4 ms·

I like to string scammers along for fun, if I have spare time. These "pig butchering" scams provide hilarious possibilities. They like to send their photo pre

by RajT88 3y ago

I like to string scammers along for fun, if I have spare time. These "pig butchering" scams provide hilarious possibilities. They like to send their photo pretty early (always an attractive Asian lady), so I try and beat them to the punch and send my own photo (of course, also a photo of an Asian lady). Curiously, this doesn't deter them! My wife finds this particularly hilarious. One time, I had 2 people randomly texting me at the same time, using the same name - Jenny. I started sending them screenshots of each other's conversations, which kind of annoyed them. "Which Jenny is this? Do you know the other Jenny?" lol A list of things which also doesn't seem to deter them or make them think they might be being toyed with: - Claiming to work for the FBI (in an anti-scammer unit) - Being homeless - Claiming to be Peter Frampton - Claiming to be Bill Clinton

muttled 3y ago
I'd be surprised, given the technical savviness and polish of these scams, if they weren't using LLM's that are scripted such that the bot isn't "aware" it's a scam.
- RajT88 3y ago
  I don't think they are. They don't immediately reply all the time. And like I say - they get annoyed sometimes and tell me to fuck off once they figure out I'm toying with them.
- Muromec 3y ago
  The real way they do it is by offering a nice job in IT to somebody with a passable written English (read Indian), then traffic them to Shan states in Myanmar and beat them into doing it. Apparently it scales better and is more predictable than LLM.
  - sp332 3y ago
    Also the Philippines https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68562643 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68562643
  - gryn 3y ago
    > Apparently it scales better and is more predictable than LLM. there's something in this sentence that hit different.
- harkinian 3y ago
  These scams have been going on since before LLMs were passable in English convo, and I'll bet they're still using whatever human labor they had.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  LLMs (either online services—which also risk getting cut off—or the hardware to run them locally) are probably a lot more expensive than trafficked workers.
lukan 3y ago
I think most of them are largely automated at this point, with the human scammers overlooking lot's of fishing gear. Only writing in some situations themself. Telegram is full of them, often they are so blunt, that you wonder why so stupid. But I saw people react and fall for them in group chats (where other people could intervene), so apparently it works with private chat. And they use all kinds of pictures (not just asian) and try to adapt them to the local groups at times. But the general theme: sucessful and happy. Making the victim wannabe just like his new friend. Some people are really desperate for success, so they ignore all warnings and go for it. Seriously messing with them would require LLMs at this point, to automate it as well.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  > But I saw people react and fall for them in group chats Are you sure they were not co-scammers though or the same scammer? Seems like scamming 101 to make victims fomo.
  - lukan 3y ago
    That surely also happens, but in the cases I mean, they were genuine people.
harkinian 3y ago
If I had two of these at once, I'd copy/paste the messages from one to the other and vice versa – make them talk to each other.
sp332 3y ago
Last week, hundreds of kidnapped people were freed from a scam center in the Philippines where they were forced to carry out pig butchering scams. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68562643 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68562643
CollinEMac 3y ago
You very well may have been talking to victims of a fraud factory.
- khazhoux 3y ago
  What does this mean?
  - CollinEMac 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud_factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud_factory Scammers aren't always acting on their own free will.
    - vundercind 3y ago
      Is making a scammer less-productive, so possibly saving some number of vulnerable people from losing their ability to support themselves in retirement, ethical if that scammer may (may!) not themselves benefiting from the scam, and may be beaten or otherwise punished for poor performance? ... my god, might we even have a moral obligation to help them make their numbers?
barfbagginus 3y ago
This practice is called scam baiting, and there are communities you can join, like 419 eater. You can improve your techniques there. But be careful with scambaiting. 1. Scammers can have networks, with connections that are more violent and capable than a given scammer. They might be capable of hitting you with a drive by, doxing, swatting, or hiring local muscle to visit you. The risk of this is kind of 'expensive' escalation low but not zero - especially if you're causing real problems for an operation 2. Many scam agents are victims coerced into scamming by their bosses. This makes it unethical to bait them unless you have the power and intent to liberate them - which almost no scam baiters do 3. Many scam agents have bots for dealing with repetitive objections or harassment attempts. It doesn't cost them anything to string "vigilantes" along with low effort bot responses, occasionally dropping the payload URL, hoping you will make a mistake 4. Some scambaiting activities are illegal and could make you liable for legal penalties - things like verbally harassing scammers, hacking scammers back to surveil their operations, threatening to have scammers beaten or murdered, etc. Remember that the agents that you're talking to are softies, with a little power, but they're working under the supervision - and often the coercion - of hardened criminals in many cases. Scambaiting should not be done just for fun. It should be done with some form of desire to help liberate the victims enslaved by these operations. I have personally chosen to stop most of my own scambaiting operations until I find a new form of scambaiting that can actually help victimized scammers. The only kind of scam baiting that I do now is teaching python and open source contributions on GitHub, with the hope that teaching a valuable skill can help a scammer escape the cycle of crime and extortion. If a potential scammer is willing to learn Python with me and start making open source contributions, I don't really care what else they are doing. But of course this approach has a downside - I could be teaching valuable programming skills to a person who will just use them to automate their scamming operation.
- wizerdrobe 3y ago
  In what jurisdiction would I be liable for verbally harassing a scammer? I ask because worked for a cybersecurity firm and we would, on occasion, and mostly the “teh lulz” screw with phone scams. Our legal had nothing to say on that front.
ben_w 3y ago
I used to get dodgy calls. Still do on my UK number. Back when I was still in the habit of actually picking up, if I got such a call I would advise the other party to join a trade union, which generally resulted in them hanging up instantly.
Jun8 3y ago
Does anyone have a good explanation;anation why a photo of an Asian woman is used in almost all cases, as opposed to, say, German looking or Indian woman. Is it because they are deemed to be the most attractive for the target victim demographic?
- tim333 3y ago
  A lot of the scammers are based in Asia. At least one I chatted to did look like the photo - we video chatted.
manquer 3y ago
Well they are victims too , they are held in prison like compounds and forced to work 16 hours a day and physically abused . They don’t have a choice but to talk to you . Everyone you engage you are making it worse for the person on the otherside
- tim333 3y ago
  Yeah it's all a bit shocking and quite a lot near the beach in Sihanoukville where I'd hung out a while doing beach stuff. There really should be a way of getting this stuff stopped.
tim333 3y ago
One thing which was kind of funny when the girl was trying to get me to send crypto to some fake exchange of the sort mentioned in the article, is that my friend issued his own crypto/shitcoin which I have a bunch of so I tried to pitch her on buying that instead. Sadly she didn't buy our token.

