As well as Nigeria, many other Western African nations are the source of all of these wonderful offers.
As most of these are done "by hand" rather than by bot, blocking Nigerian IP blocks isn't going to work. Not unless you are willing to block yahoo email. Many of these emails will ask you to respond to a different address (from a different provider), as they are willing to let the original email address be burned by complaints. I've seen some that originate from public proxies too.
419 scammers seem to be quite organized too. As a bait moves along, you can tell that you are being passed up the food chain. The spelling and punctuation are much better, and these guys are much smoother.
These cats are the ones that work out of the business centres around the world. Many of the scams will involve convincing the victim to travel to one of these places to close the deal. That is where the big problems can happen.
The best way to get a grip on the problem is education. If you hear someone make mention of a "big sum of money coming in" they may be getting involved in a scam. Part of the scammer's pitch is to make sure that the victim mentions the deal to anyone. That keeps someone with common sense from learning of the scam.
We baiters cannot state this enough; If you are going to bait these guys, ensure that you reveal NO private information. Details of what to check are at 419eater.com
I wouldn't consider "unsolicited" as the sole factor in determining if a message is spam. Bulk, and probably commercial is needed (UCE). By your definition, no one is able to contact anyone to persue business opportunities.
However, the author of this email should have taken more time to personalize it to the recipient. It is tough to do... try emailing yourself a business introduction and see what the bayes score is. Scary, probably.
Some of us 419 baiters set out to find and
close down the fake bank / lottery sites that are used as part of the
scams. Victims are referred to these
sites to help with the confidence scam and some even require
thousands of dollars to open an "account". One site has services that support
every 419 modality that I know of, right down to the "Private Dumbered Bank Account!"
All joking aside, not only can you loose money
but some have even been killed
by 419 fraudsters.
We have had great success shutting down over one thousand of
these sites. After researching the bank,
we submit all of our evidence to the hosting company and for the most part,
they are closed.
There is now, however, a trend to host these sites in China. There are a lot of bullet
proof hosting companies on Chinanet that send all
of our notifications to/dev/null.
We just want these criminal sites closed. Before your aunt puts her email address into a guestbook.
There is a site that is designed to run up the usage of web sites used by scammers to close some deals. The idea is to get as many 509 errors as possible.
http://www.aa419.org/ladvampire.html
Leave it running all day!
Yes, it does work from this part of Canada too.
As a side note, I would like to welcome all of the USSS agents who are new here today. I'm sure that you are getting all sorts of neat data on what holes your the rollout has.
After this article, why not google down a list of open proxy servers.
That should just about close your e-borders.
Regards to the boss on a great job of isolation.
The UN should be shown that more spam will be better for all. Bring every spammer out there to the podium and let them sell the need.
We can count on the "Rwanda effect" to have the result of this new mandate be the elimination of spam.
Rwanda proved that showing an eminent need (civilians are being butchered.... wait... yes, this is a geonicide. We have armed peacekeepers here ready to serve, we await your instructions) will result in rather counterproductive policy from the UN (have all your peacekeepers lay down their weapons. Talk them out of killing each other. Keep in touch!)
Umph. The report was great until I thought about it.
Well, we had computers for a while. Our ISP stayed up for a while. They had generators for the gear but the building's HVAC had nothing to back it up. In the first few hours, I learned how to play vampire with UPS devices. I at least kept the name server alive while using an old P150 notebook to find out what was going on.
Anyone out there figure out how to work one of those automotive ac adapter thingies so a UPS will accept the power from it? Didn't work for me, I figure because the neutral line wasn't quite like the neutral line it was expecting.
Got home, BBQ'd a pizza, AM radio, and more stars in the sky than I can remember seeing in a long time.
Slashdot Mirror
As well as Nigeria, many other Western African nations are the source of all of these wonderful offers. As most of these are done "by hand" rather than by bot, blocking Nigerian IP blocks isn't going to work. Not unless you are willing to block yahoo email. Many of these emails will ask you to respond to a different address (from a different provider), as they are willing to let the original email address be burned by complaints. I've seen some that originate from public proxies too. 419 scammers seem to be quite organized too. As a bait moves along, you can tell that you are being passed up the food chain. The spelling and punctuation are much better, and these guys are much smoother. These cats are the ones that work out of the business centres around the world. Many of the scams will involve convincing the victim to travel to one of these places to close the deal. That is where the big problems can happen. The best way to get a grip on the problem is education. If you hear someone make mention of a "big sum of money coming in" they may be getting involved in a scam. Part of the scammer's pitch is to make sure that the victim mentions the deal to anyone. That keeps someone with common sense from learning of the scam. We baiters cannot state this enough; If you are going to bait these guys, ensure that you reveal NO private information. Details of what to check are at 419eater.com
I wouldn't consider "unsolicited" as the sole factor in determining if a message is spam. Bulk, and probably commercial is needed (UCE). By your definition, no one is able to contact anyone to persue business opportunities. However, the author of this email should have taken more time to personalize it to the recipient. It is tough to do... try emailing yourself a business introduction and see what the bayes score is. Scary, probably.
Some of us 419 baiters set out to find and close down the fake bank / lottery sites that are used as part of the scams. Victims are referred to these sites to help with the confidence scam and some even require thousands of dollars to open an "account". One site has services that support every 419 modality that I know of, right down to the "Private Dumbered Bank Account!" All joking aside, not only can you loose money but some have even been killed by 419 fraudsters. We have had great success shutting down over one thousand of these sites. After researching the bank, we submit all of our evidence to the hosting company and for the most part, they are closed. There is now, however, a trend to host these sites in China. There are a lot of bullet proof hosting companies on Chinanet that send all of our notifications to /dev/null.
We just want these criminal sites closed. Before your aunt puts her email address into a guestbook.
There is a site that is designed to run up the usage of web sites used by scammers to close some deals. The idea is to get as many 509 errors as possible. http://www.aa419.org/ladvampire.html Leave it running all day!
Yes, it does work from this part of Canada too. As a side note, I would like to welcome all of the USSS agents who are new here today. I'm sure that you are getting all sorts of neat data on what holes your the rollout has. After this article, why not google down a list of open proxy servers. That should just about close your e-borders. Regards to the boss on a great job of isolation.
Lake Erie is more like flooded river. Not nearly the same thermal mass as Ontario or Michigan.
The UN should be shown that more spam will be better for all. Bring every spammer out there to the podium and let them sell the need. We can count on the "Rwanda effect" to have the result of this new mandate be the elimination of spam. Rwanda proved that showing an eminent need (civilians are being butchered.... wait... yes, this is a geonicide. We have armed peacekeepers here ready to serve, we await your instructions) will result in rather counterproductive policy from the UN (have all your peacekeepers lay down their weapons. Talk them out of killing each other. Keep in touch!) Umph. The report was great until I thought about it.
Well, we had computers for a while. Our ISP stayed up for a while. They had generators for the gear but the building's HVAC had nothing to back it up. In the first few hours, I learned how to play vampire with UPS devices. I at least kept the name server alive while using an old P150 notebook to find out what was going on.
Anyone out there figure out how to work one of those automotive ac adapter thingies so a UPS will accept the power from it? Didn't work for me, I figure because the neutral line wasn't quite like the neutral line it was expecting.
Got home, BBQ'd a pizza, AM radio, and more stars in the sky than I can remember seeing in a long time.