Hey Amar, I just noticed you’re from Basel. I’m a big fan of Basel style fife music! How about you?
Some of these more ‘creative’ scams are based around real events. This way, when you do your research to some of the events (killed in a military overthrow, plane crash, bombing, assassination) the story seems more viable.
Unfortunately, people sometimes do hop a flight to Nigeria, where they are robbed, ransomed or killed. It’s sad that their greed leeds them to such bitter ends.
http://www.businessforum.com/fraud(02).html
If you go to http://www.google.com and type “nigeria advanced fee scam”, you’ll find nearly a thousand web pages detailing this kind of thing.
Dale,I agree with you that responding to this type of email is a bad idea but your having done so is sort of a green light for others to do so which is also a bad idea.I have to admit though,your response was funny.Peace, Mike
Jim,
thank you for reminding me about Amina Lawal. I heard a radio report about her a couple of weeks ago. The report was very informative about the actual political and religious situation in Nigeria, which she is in the middle of. VERY sorry for her, strange enough only she gets punished and not the male part of the child making evidence.
Brigitte
(edited to add her name)
[ This Message was edited by: Goldie on 2002-09-21 10:09 ]
others to do so which is also a bad idea.
Well, let’s give people credit for being able to make a decision about this on their own.
Dale
Jim, a friend of mine plays the fife, quite an instrument, quite LOUD! I personally prefer the…wadyacallit…oh yes, the whistle.
Yes, it can be worse than that…
A woman swindled her employer out big money to give to these guys. And, got caught.
http://www.freep.com/news/locoak/checks21_20020921.htm
Tony
On 2002-09-21 09:29, Wandering_Whistler wrote:
Unfortunately, people sometimes do hop a flight to Nigeria, where they are robbed, ransomed or killed. It’s sad that their greed leeds them to such bitter ends.
Sad? No, I’d call it fitting. I’m sorry, but anybody stupid and greedy enough to fall for this sort of thing deserves everything they get and worse. I’d say it’s sad that more of them don’t get killed before they have a chance to breed and pass on that idiot gene.
That’s an interesting web article, BTW. I get about three or four of those e-mails a week and I’ve always wondered why the senders bother, thinking surely NO ONE was THAT stupid…
John
Mike R. - Green light? Spamming spammers would indeed be an effective way of tying up their internet resources. I intend to respond to all spammers henceforth. On a similar issue: Has anyone else had problems swallowing the packets of large tablets that come in the “IQ Enhancement and Virility” package? Anyway, they appear effective tablets. Just days after receiving my shipment I suddenly realised that the fat-burner pills and belly shock stimulation were indeed the best, most natural way, to drop a few unwanted pounds. The wife agrees, at least she says I appear slimmer through the X-Ray glasses we received near the same time. I’d love to say more, but I must go and apply the anti-cellulite cream to my dog’s bum. We discovered he’s quite wrinkled under all that hair when the missus was practicing with her hair removal tweezers. So much to try and so little time…
Now you know John. Sad but true, all it takes is one. So, sitting back and sending out thousands of computer generated e-mails waiting for one to respond, makes it big business for someone.
On 2002-09-23 13:32, U2 wrote:
Spamming spammers would indeed be an effective way of tying up their internet resources.
Unfortunately not. One of the characteristics of most spam is that they either direct you to call a phone number (sometimes toll free, if it is, calling the number several times will cost them some money, I’ve had great fun with this, have someone noisily “interrupt” you just as they answer and then tell them you’ll be right back, see how long you can keep them on the line) or to visit a web site. The return e-mail address is almost always bogus. At best your mail will bounce (every time I turn on my out of office reply I end up getting bunches of bounced mail messages from all the spam rattling around). At worst, you’ll be filling someone else’s mailbox (some spammers are such jerks that they will spoof a real mailbox of an enemy as their return e-mail).
Of course, you could do a DNS attack on their web site, but that’s illegal (nice to know the gov’t protects these bozos so well, ain’t it) and beyond most folk’s capability.
I’ve often wondered about one possibility, though. As I understand it, DNS attacks are illegal primarily because they are undertaken by “stealing” other peoples’ computer resources to make the attack. However, there should be nothing illegal about convincing several thousand (or hundreds of thousands) of people to sign up to participate in such an attack voluntarily, using software to synchronize all of their “visits” to the web site at the same time…
There’s another possibility that is easier and could actually be more effective. You see, most of these web sites are hosted by commercial hosting outfits and the account holders get a certain amount of bandwidth per month. For example, my account (I don’t spam, or even generate revenue, BTW) gets 15G of bandwidth and then visitors get a “temporarily unavailable” message.
Now, I could write a little software app that would sit in the background of volunteers computers continually accessing a list of websites, downloading all the graphics and such and dumping them directly into the bitbucket. There should be nothing illegal about that, and we could quickly exhaust the bandwidth of target sites. At the very least it would force them to increase their bandwidth allotment and thus cost them money.
When everyone was on dial-up accounts such a thing wasn’t practical. But, with the number of DSL and Cable modem subscribes increasing exponentially, we could easily raise the cost of spamming above what at least some of these bozos can afford.