by RajT88 3y ago

muttled 3y ago

I'd be surprised, given the technical savviness and polish of these scams, if they weren't using LLM's that are scripted such that the bot isn't "aware" it's a scam.

RajT88 3y ago
I don't think they are. They don't immediately reply all the time. And like I say - they get annoyed sometimes and tell me to fuck off once they figure out I'm toying with them.
Muromec 3y ago
The real way they do it is by offering a nice job in IT to somebody with a passable written English (read Indian), then traffic them to Shan states in Myanmar and beat them into doing it. Apparently it scales better and is more predictable than LLM.
- sp332 3y ago
  Also the Philippines https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68562643 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68562643
- gryn 3y ago
  > Apparently it scales better and is more predictable than LLM. there's something in this sentence that hit different.
harkinian 3y ago
These scams have been going on since before LLMs were passable in English convo, and I'll bet they're still using whatever human labor they had.
dragonwriter 3y ago
LLMs (either online services—which also risk getting cut off—or the hardware to run them locally) are probably a lot more expensive than trafficked workers.

lukan 3y ago

I think most of them are largely automated at this point, with the human scammers overlooking lot's of fishing gear. Only writing in some situations themself. Telegram is full of them, often they are so blunt, that you wonder why so stupid. But I saw people react and fall for them in group chats (where other people could intervene), so apparently it works with private chat. And they use all kinds of pictures (not just asian) and try to adapt them to the local groups at times. But the general theme: sucessful and happy. Making the victim wannabe just like his new friend. Some people are really desperate for success, so they ignore all warnings and go for it. Seriously messing with them would require LLMs at this point, to automate it as well.

