{"id":127540,"date":"2015-08-18T15:05:11","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T21:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/18\/silly-nigerian-scammers-are-not-so-silly.html"},"modified":"2015-08-25T08:23:40","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T14:23:40","slug":"silly-nigerian-scammers-are-not-so-silly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/18\/silly-nigerian-scammers-are-not-so-silly.html","title":{"rendered":"Silly Nigerian Scammers Are Not So Silly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of us like to laugh at those atrociously written \/ edited scam letters promising you vast riches of possibly-ill-gotten gains (you can&#39;t scam an honest man), if only you&#39;ll send your bank account info. They&#39;re so poorly crafted, with misspellings and grammar errors, and so implausible in their very subject, it must mean the scammers are just about as dimwitted as the hapless suckers they rope in.<\/p>\n<p>Or &#8230; maybe not. It may be the scammers are just weeding out the less gullible in order to get the well-and-truly feeble-minded as their victims. After all, emailing is cheap, but time is money.<\/p>\n<p><i>&#39;By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor.&#39;<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/pubs\/167719\/whyfromnigeria.pdf\">http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/pubs\/167719\/whyfromnigeria.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Maybe not so silly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div style='text-align:center'><a href='https:\/\/plus.google.com\/photos\/101083456815352083930\/albums\/6184460227861415073\/6184460241876516162'><img src='https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-ai8hwGf8U4Y\/VdOd0sSTfUI\/AAAAAAADXMQ\/8tPq6t07Zng\/fry-meme-nigerian-prince-300x225%255B1%255D.jpg?imgmax=660' style='max-width:650px;' \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div style='text-align:center'>\n<a href='' style='width:50px;height:50px;display:inline-block;background-size:cover;background-image:url();'><\/a>\u00a0\n<\/div>\n<p><span style='font-size:small;'><a href='https:\/\/plus.google.com\/+DaveHill47\/posts\/fydgjQzquY4'>View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of us like to laugh at those atrociously written \/ edited scam letters promising you vast riches of possibly-ill-gotten gains (you can&#39;t scam an honest man), if only you&#39;ll send your bank account info. They&#39;re so poorly crafted, with misspellings and grammar errors, and so implausible in their very subject, it must mean &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/18\/silly-nigerian-scammers-are-not-so-silly.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Silly Nigerian Scammers Are Not So Silly&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":127541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,375,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","category-computer-security","category-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/fry-meme-nigerian-prince-300x2255B15D.jpgimgmax=660.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4123,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/02\/03\/escam.html","url_meta":{"origin":127540,"position":0},"title":"eScam","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Feb-03 10:16am","format":false,"excerpt":"The biggest advantage that folks have had regarding various scams on the Internet is that the scammers tend toward incompetence. They cobble together improbable messages, riddled with basic spelling and...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging &amp; Internet&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging &amp; Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30463,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/03\/reach-out-reach-out-and-scam-someone.html","url_meta":{"origin":127540,"position":1},"title":"Reach out, reach out and scam someone","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 3-Oct-12 1:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"General rule: if someone calls you unsolicited, and asks you for information, a credit card number, personal information, access to your computer, etc., politely tell them you'll call them back through the normal business channels. Any such company is going to have a website (or, in the case of credit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21254,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/13\/best-spam-of-the-day.html","url_meta":{"origin":127540,"position":2},"title":"Best spam of the day","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 13-Jun-11 6:34am","format":false,"excerpt":"This came through under the subject line: SCAMERS HAVE CONFESSED,THAT THEY STOLE YOUR MONEY (sic). The Federal Government of Cotonou Benin through provisions in Section 419 of the Criminal Code came up with punitive measures to deter and punish offenders. The Advance Fee Fraud section deal mainly with cases of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Spam&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Spam","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/computer-security\/spam"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/spam.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2623,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/05\/28\/scammy_goodness.html","url_meta":{"origin":127540,"position":3},"title":"Scammy goodness","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 28-May-02 2:13pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a nice article in the Register on sites devoted to the Nigerian 419 scam (\"Help us defraud the government\/contractors by giving us your bank account so we can deposit...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hi-Tech&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133465,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/12\/ftc-sets-forth-to-smite-tech-support-scams.html","url_meta":{"origin":127540,"position":4},"title":"FTC sets forth to smite tech support scams","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 12-May-17 1:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I know folk who've been burned by this kind of thing. Preying on people's fears (especially ones you've drummed up yourself) is despicable. Feds Launch Major Smackdown On \u2018Tech Support\u2019 Scams If the world of scams was a wrestling ring, the Federal Trade Commission would be launching itself from the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42191,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/25\/what-happens-when-you-dont-have-a-family-member-to-provide-tech-support.html","url_meta":{"origin":127540,"position":5},"title":"What happens when you don&#8217;t have a family member to provide tech support","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 25-May-14 3:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"What happens when you don't have a family member to provide tech supportWhile I occasionally\u00a0grumble under my breath about remote tech support calls from relatives -- I'd rather they were bugging me than talking with these miscreants.\ufeff Inside the US government\u2019s war on tech support scammers PCCare247 allegedly collected millions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127779,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127540\/revisions\/127779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}