Innoculation for new folks.

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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:56 am

Ok, after writing an re-writing this several times, this is all I have to say -

General - I applaud you for your decision on this style that seems to fit you, but please stop trying to apply your values to all noobs in this community.

I see no reason to un-nessarily expose a noob to these criminals (as you suggest) until they have developed their own style of baiting , have a good comfort level, and can make the same conscious descision you have - AFTER being well informed on the subject.

B

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:03 am

@TS
Who's snarky now Laughing

Meanwhile, on the safe baiting issue. When you cost a lad hundreds of credit card numbers, bank logins, online purchases, shipping accounts etc and see how much he can potentially make if you wern't "helping" him, I like to know when he finds out that I'm not really an incompetent scammer but someone fucking him over he thinks I live in seattle.

If I wasn't ruining every job, his plans are to amass the money and immigrate to the USA....

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:15 am

friday3 wrote:

Who's snarky now

Err ummm, isn't that what we used to send the younger kids out hunting for in the woods on a dark night? Shocked

B

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:25 am

They used to hunt TSnerd??? Well, I knew something needed to be done about him..but shooting him....

I suppose if the mods are OK with it Very Happy

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

:sigh:
Snipe- snipe is what the we sent the young'uns after.
Snerds are fuzzy and lovable, and shouldn't be hunted Very Happy

...err, mostly?
Snark is occasionally an unfortunate byproduct.
Friday, my friend, don't think I didn't notice that....::shaking fist:: I'll, err, get you....if you lived in Seattle....damnit.
And the Mods wouldn't be ok with it...who else would fetch their Pimms?

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:36 am

TSnerd wrote:

I'm not trying to flame you

Really? Saying things like...

TSnerd wrote:

...which is bullshit

TSnerd wrote:

and then climb up on your soapbox

TSnerd wrote:

Don't give bad advice to the others

That's not only inflamatory, but also rather childish.

I was debating wether or not to dignify this with a response. Now that I have been insulted I think I will.

TSnerd wrote:

That's like successfully car surfing, once, and then proclaiming that it isn't dangerous.

Not at all. This is the way private detectives and police often respond to financial crimes, especially those in 'grey' area or where there is insufficient evidence to proceed criminally or insuficient resources to investigate thoroughly. You lean on a subject and hope for the best. But you have missed my point alltogether. My story was intended to be an (extreme) example of a criminal, both capable and motivated to act, who choose not to so as to follow the path of least resistance so to speak. In telling it, I wanted to shed some light on the psychology of the average scammer so as to further illustrate the impact such a psychology would have on the probability of retaliatory action. When I elaborated on the particulars of that case in my subsequent post, I was actually trying to be friendly and offer some insight into the workings of my industry, though I can see from your post that this was not appreciated at all.

TSnerd wrote:

Fanny Plunge's analogy was a good one.

Not at all. Sticking one's head in a lion's cage is foolish because it entails a significant and demonstrable risk. People that stick their heads into a cage with large predatory animals tend to be mauled at a significant rate. Conversely, certain of the more frequently cited examples of what entails a safe bait (e.g. the IP masking I cited in my original post) do not (as has been made clear from, among other things, the incredible circumstances that would be required to render information such as an IP useful to a lad in tracking someone down as well as the lack of any evidence that anything like this has ever happened) entail anywhere near a comparable level of risk.

This is the point that I have been trying to make all along. It is abundantly clear that the risk in not adhering to some of the more frequently cited pieces of advice regarding safe baiting is simply not very great. Yet these pieces of advice (particularly concerning IPs) are almost invariably cited as requsite in conducting a safe bait and it is implied that a failure to do so might well have grave consequences. This is far from the reality of the situation. There is virtually no chance of one coming to physical harm as a result of occassionally disregarding one or more of these specific commandments. To assert otherwise is unecessary and paranoid. Perhaps this may boost the ego of some and allow them to feel as if they are cleverly cheating death by using gmail, but this is far from the truth. When I hear this, my good friend 'teacup', it smells fishy to me. Only i'm not sure that this smell is piscene in origin.

Incidentally, canon is what is preached from the pulpit which, I might add, is similar in many respsects to a soap box...

Mma Abali.

The General

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:46 am

@General
A post like that one, is bound to send this thread downhill really fast.

Please let's keep this a civil discussion guys and gals.

I really really hate locking threads..................

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:54 am

GeneralAbacha wrote:

People that stick their heads into a cage with large predatory animals tend to be mauled at a significant rate.

On that note, I would like to add that the Steve Irwin Memorial was really good today. If anyone catches it on TV, I'm wearing a bright orange shirt.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:55 am

Are you the really really cute guy in the orange shirt?

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:00 am

^^^ Do you even need to ask that question?

Very Happy

- It's short sleeved, 'safety' orange. I was half inclined to hold up a 419eater sign for the camera's. I doubt I'll be on camera.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:00 am

Quote:

I'm wearing a bright orange shirt

With your inmate number on it? Very Happy

Not quite a Newb Joined: 26 Aug 2006 Posts: 21

Just a small point it might be an idea to ask Shiver to update the scambaiting tips on the site as sometimes the advice contradicts the advice on this forum.

For example:

http://www.419eater.com/html/baiting.htm

Quote:

Question.
How do I contact the scammers without using my real email address?

Answer.
Well, there are plenty of web based free email services you can use. Of course the first one the comes to mind is Hotmail, although I've noticed some scammers don't like to converse with Hotmail account holders. Google Mail (Gmail) is another very good webmail service. Just do a search for "free email" or "free webmail" in Google and you'll find plenty to satisfy you.

