4 ms·
Here's an amazing study from Microsoft which I recall from back in the day (PDF): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WhyFromNi
by karim79 2mo ago
Here's an amazing study from Microsoft which I recall from back in the day (PDF):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WhyFromNigeria.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
Edit: Recalled -> Recall
- gerdesj 2mo agoI had a bash with that paper. It is pure and utter tosh - I started with the ... start and swiftly moved to 6. Conclusion. "Thinking like an attacker is a skill rightly valued among defenders." and "Attacking as a business must identify targets, and this is easy only if we believe that attackers have solved a problem that has vexed multiple communities for decades." Bollocks!
- karim79 2mo agoHow so? For me the point of the paper is the elimination of the ones who will not fall for such a scam in the first place. The title of the paper says it all. Are we talking about the same thing?
- edot 2mo agoBash = tried Tosh = nonsense Bollocks = also nonsense
- karim79 2mo agoFair enough man. I didn't write the paper no need to hate on me sir.
- Barbing 2mo ago(Parent’s helpfully defining the Britishisms for HN readers)
- karim79 2mo agoAs a British person I find this to be very very British.
- edot 2mo agoI like them, I just didn't understand them and figured I'd educate the crowd so we can all join in and call things tosh. Posh = fancy, tosh = bad.
- lozf 2mo agoDon't forget to check out: "bosh", "cosh", "dosh", "gosh", "josh", "mosh", and "nosh" too! ;)
- Barbing 2mo agoSorry were they Englishisms or something, almost clarified I didn’t know!
- cheriot 2mo ago> 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. There's less need to identify the most gullible when AI drops the incremental cost of responding closer to zero.
- wolvoleo 2mo agoAnd, it also allows for more advanced, labour intensive, targeted styles of attacks to be leveled at targets much less promising.
- Nition 2mo agoThis paper is the one and only source for every claim from the past 10 years that "scammers make mistakes in scams on purpose." Crucially, no actual scammer or former scammer or even acquaintance of a former scammer has ever corroborated it. The paper itself is pure speculation. If anything I think that paper serves best as a reminder that just because an idea is clever and logical, that doesn't necessarily mean it's true.[1] [1] As another example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Gandhi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Gandhi
- karim79 2mo agoNo. The paper is about reducing a set, as far as I understand. It's not about mistakes. It's about the deliberacy of basically squeezing out the individuals who are vulnerable and who do not see the signs of being scammed.
- Nition 2mo agoYes but ascribing those motivations is a guess. There's no actual scammer saying they are doing that vs. it just being a fairly unsophisticated scam. It might be the reason, but the paper provides no actual proof, and as far as I've been able to find, neither has anyone else in the decade since. Just a whole lot of people repeating the theory as fact.
- karim79 2mo agoI'll take your point and rabbit hole it a bit sir.
- Nition 2mo agoIf you find actual proof - even a friend of a friend saying they once heard it from a real scammer - I'd love to see it.
- karim79 2mo agoI used to bait 419 scammers. Weirdly enough I actually befriended a couple of them. That was about 20 years ago. They were full on and shameless but when exposed they became more human and even sympathetic and I dropped my guard and told them what I was doing. One of them said, and I'll never forget, "Thank you for being reasonable".