Nigerian General Strike
January 9, 2012 7:04 PM Subscribe
Some context for today's general strike, the Occupy Nigeria movement, and growing frustration over government corruption in Nigeria.
But, with Nigerian writers on strike, who will write all the "deposed prince needs $10,000" e-mails I get?
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:09 PM on January 9, 2012
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:09 PM on January 9, 2012
The fuel subsidy is itself the essence of corruption; it's buying off the population with cheap fuel while enriching insiders who the government pays to import fuel that it is to incompetent to refine.
posted by ethansr at 7:17 PM on January 9, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by ethansr at 7:17 PM on January 9, 2012 [3 favorites]
I feel an African Spring coming on.
posted by mullingitover at 7:40 PM on January 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by mullingitover at 7:40 PM on January 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
I'd just like to tell the President of Nigeria: Goodluck, we're all counting on you.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 7:53 PM on January 9, 2012
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 7:53 PM on January 9, 2012
Subsidies are evil. Nigeria's refineries lie idle and decaying for want of investment while subsidy money flows to gas importers.
posted by anigbrowl at 8:59 PM on January 9, 2012
posted by anigbrowl at 8:59 PM on January 9, 2012
Humm. Spam volume is down 26% today. Related?
Sadly probably not; that looks like typical variance in the daily total ... so not only are spammers spammy, but they're probably also scabs.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:00 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
Sadly probably not; that looks like typical variance in the daily total ... so not only are spammers spammy, but they're probably also scabs.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:00 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
Holy hell, Kadin2048, that link is fascinating. Not to threadjack, but do you / does anyone know what was behind the drastic decline in spam in the last half of 2010?
posted by saturday_morning at 9:23 PM on January 9, 2012
posted by saturday_morning at 9:23 PM on January 9, 2012
The fuel subsidy is itself the essence of corruption; it's buying off the population with cheap fuel while enriching insiders who the government pays to import fuel that it is to incompetent to refine.
It also seems to be pretty popular.
posted by psycho-alchemy at 11:00 PM on January 9, 2012
It also seems to be pretty popular.
posted by psycho-alchemy at 11:00 PM on January 9, 2012
You can call subsidies "evil" if you want but I can hardly believe that anyone thought they could let prices for a necessity double overnight, pricing out literally millions of people that depended on it, and not expect an absolutely huge backlash
posted by moorooka at 11:32 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by moorooka at 11:32 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
It obviously was not a good idea to just whack the subsidies overnight, but it would be a good idea to eliminate them in the long term through gradual reductions. Put that subsidy money into public bus and train systems. The Nigerian middle class is a bit car-crazy (considering the low incomes) and doesn't need to be encouraged to develop a car-dependent culture when alternatives are possible.
posted by pracowity at 1:41 AM on January 10, 2012
posted by pracowity at 1:41 AM on January 10, 2012
saturday_morning: that graph shows spam as a percentage of global volume staying pretty steady at 85%, which would suggest that it was overall email volume that declined so dramatically. However this article suggests a big botnet was dismantled at the end of 2010, so that probably explains it.
posted by Acey at 2:59 AM on January 10, 2012
posted by Acey at 2:59 AM on January 10, 2012
Also, I doubt Nigeria's strike will affect spam, since they don't even make the top 10.
posted by Acey at 3:03 AM on January 10, 2012
posted by Acey at 3:03 AM on January 10, 2012
Why would our president spend close to a billion on food while close to eighty percent live on less than a dollar a day?
posted by latkes at 7:47 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by latkes at 7:47 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]
does anyone know what was behind the drastic decline in spam in the last half of 2010?
The Reg says that it was a combination of factors (which explains why it sort of drops off over a few months rather than just slamming down overnight). A big one was the Rustock botnet getting taken out, but supposedly it's mostly due to changing economics: spam just isn't as lucrative as other things you can do with a botnet now (like DDoS extortion).
This article by Symantec is pretty good too. Their graph is a bit different from Cisco's; the far left of the Cisco 18-mon chart is actually a peak that represents the high-water mark of email spam.
Joking aside, the majority of spam has, I think, historically come from botnets and is of the automatically-generated variety. The "Nigeria scam" confidence-game emails seem to be a much bigger component of spam than they really are, probably because they tend to sneak past filters more frequently, by virtue of being sent from webmail accounts a few at a time and being somewhat hand-written rather than generated. (Or at least those are the ones that sneak past my filters.) Though if the big botnet players are leaving the spam game, it might mean that what's left is more the "independent" / low-budget operators who try to con individuals rather than just send out billions of Viagra ads.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:32 AM on January 10, 2012
The Reg says that it was a combination of factors (which explains why it sort of drops off over a few months rather than just slamming down overnight). A big one was the Rustock botnet getting taken out, but supposedly it's mostly due to changing economics: spam just isn't as lucrative as other things you can do with a botnet now (like DDoS extortion).
This article by Symantec is pretty good too. Their graph is a bit different from Cisco's; the far left of the Cisco 18-mon chart is actually a peak that represents the high-water mark of email spam.
Joking aside, the majority of spam has, I think, historically come from botnets and is of the automatically-generated variety. The "Nigeria scam" confidence-game emails seem to be a much bigger component of spam than they really are, probably because they tend to sneak past filters more frequently, by virtue of being sent from webmail accounts a few at a time and being somewhat hand-written rather than generated. (Or at least those are the ones that sneak past my filters.) Though if the big botnet players are leaving the spam game, it might mean that what's left is more the "independent" / low-budget operators who try to con individuals rather than just send out billions of Viagra ads.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:32 AM on January 10, 2012
Interesting tweet from the finance minister on what will be done with the money.
posted by infini at 8:34 AM on January 10, 2012
posted by infini at 8:34 AM on January 10, 2012
inb4 colonialism is blamed for the whole thing.
posted by gertzedek at 10:04 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by gertzedek at 10:04 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]
Oh my... George Ayittey tweets on strikes in Malawi and Uganda with links
posted by infini at 9:11 PM on January 10, 2012
posted by infini at 9:11 PM on January 10, 2012
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posted by latkes at 7:04 PM on January 9, 2012