Hello Dear

June 23, 2017 6:20 AM

A social enterprise is turning the hackers behind one of the internet’s longest-running scams into tech entrepreneurs
posted by infini (14 comments total)

The grift, technically known as the advance fee fraud, predates email

By a long time.
posted by thelonius at 6:27 AM on June 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

The jokes here practically write themselves.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:13 AM on June 23, 2017

Kingsley from I Do Not Come To You By Chance is exactly the student they want to reach.
posted by elizilla at 7:19 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's amazing how much effort often goes into organizing and perpetrating scams, and how often that's same effort would yield better results if directed toward lawful pursuits. Theoretically capitalism should be good at utilizing this talent, but it doesn't work if the people in question don't know how or are pushed out by established interests.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:06 AM on June 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Lack of opportunity to do legitimate meaningful work doesn't make most human beings less industrious or ambitious, it just points them in the direction of less legitimate/potentially harmful directions. People generally want to do something useful/interesting/satisfying with their lives, contrary to a lot of conservative narratives. I'm sure there are people who'd be happy doing nothing and just being dependent, but most people really aren't like that, maybe even especially the ones polite society stigmatizes and writes off more often, like the disadvantaged.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:13 AM on June 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

Another invented an app that lets users block X-rated content with a voice-recognition algorithm that detects age.

Moving to a higher-level scam whose victims are venture capital investors is definitely a step in the right direction.

I'm not actually opposed to this thing. It sounds like a neat experiment.
posted by eotvos at 8:20 AM on June 23, 2017 [11 favorites]

It's amazing how much effort often goes into organizing and perpetrating scams, and how often that's same effort would yield better results if directed toward lawful pursuits.

Not necessarily. Exporting these attitudes into the legal side of capitalism just gets you Amway. The problem is that the definition of "lawful pursuits" is not stable.
posted by praemunire at 10:28 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

The grift, technically known as the advance fee fraud, predates email

By a long time.
posted by thelonius

There's a great episode of The Grift podcast about Oscar Hartzell escalating this con to a whole new level via mail fraud in the early 1900s.
posted by suddenly, and without warning, at 10:32 AM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

The advance fee fraud email scams don't involve hacking so not sure what computer skills are being repurposed for good here. The article talks about cyber criminals but that's rather vague in what abilities they may have. Pretending to be a Nigerian Prince doesn't really translate to coding.
posted by JonB at 11:09 AM on June 23, 2017

419 scammers can always fall back on their wood carving skills if the coding doesn't work out.
posted by TedW at 11:28 AM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

jonB, aren't there as many jobs for growth hackers and social media specialists as much as there might be for those interested in actual coding? And doesn't the regular practice of going to cyber cafes to sit on the computer to type out those emails offer far more familiarity to a street guy than just hawking pencils at the traffic lights?

Consider the location. And do ask if you need links
posted by infini at 11:39 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

I love this. Thank you so much for posting it.
posted by you must supply a verb at 4:48 PM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

My Indian colleague and I have been trying to sus out the next "goldmine of offshorable talent..."
posted by Ogre Lawless at 6:55 PM on June 25, 2017

Nigeria (Lagos primarily, then the rest; see Techpoint.ng); Cameroon, rather spread out; Senegal, centered around Dakar; I am currently not as enthused about Accra or Nairobi. South Africa is out. Kampala, Uganda may surprise, see PCTech magazine
posted by infini at 2:22 AM on June 26, 2017