Scott Hoffman wrote: >What's a laughable scam to you and me, perfectly comfortable in today's >technological age, makes me worry about my mother and senior citizens in >general. > That makes sense, and explains why the naive fall for the flashing banner ads that look exactly like Windows dialog boxes (e.g. Your Internet Connection is Not Optimized!!). However, it does not explain the Nigerian scam, which is entirely non-technological. As I understand it, the 419 scam pre-dates the massive consumer adoption of the Internet. This scam used to be delivered by FAX, and could effectively be delivered by paper mail. The only reason it is so much more pervasive via e-mail is that it costs money to send a FAX or a paper letter, and spam is nearly free. But all of the semantic content and the further correspondence in the 419 scam works just as well by carrier pigeon as it does by e-mail. >However, things like e-mail scams that prey on people's emotions can be all >too effective not only on the naive who perhaps deserve our scorn, but also >on the frail who need our help. I hope that your heart has some room for >them. > It does seem common for the elderly to be targeted by con men of all kinds. And scams do seem to work better on the elderly. This too confuses me; shouldn't they have experienced all kinds of scams in their lifetime, and now be used to that kind of crap? Barring nasty things like Altzheimer's, they didn't suddenly just become stupid. Why do cons work better on the elderly? Curious counter-example: this old guy <http://allafrica.com/stories/200302210329.html> may have been too clueless to stay out of the 419 scam, but he was not too infirm to shoot the Nigerian diplomat. Answering your question, yes I do have sympathy for the infirm being robbed by con men. The rage is reserved for stupid/greedy people who go for this stuff. I saw an interview on TechTV with a 419 victim. He was a 20-something bible-thumper from the South. He got the 419 scam version with lots of "God" in it. He fell for it, reasoning that the scammer said he was a Christian, and a Christian wouldn't lie (bonus cookies if you can spot the *two* falacies here). I want to take away his internet connection, his keyboard, and if necessary his fingers, to keep him off the net. But even this chump is atypical. According to the press reports I read, the average 419 victim is a medium wealthy American man in his 40s or 50s. He's medium wealthy because the scam asks you to put up many thousands of dollars, and often fly to Europe or Africa. He's middle aged because that's what it takes to get medium wealthy without being a boy genius. He's male because it takes a certian kind of averice to want to steal $20M or so from the government of an impoverished African nation that is usually only found in aggressive males. Caveat: The profile I gathered from press reports. The rationalle I just made up. Question: I would really like to hear from police officers who have dealt with 419 victims to hear what these people are actually like, rather than inferring everything from random press reports. Crispin -- Crispin Cowan, Ph.D. http://wirex.com/~crispin/ Chief Scientist, WireX http://wirex.com HP/Trend Micro Immunix Secured Solutions http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/solutions/iis/ Just say ".Nyet"
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