Let's run Mathias Kobi Kabila (son of Laurent Desire Kabila) through the Scam-o-Matic, shall we?

Jeremy Wagstaff's recent Jakarta Post article "How to Lose Everything You've Got" recounts the woes of a poor man in India suckered by advance fee fraudsters.

By now his relatives were losing patience. "By this time it was already seven to eight months (and) all the creditors started pressuring me for returning their loan amounts and they started to lose faith and confidence in me," he wrote.

They started to call him a cheat. He was in hell: "My mental torture and agony knew no bounds." But it wasn't over. It was then that received an e-mail from the manager of the International Clearance department at Lloyds Bank asking him to send stg. 2,500 toward fund clearance fees. But there was no money left.

Wagstaff concludes:

It's easy to mock those who have fallen victim to such scams. But if you're new to the Internet, new to e-mail, if you've not received one of these scams before, you may easily believe your luck is about to change.

True enough. And so why not mock those who perpetrate scams?

And so the gem in Wagstaff's article is a link to the Scam-o-Matic, the work of Joe Wein, whose main object in life seems to be exposing fraudsters (may his tribe increase!).

Scam-o-Matic lets you run suspected scam-mails against Wein's database and get an instant readout on the probability that "Mathias Kobi Kabila" is itching to pick your pocket.

Wein also hosts the delightful 419eater.com Trophy Room, where scammers are baited by savvy marks to "prove their cred" by holding up ludicrous signs.

God, I do love the Internet.

    Technorati : 419 scams, 419ers, advance fee fraud, fraud, jeremy wagstaff, nigerian scams, scam-o-matic, scams

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 01:49pm in Ethics, Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

Nigeria scams wire the nation

Regular readers of Desirable Roasted Coffee know how much I enjoy Nigerian scam letters. I feel they are a sorely unappreciated genre, one worthy of many years of study by linguists and cultural anthropologists, and not unlike poetry. I will never be a poet of the first rank, but the mental and literary exercise of writing a fairly decent poem in terza rima is good for the soul. Writing a really good Nigerian scam letter is even more difficult and, therefore, even better for the soul (and the pocketbook: for a fee, I will write the invitation to your 50th birthday party in the form of a Nigerian scam letter -- your money back if you don't net at least $100K).

But who else, other than the perps and those of us who can profitably turn our pens to A-1 parodies, profits from the Nigerian scam? Everyone in Nigeria, it turns out. Because as this Slate article points out, Nigerian scam letters are the impetus behind the wiring of the country.

"Heartless as it may sound, there's a silver lining to the digitization of 419. The proliferation of cybercafes in Nigeria can be linked directly to the demand supplied by 419ers, who form the establishments' core clientele. Walk into an Internet cafe in Lagos, and chances are that a good percentage of the terminals are occupied by men masquerading as Laurent Kabila's long-lost son or as a rogue official at the Central Bank of Nigeria. The wiring of Nigeria is being propelled by 419-much as America's appetite for porn helped shepherd the commercial Internet through its infancy. AOL made it through its lean, early years only because of adult chat rooms and spicy picture downloads (which kept the meter running during the era of per-hour access fees)."

Technorati : nigeria scams, slate, writing

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:19pm in Scams, Writing I Enjoy | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1)

Bitacle splogger scam update: some thoughts

Addendum:  Lorelle van Fossen, who is probably no stranger if you are using WordPress, was kind enough to quote this post extensively on her blog. But, browsing her blog, I realized that, had I already been reading Lorelle, I could have saved myself some time by just writing  "go to Lorelle's most excellent review of what to do if your content is being ripped off."

Even if you only have a mild interest in copyright infringement, her post is well worth the time.

