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I don’t mind scambaiting in theory and there’s a very long history here going back 20+ years - however, please bear in mind that often these scammers are also v

I don’t mind scambaiting in theory and there’s a very long history here going back 20+ years - however, please bear in mind that often these scammers are also victims to trafficking and blackmail themselves, which is why they often come across as so desperate.

lupusreal 3y ago
Don't care, screw them. If they are made ineffective at their jobs their bosses / slave masters might punish them, but inefficiency in the scamming industry also reduces the incentive to bring new people into it. Sucks for them, just like it sucks for the Russian soldiers drafted into the army when a drone drops a nade on their head. So sad, but I don't care.
- bumby 3y ago
  A “The ends justify the means” mentality is a road to all kinds of human atrocities.
  - DigitalHackOp 3y ago
    What do you purpose to do?
    - bumby 3y ago
      Complex, systemic problems tend to require systemic solutions. Petty vigilante justice can make us feel good about ourselves but rarely makes much difference. The podcast I linked in your other comment talks about a few potential avenues to help make real change, ranging from diplomatic pressure, to crypto regulation, to education.
      - tombert 3y ago
        I don't think Kitboga (or any of the other scambaiting people) would disagree with anything you're suggesting. I agree that it's a systemic problem, and it is probably a job for regulators and maybe even the FBI/CIA. I don't think any of these scambaiters are claiming that they're saving the world or "make much difference", but I think there can still be value in short-term solutions as well. It might take decades for politicians to actually solve the problem in a way that it needs to be, and in that time Kitboga wasting some time is making a small effect.
        bumby 3y ago
        I would tend to agree if the stakes are small. But in this case, when you're dealing with human trafficking, there's a real chance their actions make the scenario much worse while being veiled in self-righteousness.
        tombert 3y ago
        I guess what I take issue with is that you keep claiming that it's making the situation worse...How? In the short term what are the alternatives? Let the scammers keep trying to rip people off, with some level of success?
        bumby 3y ago
        There's a couple things we need to agree on to get there. 1) A lot of this industry is based on human trafficking. I've linked elsewhere to a good podcast that explains this and others have chimed in with other references. 2) By wasting the scammer's time, you are putting them at risk of abuse because of #1. So if you can agree that "increasing the risk of human physical violence to live out some vigilante sense of justice" is worse than "not," it leads to worse outcomes for disproportionately little net gain. Edit: (sorry, I was actually editing this as you were already posting. I had already answered this in multiple other comments, so it was getting tiresome) The UN is already working on diplomatic pressure in countries like Cambodia that seem to specialize in this sort of thing. Countries like China (where there are victims on both sides of the problem) have created movies [1], in part, to educate the populace. I'm not claiming there are any silver bullets, but I think the types of actions in the article are more about feeling like you're doing good than actually doing good. And it hits home because most of us have similar thoughts. It's a bit masturbatory in that regard, and I want to push back a bit on the idea that it's actually solving much of anything despite what our baser instincts are telling us. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28076784/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28076784/
        tombert 3y ago
        You didn't actually answer the question. I'll agree with both points (though I take a bit of issue with the second with some of the wording), but you didn't suggest any short term solutions. ETA: I want to clarify, these people will have violence inflicted on them if they're not collecting money. If Kitboga is wasting their time, they're not collecting money. If they just get a bad shuffle and don't get anyone gullible for a few days, they're also not collecting money. You seem to be purposefully ignoring this.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    Kitboga isn't committing any war crimes, so blow it out your ass. Reducing the number of grandmas being scammed absolutely justifies the """atrocity""" of wasting the time of scammers and hypothetically having them get punished by their bosses. The real problem here is you obviously have more sympathy for scammers than their victims. "Oh but the scammers are victims too..." Well you've got two groups of victims then; people who are pure victim and people who are simultaneously victim and criminal, and you favor the latter. You're wrong.
    - bumby 3y ago
      Your response goes against all kinds of HN guidelines. I suggest you read them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
DigitalHackOp 3y ago
Do you have sources for those claims? It always seems like they're India nationals in India, which makes the claim around trafficking seem a little off?
- bumby 3y ago
  “Search Engine” podcast did a recent episode on this topic. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-...
- alx__ 3y ago
  This excerpt from the book Number Go Up, goes into details https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-17/my-crypto-hell-journey-started-with-a-wrong-number-scam-text https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-17/my-crypto...
- notahacker 3y ago
  the groups doing "tech support scams" are different from the ones doing instant message "romance" scams, which are again different from the individuals and groups doing email "Nigerian Prince" scams But year, part of the reason the "tech support" and "phone upgrade" scams work so well is they're recruiting from literally the same demographic that the actual callcentres hire from. I'm sure some of the people have hard luck stories about being laid off from their original callcentre job or reasons for being desperate to make money fast, but in general I think they're more educated and employable than most of their fellow countrymen.
tombert 3y ago
I agree that we shouldn't dehumanize them, and we should keep that in mind and not necessarily condemn the people Kitboga is actually talking to. It's easy to sit and judge someone comfortably from your cushy office job, and a lot of people aren't as lucky. Desperation is a horrible thing, and it becomes disturbingly easy to turn off your empathy when you feel things are otherwise hopeless. That said, I think it's still ok for Kitboga to do it, simply because if they're talking to him, they're not screwing someone's grandparents out of their life savings. Whether or not he's talking to the person in charge or a victim of something absolutely horrible, they're still distracted from scamming someone else who might be more vulnerable. Also, the people actually running the scam operations can go fuck themselves.
- bumby 3y ago
  Does your opinion change if, in the course of wasting their time, he puts them at higher risk of beatings or worse?
  - 1123581321 3y ago
    In the long run we want all these operations to fail. It’s sad that people will be hurt as these criminal bosses see their groups stop being able to steal, but it’s better than more people being recruited into them. That’s in addition to the good of preventing thefts.
    - caminante 3y ago
      I don't have the data, but I suspect a few thieves caught isn't a deterrent to the majority of scammers. These videos usually end with "[x] has been reported to authorities" with a hopeless probability of law enforcement taking action.
      - 1123581321 3y ago
        The guy featured in this article is just part of the marketing arm of a bigger public awareness and enforcement trend that is (slowly) reducing demand, if you will, and making it easier to either find them or cut them off from communication services in the target country.
kcplate 3y ago
There is way too much joy, pleasure, and pride in the grift that I have seen in the Kitboga, Pierogi, and Jim Browning videos for me to worry or care too much about these folks being victims themselves. My bet is those folks are there by choice and are knowingly doing wrong. Screw them…even if they are doing wrong out of desperation, they are still doing wrong.

