causing network or imposed latency onto the process - although somebody would have to pay for said servers. A third possibility is a turing test-based currency to pay for emails (ideally well less than one test per non-whitelisted email, but nonetheless sufficient to interfere with bulk senders). Spammers can use botnets against compute challenges and "mechanical turk" type services against turing tests, but neither of these things come for free. And the whole point is to cut into the margins.

    As a fourth option, one could also simply allow anyone who doesn't want to pay compute/turing test costs to simply buy non-whitelisted mail sending rights with a small amount of actual money... it wouldn't require much, as the point is only to hit the margins of those sending millions of non-whitelisted mails per day. Other things that could be considered as worthy of something to "pay" for sending emails would be limited-supply elements that - even where they're traded illegally - would still impose costs to spammers. The above "it only costs money if flagged as spam" idea isn't bad in this regard

    I kind of like the idea of implementing all four simultaneously and letting senders choose - the "tickets" needed for sending non-whitelisted emails being gotten for completing memory-intensive compute problems (ideally ones that work on solving real-world problems and doing some good) or turing problems (re-captcha style, so you're doing some good), plus there would be imposed rate-limits and network delays on serving the turing problems and data for the compute problems (with the server costs being borne by those who want peoples' computers solving their problems) and the option to (cheaply) buy tickets with money. And then, as the GP recommended, tickets could ideally be set up to be automatically refunded by the user not marking a message as spam within a certain time period after reading it. Altogether you'd be making life miserable for spammers, doing good, and minimizing any inconvenience to users. The same ticket system could be used by any other system too, not just email - people, say, registering new social media or gaming accounts, sending facebook messages or friend requests to people they're not already friends with, etc.

    --
    Shiny New Australia.
  34. LinkedIn? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Possibility of them using info easily found on LinkedIn for these "sophisticated" attacks?
    CEO sends email to accountant: "transfer money to x pls. thks :)"

  35. Re:Good start to 2016, but don't you want to do mo by jcr · · Score: 1

    I read a proposal for using bitcoin, where each user would decide and publish in something like an MX record the amount they would charge to accept a message from an unknown sender. No centralized authority required.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  36. He made a critical mistake by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    He was a private person trying to scam companies. That's a crime. You have to do it the other way around to be legal.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  37. Re:Good start to 2016, but don't you want to do mo by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    I'm an old geezer, and I prefer the old fashion ways: Put a nylon cord around his nuts, hang him on it from a crane at 50 feet and wait. Eventually the nuts will give.

    It is a bit messy, true, but people have survived 20 feet drops and you have to be sure with this kind of asshole.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  38. Re:People were stupid enough to believe this in 20 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm more for poetic justice. For example: those who actually buy penis-enhancing drugs or equipment should have their penis surgically enhanced to comical and impractical proportions. There's a lesson for ya.

  39. Isn't 30 years a little excessive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hate spammers, but let's keep things in proportion here. Many murderers in this country don't get 30 years. If he committed a large scale theft. He probably deserves 8-10 years in jail. Proposals to hang or otherwise execute him are preposterous. People should not be executed for economic crimes, or we will be like China and Iran. And giving 30 year sentences left and right is what makes US the country with the most prison inmates per capita. This should be fixed.

    1. Re:Isn't 30 years a little excessive? by Megol · · Score: 1

      Exactly. But that's US "corrections" politics - waste a huge part of the population that could actually be made to contribute to the society instead.

      In Sweden a mass murderer was released on parole recently - he killed 7 and wounded 3 under an alcohol fueled psychosis and was sentenced to life in prison. According to the local practice this was later converted to 30 years in prison and that in turn meant he could have parole after 2/3 of the sentence or 20 years.

      Now this is a special case (due to the psychosis) but compare this to US sentencing standards even when an individual have obvious and strong mental problems. In Sweden and many other countries the focus is on rehabilitation rather than punishment. And it generally works better than the US system.

    2. Re: Isn't 30 years a little excessive? by yacc143 · · Score: 1

      One important detail. This gut is not a spammer. He's a scammer. For this kind of attack to work you need very targeted emails tailored to the recipient. (I'm having problems calling the receiver victims. you do not need encryption to protect yourself just a working brain. I get a crazy email from my boss, the first thing that happens is that I need clarification, and surprise surprise is obvious that one asks via a different channel for clarification.)

    3. Re: Isn't 30 years a little excessive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He isn't going to get that. Federal judges are bound by the federal sentencing guidelines. Depending on whether or not this is his first offense and whether or not he pleads guilty or opts for a trial, he's looking at 4-6 years.

    4. Re:Isn't 30 years a little excessive? by ebvwfbw · · Score: 1

      US System he probably would have been out in 5 years. When there's an excuse like alcohol they bend over for them unless there's a political reason not to.

    5. Re: Isn't 30 years a little excessive? by LienRag · · Score: 1

      Exactly, 30 yeras for a spammer is a light sentence, but for a scammer it's really excessive...