Bitacle has become Public Enemy #1 this weekend in some parts of the blogosphere (Search Bitacle on Technorati for more details). As I reported earlier, the Spain-based splogger scrapes your content (your Creative Commons deed be damned), monetizes it, keeps the cash -- and refuses to answer email complaints. I called them "thieves" in my first post, and I am repeating the charge here. Bitacle's boss, the magnificently misnamed Jesus Angelo "But call me Ladrón, honey" Glez, is a thief.

A Stop Bitacle movement is taking the battle to the streets, of course.

Bitacle, while not replying to anyone's mails, as far as I can see, seems to be aware they are under attack. They've been down much of the weekend, and they have (today) started including the URL to the content they steal. Nevertheless, they are still ripping off and re-purposing content, without permission, for their own financial gain. Worse, they still encourage comments to the stolen blog posts on their site in an attempt to dupe readers into believing they are seeing a "real" blog. So I've commented on my own stolen posts:

"If you are reading this, you need to know that Bitacle -- the owner of this site -- has stolen all the content you are reading. Bitacle has not asked permission to publish any of the content you are reading on its site. It has not asked permission to use the content for commercial gain. It has not paid any of the original writers. It has violated the copyright laws of dozens of nations.

If content theft offends you, I urge you to a) read weblogs on authorized services, such as www.technorati.com, and b) visit the Stop Bitacle site (http://stopbitacleorg.wordpress.com/) and lend your support."

Not that I have any illusion that it will shame Bitacle into reform. Indeed, I largely agree with Amy Gahran:

Personally, I think going after the sploggers is the wrong way to address this problem…

Tracking down and shutting down a splogger isn’t easy. Plus, if you shut down one splogger site, it’s fast and easy for them to open up shop somewhere else. So I think it’s largely wasted effort to try to shut any particular splogger down. It’s like stamping out cockroaches, rather than stopping them from breeding. They’re simple opportunists, so I think the answer is to remove their opportunity.

A REAL SOLUTION: Personally, I wish the online ad services (Google, Yahoo, etc.) would alter their programs – and audit them more closely – so they stop encouraging sploggers. Right now, the way their programs run, I think splogs are an inevitable byproduct.

I do have many better things to do than worry about ignorant Spanish sploggers, but I do think it's healthy, once in a while, to signal Google and Yahoo -- and they have pretty good blog monitoring systems -- that many of us are fed up with the way AdSense encourages abuse.

Moving on, what have been most instructive this weekend are the debates about splogging, Creative Commons deeds, copyright, RSS, etc., that the Bitacle scam has prompted. I was particularly distressed by the widespread belief in what I can only call myths and silly-billies about online content. I'd like to discuss some of them here, and I would very much like readers to weigh in.

Myth #1: If you publish on the Internet, it's in the public domain. Untrue. Authors have copyright from the moment they create something in tangible form (and, tangible, for these purposes, includes on-line content), and they relinquish it only by explicitly agreeing to do so. Moreover, in much of Europe, the author always retains moral rights to the work, unless explicitly waived.

Sub-myth #1a: Blog content is not protected. Can anyone explain to me why blogger content is supposedly "fair game," while no one would dream of scraping the London Times, the Wall Street Journal and CNN and trying to repackage it as their own? I thought not. But, the fact is, Allan Jenkins has just as much right to control his content as the New York Times does theirs.

Myth #2: Creative Commons deeds mean you have given up your copyright. Again, untrue. The point of Creative Commons is to allow authors to grant certain rights to others without individual contract. My Creative Commons deed, for example, lets you republish the content of this blog, or make derivative works from it, but only if you credit me every time and only if you do not use the content for commercial gain and only if you apply an identical Creative Commons deed to the resulting work. I do not give up copyright, but I don't require an individual contract if you use the work within those limits.

Sub-myth #2a: Creative Commons deeds are not enforceable. That's going to depend on jurisdiction, of course, but consider this. If the deed is not valid, then the author released no rights. So you are back to square 1:  author has full copyright.

Myth #3: RSS feeds are fresh content for the taking. Larry Borsato exposed some (since defunct) scammers last year. RSS-feeds are publications, just like the magazine that comes through your door each month. See Myth #1.

SillyBilly #1: Publishing RSS feeds is like leaving your bike at the end of your driveway: You are asking for it to be stolen. No, publishing RSS feeds is like publishing a book, or a magazine article, or making a radio show. Just as I don't expect my magazine articles to be ripped off and republished -- without attribution and without pay -- I don't expect my feed to be scraped. Theft is theft.

Sub-SillyBilly #1a: It's your fault for publishing full feeds instead of excerpts. How I publish is irrelevant.

SillyBilly #2: The splogger is driving you traffic... why complain? Few serious bloggers worry about, know, or even check their traffic numbers. Why would they? In a Long Tail world, I care about who, not how many. What I do care dearly about is my public reputation. A splogger repackaging my content can only harm that reputation by wrapping my words in AdSense ads that may be pornographic at worst, irrelevant at best. Moreover, known sploggers -- and more importantly,  the sites they link to -- are penalized by Google, so my site reputation is diminished by a splogger.

Readers, what do you think?

Technorati Tags: bitacle, jesus angelo glez, long tail, splogger, splog, google adsense, creative commons, copyright

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:15pm in Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (16)

Bitacle: thieves now open for business in the 8th circle of hell

Update: I see Shel Israel posted on the Bitacle Scam, yesterday, with support and advice from Amy Gahran.

Dante reserved the 8th circle of hell for thieves and falsifiers. Since he was pre-Internet, I've taken the liberty of assigning spammers and feed scrapers to the 8th circle, too. Seems a fitting place.

They're going to need more room down on the 8th, though, now that Bitacle has joined the feed-scraping cohort of rip-off artists.

Yesterday, I noticed an odd trackback request for my last post. Following it, I discovered that Bitacle has been stealing my feed -- along with the feeds of thousands of others.

What's making me so angry?

• They never asked.
• They are violating my Creative Commons deed by using my material as a way to spawn Google Adsense ads (commercial use) and by slapping a different CC license on my content.
• Their own Creative Commons deed, by allowing commercial use of any content found on the site, invites other scammers to extend and expand the rip-off downstream.
• They encourage readers to leave comments on their site, not mine.
• Email to them is simply ignored.

Other bloggers have noticed. Der Schockwellenreiter Weblog calls Bitacle a traffic thief. Jogy is seriously pissed off. Plain Jane Mom asks "Why is Bitacle Stealing All Our Blogs?" (and tags her post "thieving bastards," a nice touch I am copying). I can't describe the rage of the Spoken For blogger.... go see for yourself (Valerie also passes on some advice for foiling the evil ones).

The vermin behind Bitacle is apparently a guy named Jesus Angelo Glez. I haven't decided, yet, whether to send him a bill, or just chortle over the misery that awaits him in the 8th circle. Hey, Jesus! Save your soul... stop ripping off other folk's coffee.

Read more "Bitacle: thieves now open for business in the 8th circle of hell"

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:59pm in RSS, Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (14)

Nigerian Scams: the perfect mark

We all get those scam letters:

"God bless, I am the widow of Wilson Obote, former minister of village relocation, and I have the sum of $45 (forty-five) million...."

The New Yorker runs an article this week about the perfect mark... a war hero and psychotherapist who fell for the scam, and who is now doing two years in the Big House for it. While the Nigerians go free.

Technorati Tags: 419 scams, Nigeria scams, gullibility, scams

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:47pm in Scams, Writing I Enjoy | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0)

DRC scraped off by Mobitype

[UPDATE: This post was first titled DRC ripped off by Mobitype, a Löic Le Meur venture. At the time of the post, Löic Le Meur was listed as the chairman of Mobitype's board. In the days after this post, both Le Meur and Mobitype denied any connection, and Le Meur was removed from the board list.