lupusreal 3y ago

Don't care, screw them. If they are made ineffective at their jobs their bosses / slave masters might punish them, but inefficiency in the scamming industry also reduces the incentive to bring new people into it. Sucks for them, just like it sucks for the Russian soldiers drafted into the army when a drone drops a nade on their head. So sad, but I don't care.

bumby 3y ago
A “The ends justify the means” mentality is a road to all kinds of human atrocities.
- DigitalHackOp 3y ago
  What do you purpose to do?
  - bumby 3y ago
    Complex, systemic problems tend to require systemic solutions. Petty vigilante justice can make us feel good about ourselves but rarely makes much difference. The podcast I linked in your other comment talks about a few potential avenues to help make real change, ranging from diplomatic pressure, to crypto regulation, to education.
    - tombert 3y ago
      I don't think Kitboga (or any of the other scambaiting people) would disagree with anything you're suggesting. I agree that it's a systemic problem, and it is probably a job for regulators and maybe even the FBI/CIA. I don't think any of these scambaiters are claiming that they're saving the world or "make much difference", but I think there can still be value in short-term solutions as well. It might take decades for politicians to actually solve the problem in a way that it needs to be, and in that time Kitboga wasting some time is making a small effect.
      - bumby 3y ago
        I would tend to agree if the stakes are small. But in this case, when you're dealing with human trafficking, there's a real chance their actions make the scenario much worse while being veiled in self-righteousness.
        tombert 3y ago
        I guess what I take issue with is that you keep claiming that it's making the situation worse...How? In the short term what are the alternatives? Let the scammers keep trying to rip people off, with some level of success?
        bumby 3y ago
        There's a couple things we need to agree on to get there. 1) A lot of this industry is based on human trafficking. I've linked elsewhere to a good podcast that explains this and others have chimed in with other references. 2) By wasting the scammer's time, you are putting them at risk of abuse because of #1. So if you can agree that "increasing the risk of human physical violence to live out some vigilante sense of justice" is worse than "not," it leads to worse outcomes for disproportionately little net gain. Edit: (sorry, I was actually editing this as you were already posting. I had already answered this in multiple other comments, so it was getting tiresome) The UN is already working on diplomatic pressure in countries like Cambodia that seem to specialize in this sort of thing. Countries like China (where there are victims on both sides of the problem) have created movies [1], in part, to educate the populace. I'm not claiming there are any silver bullets, but I think the types of actions in the article are more about feeling like you're doing good than actually doing good. And it hits home because most of us have similar thoughts. It's a bit masturbatory in that regard, and I want to push back a bit on the idea that it's actually solving much of anything despite what our baser instincts are telling us. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28076784/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28076784/
        tombert 3y ago
        You didn't actually answer the question. I'll agree with both points (though I take a bit of issue with the second with some of the wording), but you didn't suggest any short term solutions. ETA: I want to clarify, these people will have violence inflicted on them if they're not collecting money. If Kitboga is wasting their time, they're not collecting money. If they just get a bad shuffle and don't get anyone gullible for a few days, they're also not collecting money. You seem to be purposefully ignoring this.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  Kitboga isn't committing any war crimes, so blow it out your ass. Reducing the number of grandmas being scammed absolutely justifies the """atrocity""" of wasting the time of scammers and hypothetically having them get punished by their bosses. The real problem here is you obviously have more sympathy for scammers than their victims. "Oh but the scammers are victims too..." Well you've got two groups of victims then; people who are pure victim and people who are simultaneously victim and criminal, and you favor the latter. You're wrong.
  - bumby 3y ago
    Your response goes against all kinds of HN guidelines. I suggest you read them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