Of course, the spammers can counter by blocking your IP address from accessing their site. However, doing that takes time and again costs them money. In fact, if we did this wisely, with a large list of targets and randomized accessing (instead of hitting the same target over and over from the same IP) it should make it very difficult for them to distinguish between our traffic to their site and the mark’s visits that they want…
John
Edited to add:
P.S. Yes, I am an SOB of an enemy…
[ This Message was edited by: OutOfBreath on 2002-09-23 16:01 ]
John - I bet if you took some of those IQ/Virility tablets I spoke of, you could figure out a way to send mirror spam. You have a great understanding that could easily be nudged with the right miracle product…no question.
On 2002-09-23 16:04, U2 wrote:
John - I bet if you took some of those IQ/Virility tablets I spoke of, you could figure out a way to send mirror spam. You have a great understanding that could easily be nudged with the right miracle product…no question.
Nah, I tried them and they didn’t do a thing. However that breast enlargement cream really did give me fuller, firmer breasts in just 30 days…
John
here’s a new one to me…I do believe I am betraying his trust in sharing this…but poor Gabriel does so need help…
FROM:gabriel kabaka
Business Relationship
TEL:+225 07408941
E-MAIL:gabk28@caramail.com
ATTN:
I know my message will come to you as a surprise.
I wish to write you this letter of assistance
believing that you will not betray the trust I’m to
impose on you. By brief introduction, I am gabriel kabaka
the only son of FORDY kabaka
former chief of defense-staff of (Republic of Guinea
Bissau).
My late father was killed just last year December
following his role as a rebel leader against the
past government of guinea Bissau.
Following this political crisis, I and my mother
were forced to live our country to Abidjan the capital
city of Cote d’Ivoire for our dear life.
It is here in Abidjan he deposited ONE METALLIC TRUNK
BOX in a Security Company. He registered it as an
African Artworks as belonging to his foreign
business partner who will come with the keys for the claim
of the consignment. He did not disclose to the Security
Company the real content of the box.The box contain US$
18,000.000.00 (Eighteen Million United States Dollars ).
To be honest with you, this is the only legacy left for me
by my father which I am with the certificate of deposit and
other necessary documents regarding this deposit.
I want to front you as the bonafide beneficiary of the
consignment and claim the consignment for onward
transfer of the Fund to your Bank Account abroad for
onward investment in your Country. We have decided
to offer you 15% of the total sum of the money mecellaneous
expenses you may incur on the cause of
this transaction. On the notice of your willingness
to assist me, I will tell you the modalities we shall
follow to ensure a smooth hitch-free transaction.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best regards
gabriel kabaka
N/B: please kindlly reply with the above private e-mail
address.
[quote]
On 2002-09-24 09:34, Kind-hearted Lizzie wrote and quoted:
here’s a new one to me…I do believe I am betraying his trust in sharing this…but poor Gabriel does so need help…
FROM:gabriel kabaka
(snip)
On the notice of your willingness
to assist me, I will tell you the modalities we shall
follow to ensure a smooth hitch-free transaction.
(snip)
I would guess one of the modalities is probably Locrian, but I don’t know what the other might be. Perhaps an African scale? For a sample Locrian tune to add to your musical quiver, try this one by Phil “BarFly” Taylor, posted a few months ago to the [abcusers] list:
http://www.mail-archive.com/abcusers@argyll.wisemagic.com/msg04453.html
X:9
T:The Vampire’s Lair
C:Phil Taylor
R:Reel
M:C|
K:D Loc
A,2|
D2 (FD) ADFD | EFGA (3dcd AF | D2 (FD) ADFD | EFED CA,B,C |
D2 (FD) ADFD | EFGA d2 d2 | (3fed (3edc ddAF | DFEC D2 
(dc) |
dcde ddAd | defd edBd | ({f}e)def eddc | defd d2Ad |
dcde ddAd | defd edBc | dcde dBAF | DFEC D2
(end tune)
If you play it (either on your own instrument or with an app that plays abc’s) you’ll probably see why you don’t find a lot of Locrian mode tunes.
Since I know there are new people here all the time, I’ll add the abc homepage:
http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/
And Phil Taylor’s BarFly page:
http://www.barfly.dial.pipex.com/
John
Hey everyone,
These scams should be taken quite seriously. In fact the US Secret Service has an email address to which you should forward any such communications you get. They’re maintaining a database on the letters and will follow up appropriately. What is propsed in these offers is quite illegal nationally, as well as internationally.
Forward to: <419.fcd@usss.treas.gov>.
We got this at work from our Security Officer.
Lovely reply- I still get this damned thing on my fax machine, for God’s sake, about twice a year.
On 2002-09-24 10:26, fiddling_tenor wrote:
Hey everyone,
These scams should be taken quite seriously. In fact the US Secret Service has an email address to which you should forward any such communications you get.
Ohmygosh! Stop!
Seriously, get your facts straight (or tell your security officer to get his facts straight). The gov’t only wants to hear from you if you lost money in such a scam. Can you imagine them wading through all the junk if all several million Internet users that get several of these stupid things each week forwarded them to that mailbox! Yeesh!
John (who thinks the gov’t wastes enough of his tax dollars without further burdening them with ten billion forwarded copies of stupid scam spam)
In today’s Atlanta newspaper- Oh, those silly Nigerians…
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/0902/26scam.html
It goes on in the print version to tell of a Michigan couple being defrauded of over $200,000.00.
SHEESH! :roll: