Breaking News Thread

[Colorado700R]

"I was born a poor black child........"-Steve Martin, The Jerk.



~Brian

That movie is awesome

[Flynbyu]

One of my favorite movies....

~Brian

[Krandall]

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/05/baiting-nigerian-scammers-for-fun-not-so-much-for-profit.ars


Baiting Nigerian scammers for fun (not so much for profit)
Who are scam baiters, and why do they bother trying to give scammers the runaround? Ars explores the flourishing communities of scam baiters who help each other do everything they can to waste scammers' time, including enticing them to get ridiculous tattoos and sending them on treks across Africa for nonexistent cash.

When your hobby is baiting 419 scammers (also known as Nigerian scammers or advance-fee fraudsters), a death threat isn't cause for concern—it's a trophy worth bragging about to your friends.

Scam baiters are the vigilante enforcers who come together to waste hours, weeks, or months of 419 scammers' lives for nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing that they are distracting them from real victims. Though the world of 419 scams has existed since long before the Internet, people continue to fall for scammers in droves—certainly, scammers are making millions of dollars every year by promising money, goods, and romance that they never deliver on. That's part of why scam baiting has actually become a somewhat popular pastime online, with thousands of users flocking to scam baiting forums to share stories and ideas on how to string along more scammers. And hey, why not? Most of us end up spending too much time screwing around on the Internet anyway—these folks just use that time to make scammers miserable.

But when you hear stories like this, it makes you wonder. "I get death threats on regular basis," a student who goes by -C- told Ars. "Death threats are not uncommon and are actually considered achievements: they are a testament to the fact that the baiter managed to annoy his/her scammer nicely."

Why would you want to start baiting scammers?
When the scammer sends you a fake passport that looks like it was made by a blind hamster with a piece of charcoal in ten seconds, you praise it and say it really helps you to build trust.Who are these people? As it turns out, the scam-baiter demographic is more diverse than one might think, though much of the reasoning for participating is the same. "My initial reason for baiting was to give myself an outlet for the practical jokes that I am 'too old' to play on my dog/little sister/friends/neighbor's cat," a 32-year-old baiter who goes by blah told Ars. "But after I joined 419eater, I realized that we actually do make an impact on the entire scamming business by running interference and wasting these scammer's time."

Other scam baiters we spoke to (all of which wished to remain anonymous for their own safety) echoed this sentiment, many relaying feelings of boredom or frustration with scammers. They also had heard humorous stories from experienced baiters and wanted to get involved. And, of course, there's always those who simply do it because they feel like it's payback. "I'm an absolute stickler for justice and hate any form of abuse," a UK production company owner who goes by Paddy told Ars.

The things baiters do to scammers range from "boring," menial tasks like seeding false information or questionable wording into the scamming community (tasks that don't necessarily bring the glory, but are equally necessary) to sending scammers on full-on safaris across Africa—or sometimes, the globe—in search of money that will never come. The baiters we spoke with said that they spend anywhere from a an hour per day (usually arranged around other things, like TV or just casual Internet surfing) to a full 8 to 10 hours per day, especially if they are working on a collaborative safari. We'll get to that in a minute.

Some of the more menial tasks involve posing as experienced scammers trying to befriend newbies in order to give them sage advice. "For example, scammers like idioms, but many of their native idioms are different to those of English language and they may not know that many from the latter. Teach them a new one: tell them that 'take this offer of mine with a huge grain of salt' means 'this is the chance of your life time and I am very serious about this,'" -C- says.

-C- describes another way of "de-educating" scammers: giving feedback on their fake documents in order to make them look less realistic. -C- explains: "When the scammer sends you a fake passport that looks like it was made by a blind hamster with a piece of charcoal in ten seconds, you praise it and say it really helps you to build trust. Then, hope he is encouraged by this to send it to real victims too, who on the other hand will hopefully recognize it's a fake."

We're going on a surfin' safari
Every minute the scammer I'm communicating with is spending on me is a minute he is not scamming a real potential victim.On the more extreme end of the scale, the tales from baiters are both horrifying and hilarious, depending on where your sympathies lie (and how much you enjoy tales of lengthy snipe hunts). 28-year-old manny relayed a story wherein he and several other baiters talked a scammer into traveling from Port Harcourt, Nigeria to Darfur to pick up a nonexistent $500,000. The 3,000-mile roundtrip got the scammer stranded for two weeks before he managed to make it home. Craig, a professional airline pilot, said that he and three other baiters got a scammer to travel from Lagos, Nigeria to Paga, Ghana—a total of 3,800 miles.

blah had fun with a scammer and airport security in London, resulting in his being detained for several hours. "He was waiting for me to arrive on a flight that I wasn't actually on. I told him to show up with a black backpack and hold it very very close to his chest (that's how I would know that it was him). Airport security didn't find it amusing, apparently, and thought he was acting suspicious," blah said. "My plane fictitiously arrived after he had been detained and I ended up chewing the scammer out for being so inconsiderate as to get detained and leave me waiting for an hour until I finally just hailed a cab and went to my hotel. When airport security finally released him, he went and waited in the lobby-bar of the hotel for four additional hours while I 'freshened-up' in my room."

Do ethics apply to this game?
There are many other stories easily found online—ones that none of our baiters were willing to fess up to—about having scammers get tattoos saying ridiculous things, or sending them into truly dangerous regions of Africa that have almost gotten them killed. The general consensus among the baiters we spoke to, however, was that they feel even the most dangerous of safaris is payback for all the scammers do. "The scammer makes the decision to put themselves in harm's way; if something happens to them, so be it. Most of them would have no problem with you dying if it meant that they would make a dollar," said manny. "One baiter's character recently told the scammer that he had a choice between sending the scammer $5,000 or using the same money to pay for his baby daughter's cancer treatment—I think you can guess which option the scammer chose."