rightbyte 3y ago
> But I saw people react and fall for them in group chats Are you sure they were not co-scammers though or the same scammer? Seems like scamming 101 to make victims fomo.
- lukan 3y ago
  That surely also happens, but in the cases I mean, they were genuine people.

harkinian 3y ago

If I had two of these at once, I'd copy/paste the messages from one to the other and vice versa – make them talk to each other.

sp332 3y ago

Last week, hundreds of kidnapped people were freed from a scam center in the Philippines where they were forced to carry out pig butchering scams. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68562643 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68562643

CollinEMac 3y ago

You very well may have been talking to victims of a fraud factory.

khazhoux 3y ago
What does this mean?
- CollinEMac 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud_factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud_factory Scammers aren't always acting on their own free will.
  - vundercind 3y ago
    Is making a scammer less-productive, so possibly saving some number of vulnerable people from losing their ability to support themselves in retirement, ethical if that scammer may (may!) not themselves benefiting from the scam, and may be beaten or otherwise punished for poor performance? ... my god, might we even have a moral obligation to help them make their numbers?

barfbagginus 3y ago

This practice is called scam baiting, and there are communities you can join, like 419 eater. You can improve your techniques there. But be careful with scambaiting. 1. Scammers can have networks, with connections that are more violent and capable than a given scammer. They might be capable of hitting you with a drive by, doxing, swatting, or hiring local muscle to visit you. The risk of this is kind of 'expensive' escalation low but not zero - especially if you're causing real problems for an operation 2. Many scam agents are victims coerced into scamming by their bosses. This makes it unethical to bait them unless you have the power and intent to liberate them - which almost no scam baiters do 3. Many scam agents have bots for dealing with repetitive objections or harassment attempts. It doesn't cost them anything to string "vigilantes" along with low effort bot responses, occasionally dropping the payload URL, hoping you will make a mistake 4. Some scambaiting activities are illegal and could make you liable for legal penalties - things like verbally harassing scammers, hacking scammers back to surveil their operations, threatening to have scammers beaten or murdered, etc. Remember that the agents that you're talking to are softies, with a little power, but they're working under the supervision - and often the coercion - of hardened criminals in many cases. Scambaiting should not be done just for fun. It should be done with some form of desire to help liberate the victims enslaved by these operations. I have personally chosen to stop most of my own scambaiting operations until I find a new form of scambaiting that can actually help victimized scammers. The only kind of scam baiting that I do now is teaching python and open source contributions on GitHub, with the hope that teaching a valuable skill can help a scammer escape the cycle of crime and extortion. If a potential scammer is willing to learn Python with me and start making open source contributions, I don't really care what else they are doing. But of course this approach has a downside - I could be teaching valuable programming skills to a person who will just use them to automate their scamming operation.

wizerdrobe 3y ago
In what jurisdiction would I be liable for verbally harassing a scammer? I ask because worked for a cybersecurity firm and we would, on occasion, and mostly the “teh lulz” screw with phone scams. Our legal had nothing to say on that front.

ben_w 3y ago

I used to get dodgy calls. Still do on my UK number. Back when I was still in the habit of actually picking up, if I got such a call I would advise the other party to join a trade union, which generally resulted in them hanging up instantly.

Jun8 3y ago

Does anyone have a good explanation;anation why a photo of an Asian woman is used in almost all cases, as opposed to, say, German looking or Indian woman. Is it because they are deemed to be the most attractive for the target victim demographic?

tim333 3y ago
A lot of the scammers are based in Asia. At least one I chatted to did look like the photo - we video chatted.

manquer 3y ago

Well they are victims too , they are held in prison like compounds and forced to work 16 hours a day and physically abused . They don’t have a choice but to talk to you . Everyone you engage you are making it worse for the person on the otherside

tim333 3y ago
Yeah it's all a bit shocking and quite a lot near the beach in Sihanoukville where I'd hung out a while doing beach stuff. There really should be a way of getting this stuff stopped.

tim333 3y ago

One thing which was kind of funny when the girl was trying to get me to send crypto to some fake exchange of the sort mentioned in the article, is that my friend issued his own crypto/shitcoin which I have a bunch of so I tried to pitch her on buying that instead. Sadly she didn't buy our token.