• Mood: :: blink ::
• Music: Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth

wow

I always thought that those Nigerian scammer-spammers who asked for your bank account information ( MY NAME IS DR IYKE MADU ... $15.5 MILLION DOLLARS ... BLAH BLAH BLAH) were trying to get hold of enough identifying information to rape your accounts electronically. 

Turns out, according to BBC, the Register and the US Secret Service, that's not really the case - providing your bank account number is mostly just an identifier that you're a "live one".  What the actual game plan is - after getting you to wire them as much money as possible before hand - is to get you to actually TRAVEL TO THEM, after which you can be kidnapped / ransomed / forced to completely empty your bank account in person.

Holy shit.  That makes it a little more understandable why the 419 spammer busted by a Dublin sysadmin actually tried to eat his fucking USB drive when the cops showed up.  A bit more was at stake than just "you sent some email that people didn't want."

Every time you think you know how nasty the world is, it just gets a little bit worse. =\