A newbie could look at this and open a new Hotmail account as suggested thinking he is safe and starts baiting. Then a few weeks later he decides to join the forum and gets told that Hotmail is unsafe because it does not mask your IP address; then its brown trousers time. That is nearly what I did, it was only by what I thought to be pure paranoia that I went out and found a service provider that masked IP's.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:11 am

@ The General and everyone really.. Wink

As an example..

In my first published bait I had an Oga use 48 seperate Lads for all my trophys (see sig) and I'm sure it turned him into a laughing stock amongst other things..In his last mail to me he demonstrated that he had researched my IP address and fake phone number..and basically pointed out he was really trying to find out who and where I was..

Being a careful and savy man I had all that covered..After a couple of months of lurking and practising straight baits..I tried to get a Lad good and I reckon I did..But it was obvious to me my personal safety and anonimity was paramount..

This was and I'm sure still is one very very pissed off Lad..Mainly because he got every one of his Lads involved..Got them to pose for stupid pics..Gave me over 15 personal bank account details..and a lot more to go along with the sheer humiliation he must've suffered in the aftermath..

Now by your reasoning if I had been baiting from hotmail or yahoo acc and set up the phone number with real info I would be perfectly safe..and he would have no way of finding me..

I seriously doubt it..If it wasn't for gmail and proxy sites I wouldn't do this..If I had've been so stupid to do so..I would probably be looking over my shoulder forever being worried about a pissed off Oga knocking on my door..But because I took every precaution in being safe I don't have that problem..

And that's all I gotta say about that..Arrrgh!

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 7:09 am

If I may add my $0.02 worth - after reading all the viewpoints and submissions in this thread, I note a general concensus that there is no downside to baiting safely!

The main discussion points have centered on the levels of precaution to employ and the corresponding degrees of risk involved with each level.

To be fair, the General acknowledges that he uses certain safety levels (i.e. web-based email accounts and caller ID blocking) in his baits; and, he chooses not to follow other suggested precautions outlined on here (i.e. IP masking, K7 #) - methods he may equate with terms like paranoia and overkill.

That's his right and choice to employ whatever methods he deems best for himself seeing as, he has said, he's weighed them against the potential risk involved; however, he has not indicated that there is NO risk whatsoever - he just believes it is negligible in comparison.

Therefore, we have consensus that baiting is NOT 100% Risky Free - we just have disagreement on how to reduce that level of risk to a reasonable and prudent level of comfort and security.

IMHO, I would counsel prospective and current baiters to heed the advice of the experienced members, utilize their safety suggestions and conduct their activities in the safest possible manner!

I would prefer to prevent a situation occuring that would give the necessary empirical evidence the Doubting Thomas types require to negate their arguments and opinions of risk!

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 7:16 am

I really hate having to quote myself, but...

Nurse Nasty wrote:

Common Sense - It rocks!

...but I'm a big bad jackbooted cynically jaded moderator... which means I agree with our bait safe policy.

I think it's good policy to continue to help all newbies with the right information. Help them out, point them in the right direction if they get lost. Give them a few threads to read. Share a PM or 3 and help your fellow baiter.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:10 am

Time to bring religion into this as no-one has mentioned it yet. Rolling Eyes

It's the LOVE of money that's the root of all evil, and we know that there's hundreds of thousands of scammers out there dedicated to the pursuit of money. It's easy to suggest that their priority is to fleece and run, but who truly knows the mind of a scammer?

Let's assume the risk of harm is negligible from these hundreds of thousands dedicated to screwing you of money by whatever means possible. It may be the same level of negligible risk of harm from a fire in a modern steel/glass building.

Until the fire starts and it's too late to realise that your decision not to install fire-fighting equipment was misplaced.

It's the same old story - who would have thought it?

If there's a real and perceivable risk, we take all precautions. If there's a negligible risk (let the reader use discernment), then negligible precautions may just trap you in the burning building without the fire equipment. Who would have thought it?

Without being alarmist, when you're dead, you're dead for a long time.

As for me, I'll bait safe to the BEST of my reasonable ability.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:47 am

Fanny Plunge wrote:

Here's an analogy..

You're standing at the lions cage at the zoo..There's a know it all guy with his head through the bars taunting the lions..He's telling everyone to look how safe it is to do what he's doing..

After a while one of the lions snaps, jumps at him and takes his head off..

...... or even a stingray.

NN has already alluded to this, but the Steve Irwin analogy is a good one. You do 'risky' things all your life and get away with it and then BAM, you get zapped out of left field without warning and with terrible consequences.

I understand what the General is saying and I agree that it's possible to be too paranoid BUT, to use another analogy, if I drive from A to B at 100mph I'd rather be wearing a seatbelt than not, 'just in case'.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:42 pm

That's good Gnasher. Lots of other great comments too.
General, I gotta go with the "Common Sense" idea. There is just no reason not to bait safe and I'm glad that no one suggested that I didn't need to do it back before I got involved in this little hobby. typing

I guess I just don't see why it's an issue. I know you aren't advocating unsafe baiting... but I think (and for newbies especially) that safe is the only way to go. I don't think anyone is picking on you so much as disagreeing with you.

To quote the Great Elvisius fo Costellonia "Whats so funny bout peace, love, and understanding". Smile

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:54 pm

Back to my perspective as a new one around here, I actually found the General's comments about the unlikelihood of any real problems somewhat comforting.

I not do, however, plan to follow his approach and intend to bait safe!

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