  40. Really? by thermowax · · Score: 1

    Someone got arrested in Baltimore?

    (I live here, so I can joke about it.)

  41. Re:FPMITA time? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's to keep him in jail for the entire sentence. If he could buy himself out,.. well, he wouldn't actually be facing prison time.

  42. don't lock him up in the states... by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 2

    where prisoner has rights... lots of rights. Strip him of all his wealth and deport his ass to serve out his sentence in a Nigerian prison...

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
  43. Email is not secure by Macdude · · Score: 1

    Email is not secure! Email has been around for several decades, how long is it going to take for people to learn this?

    --
    "Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
  44. It runs on fear by joeblog · · Score: 3

    If I had received an email to wire $100000 from a company executive I'd surely call up and verify.

    These scams work best in extremely hierarchical organisations where underlings are trained to blindly follow orders and to be terrified of questioning their boss. The target organisation also needs to have a culture of dishonesty, else how could a boss demand that an underling wire them money without a valid invoice? Sounds to me like organised crime got taken by a petty crook.

    --
    If it works, it's obsolete
    1. Re:It runs on fear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was truly insightful

  45. Oh man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well I have nothing much to say just that I am sure he will be out ... It's the united state where everything is possible

  46. Re:FPMITA time? by KGIII · · Score: 1

    You'd be surprised how many people find it not just funny but fitting, appropriate, and still inadequate retribution. It's a fairly common sentiment amongst some of my countrymen.

    I worked as a escort/chaser (transportation officer) at a military detention facility - it was my last job before getting out. The GI Bill did not pay a whole lot as I had a wife and child at the time and had gone back in the service to be able to pay for the remainder of my education. To help pay my way, I interviewed (and toured) a civilian prison and the differences between the two are astounding.

    While the detainees in a military prison (consider that these were Marines) are really quite dangerous, there's a whole different level of respect. In the military, you go to prison *as* punishment. Taking away your freedom is the absolute worst thing they can do to do you. In fact, a detainee is expected to try to escape and there is no extra time added to a sentence for escape attempts. (I think this may have changed.)

    In a civilian prison, they add time to your sentence if you try to escape. The big difference, that I see, is you're sent to a civilian prison *for* punishment. The level of respect is not there.

    On the wall, from the barracks into the secured section, before entering the Sally Port, was an old sign that hung on the wall. It said, "There but by the grace of God, go I." That has stuck with me ever since.

    I'll probably never understand why people would wish torment on another human being. Death? I can understand that. I can accept that and I can live with that. Torment? Torture? No. I've tried, I'll never understand that. Remember, even as an atheist, "There but by the grace of Flying Spaghetti Monster, go I."

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  47. Re: "scamming" by KGIII · · Score: 1

    Life expectancy is not the only metric of importance. Quality of life is a bit more nuanced than duration.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  48. Re:Good start to 2016, but don't you want to do mo by KGIII · · Score: 1

    To many people leave the "go ahead and contact me with your stupid shit button" ticked and then don't use the opt-out in the bottom of each message but, instead, claim it is spam/UCE.

    So, fairness and accuracy will have to be figured out for your system to work.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  49. Re: "scamming" by jblues · · Score: 1

    Yeah, sure. There's the Human Development Index, which is an attempt to quantify what "quality of life" means. Nothing like this can be without flaws, and of course individuals will have their own good and bad experiences in any country, but it gives an indication. . . anyway, on that list, USA comes in at number 8, and Cuba comes in at number 67, which is not too bad (though folks here would place high value with being on the technological forefront). Though it has some good parts, the country where I live comes in at 115, which is the lower middle quadrant.

    --
    If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
  50. Re: "scamming" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Believe me, its sometimes difficult coming from Australia, when every other country in the entire world is a step down (with the possible exceptions of the Nordics).

    I know, First World problems and all...and I understand somebody has to be at the top of the heap, but it still feels kind of funny at times.

  51. Re: "scamming" by KGIII · · Score: 1

    I've actually been to Cuba but figured I'd wait to see the response(s). They seem to be a bit happier than that. I suspect that the measurement is from an outside point of view, the people seem to be, for the most part, pretty happy.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  52. He should have committed murder instead by BlytheBowman · · Score: 1

    He would have gotten much less time. Welcome to our warped "justice" system.

  53. Re: Good start to 2016, but don't you want to do m by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wouldn't it depend on his weight? I'm 285 lbs and I can't see my nuts lifting me off the ground. Worst way to be neutered.

    I really hope there isn't historical data on weight vs nutsack letting go...

  54. Re. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Goodnight sweet prince.

  55. ironic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    a "nigerian email scammer" busted but not for "nigerian email" scam.

  56. Sentencing by villageelder1 · · Score: 1

    A pretty light sentence and a meager fine in my opinion.