Atlantic Monthly on B8ers & 419Eater. UPDATED LINK

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** ACCOUNT CLOSED ** Joined: 15 Apr 2007 Posts: 766

^^^^Exactly! He is a liberal who has not been mugged yet, to use the old saw.

I wonder if part of it is professional jealousy. Probably could not come up with such elaborate baits as are detailed HERE. It is a bit intimidating.

--J.D.

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 2:14 pm

@ Guineagirl
Excellent posts! I thought the author's tolerance of the scammers' justifications disturbing as well. I would like to know what percentage of the scammers' ill gotten money actually goes to organizations that try to fight Africa's many problems? How much do the scammers use to combat the destruction of their countries' natural and cultural resources? How much really goes to the motherliss baby homes? I'm gonna take a wild guess, a total shot in the dark & say ZERO. It's not like these people are modern day Robin Hoods! He could have maybe also brought up the fact that while the colonial masters were busy exploiting the Continent, the scammers' ancestors were busy helping them round up slaves among enemy and remote tribes and certainly did profit in various way for engaging in the slave trade & that makes the scammers' justification seem hypocritical. Maybe the author should visit any one of the many slave castles in West Africa and then reconsider who really suffered most during the slave trade.

Master Baiter Joined: 20 Aug 2005 Posts: 187

@ Dr Who,

Was posting under the influence last night and used less diplomatic language than is in the actual letter to Atlantic. What I am saying there is that scammers will exploit any tragedy to further their means. Using the slave trade as an excuse for what they're doing is part of the same pattern.

Now I see that what I meant by "peon" wasn't clear. What I meant was, say just IF an "entry level" scammer questions the ethics of a more vile scam, I can imagine the others calming those objections with the same old argument.

I was not calling Rosenbaum an idiot, as I don't think he really believes the argument himself.

(Edit) Update: Letter submitted, with little resemblance to original post. Don't worry, I don't normally send off my drunken ravings for publication, instead I post them for your enjoyment!

Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 10:49 am

though probably most of this has been said somewhere by some body else and more probably I will get wipped by the majority of mods for being a lad hugger ... here comes my two kobo:

Quote:

The scam-baiters seem almost like a spontaneous evolutionary response to a threatening predatory species� think of them as the T cells of the Internet�s immune system. But they can also seem an embodiment of the devolution of discourse and increase in abuse and invective that�s come to be known as �cyber-disinhibition��the tendency of people to engage in hostile interactions when they aren�t inhibited by face-to-face contact.

I used to think of our lot as T cells as I wasn�t aware of the concept of cyber-disinhibition.
Probably both viewpoints have their own merits.

Quote:

Are the scam-baiters Jedi-like cyber-guardians taking up arms against the Web�s Dark Side, Spam-scam, or are they cyber-vigilantes engaging in vicious pranks that can, at times, border on racism?

cyber-vigilantes, probably. racism, definitely not!!!

Quote:

I soon became riveted by the interaction between the scammers and the scam-baiting �community,� particularly after discovering a frenetic hub of scam-baiters from all over the world, 419eater.com, with its explanation of the techniques of scam-baiting, its �mentor programme� for novices, and its intriguing philosophical discussions of the ethics of the counter-con.

quite a homage to this site �

Quote:

The 419eater site was founded in October 2003 by Shiver

For a splitsecond I was lured into believing Shiver was was a real name � but google gave him away as bow_down

Shiver Metimbers

Quote:

The Commodore 64 counter-scam�which opens Berry�s book Greetings in Jesus Name!, a compilation of baits and tips for newbies

The C=64 was my 1st computer and hence I bow to that bait. Btw, didn't know there was a book about it.

Quote:

After looking at photo after photo, I felt uncomfortable�I�d lost any sense of vicarious victory over petty thieves. It was like watching self-proclaimed Great White Hunters abuse their beaters.

funny enough, that thought never occurred to me while watching lads holding signs. Lad hugging as I am, I have an uncomfortable feeling with harder stuff from time to time.

Quote:

In other words, while scam-baiting usually involves some gray-area activities�impersonating people, manufacturing fake financial instruments�the interventionist scam-baiters are engaged in a darker gray area.

legally yes, but morally these things give me least trouble at all.

Quote:

And then there are troubling hints on the Web sites of an even darker practice known as �extreme anti-scamming,� which seems to involve physical attacks on scammers. Are we losing track here of who�s the criminal and who�s the victim?

though probably these actions would not hit the wrong marks, it gives me trouble that someone does this for fun. I'd not hesitate to use torture to make some terrorist tell me where the weapons of mass destructions lie, but I would trouble me to see the torturer to enjoy doing it. As all my scam baiting is purly fun driven and making the world a better place takes only a 2nd place in my motivations, I definitly draw my personal line here.

Quote:

But some in the scam-baiting community also take pleasure in mean-spirited mockery, like a mob of virtual vigilantes.

a sidekick to the n00b pwning mod mob? Wink

Quote:

Lose the trophy rooms.

after a long and balanced contemplation � NO Exclamation

I love the fun Very Happy

Quote:

I like my superheroes humble.

so do I, but unfortunatly they don�t come in that flavor. What is the meaning of being a SUPERhero when you cannot show off? Feel free to ask Clark Kent for a 2nd opinion.

Edit: An afterthought: I think every article on 419 is playing in favor of our course as it adds up to peoples awareness on scams. This holds true regardless of how positive a light will be drawn on our lot. So we should welcome this article Cool

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