DigitalHackOp 3y ago

Do you have sources for those claims? It always seems like they're India nationals in India, which makes the claim around trafficking seem a little off?

bumby 3y ago
“Search Engine” podcast did a recent episode on this topic. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-...
alx__ 3y ago
This excerpt from the book Number Go Up, goes into details https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-17/my-crypto-hell-journey-started-with-a-wrong-number-scam-text https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-17/my-crypto...
notahacker 3y ago
the groups doing "tech support scams" are different from the ones doing instant message "romance" scams, which are again different from the individuals and groups doing email "Nigerian Prince" scams But year, part of the reason the "tech support" and "phone upgrade" scams work so well is they're recruiting from literally the same demographic that the actual callcentres hire from. I'm sure some of the people have hard luck stories about being laid off from their original callcentre job or reasons for being desperate to make money fast, but in general I think they're more educated and employable than most of their fellow countrymen.

tombert 3y ago

I agree that we shouldn't dehumanize them, and we should keep that in mind and not necessarily condemn the people Kitboga is actually talking to. It's easy to sit and judge someone comfortably from your cushy office job, and a lot of people aren't as lucky. Desperation is a horrible thing, and it becomes disturbingly easy to turn off your empathy when you feel things are otherwise hopeless. That said, I think it's still ok for Kitboga to do it, simply because if they're talking to him, they're not screwing someone's grandparents out of their life savings. Whether or not he's talking to the person in charge or a victim of something absolutely horrible, they're still distracted from scamming someone else who might be more vulnerable. Also, the people actually running the scam operations can go fuck themselves.

bumby 3y ago
Does your opinion change if, in the course of wasting their time, he puts them at higher risk of beatings or worse?
- 1123581321 3y ago
  In the long run we want all these operations to fail. It’s sad that people will be hurt as these criminal bosses see their groups stop being able to steal, but it’s better than more people being recruited into them. That’s in addition to the good of preventing thefts.
  - caminante 3y ago
    I don't have the data, but I suspect a few thieves caught isn't a deterrent to the majority of scammers. These videos usually end with "[x] has been reported to authorities" with a hopeless probability of law enforcement taking action.
    - 1123581321 3y ago
      The guy featured in this article is just part of the marketing arm of a bigger public awareness and enforcement trend that is (slowly) reducing demand, if you will, and making it easier to either find them or cut them off from communication services in the target country.

kcplate 3y ago

There is way too much joy, pleasure, and pride in the grift that I have seen in the Kitboga, Pierogi, and Jim Browning videos for me to worry or care too much about these folks being victims themselves. My bet is those folks are there by choice and are knowingly doing wrong. Screw them…even if they are doing wrong out of desperation, they are still doing wrong.