Monday, October 19, 2009

Week 3 - 2: Scams

The internet frauds may be either technological solutions or social engineering. I guess the technological side is more understandable at the first point - someone has the knowledge, time and interest to hack something and get access to critical data to profit. The social engineering part seems to be difficult for me. To combine social engineering and technological solution for example using DNS and visibly cheat users to give out their data is more understandable than to just get someone to make a bank transaction for me as a stranger.

It seems unbelievable that someone gives huge amount of money just like that. But reading more about it, I must believe there are so many people who just get scammed. I know some people who make a monthly trasaction to another side of the Earth while "they have a child there". A child who does not have parents and who is very poor. The "parents" receive some photos and see "their child". I suppose there are organizations dealing with the problems of orphans and raising money but having not much knowledge of those I would be very suspicious. And hearing an adult happily saying that she has a boyfriend in Africa who tells her when to be online for chat or if she is allowed to go to a party or not - "he cares you know" .. is just unbelievable but true. And the african "came to my skype just like that, he found me himself"...

On the websites like Scam O Rama.. I am just asking how do anyone find time and will to deal with sending back emails to such time wasters if he/she already gets that it is a scam. I never open emails from "strange" senders. If a stranger needs to write me they better explain the reason at the subject field. And "click to win one million" or "super offer only for you" is not a good one. Reading one case of Scam O Rama was enough. I find it to be good study material for those who tend to believe such offers. Otherwise it may be amusing to read it if one has nothing else to do. To react as a scambaiter.. I can not understand.

From the ethical point of view the sites telling about scambaiting are useful for study purposes on internet safety. On scambaiting, in my opinion, it is not unethical to fool back on the scammer but I do not think one should do it as it is such a waste of time. You never know the person behind it and you feel him/her important enough to get a share of youd time? I do not think so. Trying to get some profit from someone who scammed you is not ethical. It is not ethical at any point to act according to: "I do it because he/she did it to me" if it is a negative thing. Ofcourse it is subjective to evaluate on things but as long as the evaluation is made legally - a crime or not - it should be clear.

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