Craig agreed. "Making a lad sweat it out in Niger, 100° heats, with the need to drink two gallons of water a day or die, is petty punishment for their crimes," he said. "A lad returning from a long journey, financially worse off, demoralized completely, may lose interest in scamming."

That's really the end goal—to keep the scammers' attention directed away from real victims and hopefully frustrate them to the point of quitting. "Every minute the scammer I'm communicating with is spending on me is a minute he is not scamming a real potential victim," manny told Ars.

Others agreed wholeheartedly. "Whether he is wandering through the desert hundreds of miles from home, or making yet another fruitless trip to the Moneygram office, that's all time he is not behind a computer scamming someone's elderly parents." Many of the baiters also spend time working with other sites to warn victims and help educate people about 419 scams (Paddy told me he spends a lot of time warning victims at scamwarners.com, for example). "I love to hear is someone ripping up a fake check they just received from the scammer and/or telling me that we just saved them their life's savings."

[Flynbyu]

^^^^BAD ASS^^^^

I wanna play!!!!!



~Brian

[Flynbyu]

Lions Smith: 'We will definitely make the playoff's'

On his personal blog, Smith34.com, Detroit Lions running back Kevin Smith(notes) predicted, no wait, promised the Lions will make the NFL Playoffs in 2009. It makes you wonder, did he watch the video tape?

"I won't make a prediction about how many games we're going to win, but I will say this: We will definitely make the playoffs this season.

"Believe it or not we weren't far off last year. Almost every game we could have won, we were one play or one player short. Except for Tennessee on Thanksgiving, they just came out and beat us to sleep. They manhandled us, but nobody else did.''

The Lions weren't far off? They were 0-16.

Muhahahahaha!!!!!!

~Brian

[Krandall]

Crack can do that to someone......

False Hopes.

[Flynbyu]

So Pealer is the reason the Lions went 0-16!



~Brian

[Peelz]

So Pealer is the reason the Lions went 0-16!



~Brian

   

Was going to post. Love the idea of baiting scammers.

[Flynbyu]

We should totally do that....

We need a thread on this if we do.

We could all act as each others attorney's investors, etc..

That would be so bad ass.

~Brian

[Colorado700R]

Pentagon official charged with plotting to spy for China

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Pentagon official has been charged with conspiracy to communicate classified information to a person he believed represented China's government, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday.

James Wilbur Fondren Jr., 62, worked as the deputy director for the Washington liaison office for U.S. Pacific Command, according to the complaint unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia.

He turned himself in to federal agents Wednesday morning, the Department of Justice said.

Fondren is accused of involvement in an espionage conspiracy from November 2004 until February 2008. He has been on administrative leave with pay since mid-February of last year.

"These charges are the result of the investigative efforts of the FBI's Washington Field Office, with the invaluable assistance of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations," said Arthur Cummings of the FBI's National Security Branch.

"Espionage is a profoundly serious crime, and the FBI will continue to work with our law enforcement and intelligence community partners to ensure the protection of our nation's most sensitive information."


I hope they fry this douche!!!!

[Colorado700R]

"Me so holy...oh so holy...oh oh, so holy, me love you long time!!"

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/05/13/moos.me.so.holy.cnn

[Flynbyu]

Pentagon official charged with plotting to spy for China

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Pentagon official has been charged with conspiracy to communicate classified information to a person he believed represented China's government, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday.

James Wilbur Fondren Jr., 62, worked as the deputy director for the Washington liaison office for U.S. Pacific Command, according to the complaint unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia.

He turned himself in to federal agents Wednesday morning, the Department of Justice said.

Fondren is accused of involvement in an espionage conspiracy from November 2004 until February 2008. He has been on administrative leave with pay since mid-February of last year.

"These charges are the result of the investigative efforts of the FBI's Washington Field Office, with the invaluable assistance of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations," said Arthur Cummings of the FBI's National Security Branch.

"Espionage is a profoundly serious crime, and the FBI will continue to work with our law enforcement and intelligence community partners to ensure the protection of our nation's most sensitive information."


I hope they fry this douche!!!!

Wait....

He's been under the gun since 2004 and still employed all this time?

WTF?

~Brian

[dragonz]

We should totally do that....

We need a thread on this if we do.

We could all act as each others attorney's investors, etc..

That would be so bad ass.

~Brian

I'm in!

[Krandall]

Fish found in boy's penis

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,24353334-5012895,00.html

WTF is all I jhave to say!!!

The patient was admitted to hospital with complaints of pain, dribbling urine and acute urinary retention spanning a 24-hour period. According to the boy, the fish slipped into his penis while he was cleaning his aquarium at home.

Professor Vezhaventhan and Professor Jeyaraman, who treated the boy and later wrote a paper on the case, explained: "While he was cleaning the fish tank in his house, he was holding a fish in his hand and went to the toilet for passing urine. When he was passing urine, the fish slipped from his hand and entered his urethra and then he developed all these symptoms."

After detecting the fish in the boy's bladder, Vezhaventhan and Jeyaraman used a technique known as cystourethroscopy to insert a special set of forceps down the patient's penis. Unfortunately, the fish was just too slippery to grip, so they resorted to using a rigid ureteroscope with a tool attached that is normally used for removing bladder stones.

The fish the urologists removed, which Practical Fishkeeping believes to be a small member of the Betta genus, measured 2cm long and 1.5cm wide.

He was later admitted into counseling to help him overcome any trauma.

[Colorado700R]

He was considered a boy only becuase of his penis size, the victim, 36 year old Brian Sheppard from Arkansas stated "Although the pain was dreadful, the increased size from that minnow was a much needed temperary ego boost"