[Mimedefang] [OT] Spam that MIMEDefang will never be able to catch

[Kevin A. McGrail]

On 10/7/2011 2:19 PM, David F. Skoll wrote:
> http://blog.roaringpenguin.com/2011/10/hard-copy-spam.html
>
> It seems our April Fool news release from
> http://www.roaringpenguin.com/node/667 would have come in handy. :)
>
>

Same here!  I have received many of these going back to the early 90's 
when I co-founded my firm.  They are/were often addressed to just 
President, in fact.

What's also interesting is that they have been going on for many decades 
and long before the internet.  It's "interesting" to see the old scams 
redone with a new online twist.

These scams are even often called 419 scams because that's the Nigerian 
legal code for the offense.  And one example that I like to show at 
conferences contains a fake newspaper article even.  They are often VERY 
clever even more so than the online versions.

Anyway, you asked about the economies in your blog and the answer is 
that it's a scale of economies + more crimes.

For Nigerian's, more than 90% of the population lives on less than a 
single US Dollar per day.  And the stamps are often 
stolen/counterfeit/fraudulent.  So the costs to them are very little.

My understanding is that especially in the past, Nigerian banks were 
very non-compliant in prosecuting these scams which is why they were so 
prevalent.  These scams of course exist starting based on countries 
other than Nigeria as well.

Regards,
KAM