Posted on 06/20/2012 6:58:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Scam emails usually have two things in common: they're comically bad, and they're from a Nigerian prince.
You might think that's a silly strategy, but it turns out it's not.
Microsoft released a new white paper from its research division this month that explains why scammers use such a "terrible" approach.
It turns out it's a method for sifting out "false positives," — basically finding only the most gullible people so the scammer doesn't waste any time exchanging with a mark that isn't going to result in a payout.
You can read the full paper on its research site — which uses complex mathematical modeling techniques to sift out the false positive rate. But here's the most important part from the abstract:
Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. 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
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Figures.
Long ago, Gates and his minions figured out how to fost Windows on us...and we were gullable enough to buy it.
I confess it actually makes sense.
And somehow ... amazingly ... the cold hard facts are posted for the whole world to see at www.419eater.com.
These are REAL folk, who intentionally scam the scammers. There are pages of images of these scammers (amazingly, actually from Nigeria) with a Trophy wall of Shame, detailed email strings, and demonstrated cooperation with the Nigerian authorities.
Somehow, this reality blows the MSFT white paper completely out of the water. Yes, these folks on the other end of the email are complete idiots.
They know what they’re doing. Most Americans fell for the Obama scam.
“Most Americans fell for the Obama scam”
Which is why in the future, email scammers are increasingly likely to report being from Kenya rather than Nigeria....
That explains our Kenyan Presidency quite well —
It took me a sec. ;-)
Hilarious!
It sounds as if when you hear a real loud used car commercial. The louder the announcer the lower the mentality of the potential buyer they are aiming for.
I always reply to these emails and try to string them out as long as I can.
I don’t know if it does any good, but it sure is funny when they finally realize they’re the ones who are getting scammed.
Why not just purchase 0bama’s e-mail list?
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