Furthermore, after talks with Mobitype's CEO, I believe the scraping is not a cynical attempt at content rip off, but simply an inept effort to bring RSS to mobile devices. ]

Brother Lee Hopkins  interrupted my first Sunday coffee with this email:

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 06:54pm in Bizarre & Unexpected, Blogging for Benjamins, Intellectual Property, Law, Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (4)

Desirable Roasted Coffee breaks diplomatic relations with Sprint Ambassador Team

The Sprint Ambassador program got around to me today, which I guess ranks me about like Niger or Mali on their diplomatic list. I mean, they got to Rubel (France?) and Jarvis (NATO?) months ago, and we all know those big portfolios go fast.

And I am sure when they first started handing out portfolios, they did it nicely. Personally. With finesse.

But we low life get spam. Oh, yes. And no love.

Here's the sordid tale we third-worlders tell over stale canapés down at the chancery while we watch the jackals circle the sickly hippo. This afternoon I received this dispatch:

Hi Allan,

The Sprint Ambassador Team recently visited Allanjenkins.typepad.com and wants to invite you to participate in our Ambassador Program.

The Sprint Ambassador Program is all about exploring our latest products and services and allows you to give direct feedback to Sprint. We recently launched the Sprint Power Vision (SM) Network and want to provide you with the full experience, at no charge. Sprint Power Vision Network enables customers to download data at faster speeds and experience new data products.

So what?s the deal?

As a qualified participant, we will send you one Sprint Power Vision phone and provide you with six months of all-access service (at no charge). You?ll have access to the Sprint Music Store(SM) live TV broadcasts, gaming and more. Yes, you will also have unlimited free calling and data service. It?s a pretty good deal and all we ask for in return is your candid feedback (you decide how much and how often).

We look forward to receiving your registration!

The Sprint Ambassador Team

Look past, if you can, the banal prose that should flunk any college freshman. That's not important. What is important:

1. A "team" visited my site, wrote the letter, and signed it, but no names! Yet, they feel perfectly free to call me by first name. Now, I know that is a practice in direct mail marketing, and have long ago given up bitching about it, but it shows right off that this Cluetrain never got out of the station.
2. They visited (fill in the blank) my blog. But they didn't read it. How do I know? Well, they would have seen the Bacon's Information fiasco and trod more carefully, perhaps. They also would have quickly learned I live 4000 miles away from their nearest outpost and can only use their phone as a paperweight.
3. Oh, and it's exactly the same pitch they gave to Jarvis, way back before the waterholes dried up.

Not wanting to be appointed to an ambassadorship for which I am patently unqualified, I shot off this cable:

I am so glad you dropped in on Desirable Roasted Coffee (http://allanjenkins.typepad.com).

And I am happy that it's led to a Sprint Ambassador invitation.

Unfortunately, you didn't actually read the blog did you? Tell the truth!

Because if you had, you'd know two things:

1) I eat PR spammers who try to ingratiate themselves by saying they read my blog for breakfast (Don't believe me? Go here for a taste: http://allanjenkins.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/11/bacons_informat.html )

2) I live in Copenhagen, Denmark -- any fool who had read the blog would know that. Clearly, I'm not in your customer catchment area.

No, Sprinters, you vacuumed up my address, and probably thousands of others, and spammed me.

Very, very stupid move. Just ask the folks at Bacon's.

Ok, Ok... a little rough around the edges, but since I never had diplomatic relations with them before now, what am I to do?

Sprint Ambassador Team, being nothing if not fleet, replied quickly with a terse note (uh, oh, I think that's bad):

Hi Allan,

This is not spam. We had noticed your interest in innovation and interactive technology and decided to extend an invitation to you.

Thank you,

The Sprint Ambassador Team

This is why diplomatic relations collapse. This is why countries go to war. When bullheaded "we automatons are going to give him a phone whether he can use it or not" meets "uhm, I'm not your target group, so why do you keep me in your sights?"

I issued the following demarche:

Do any of you have a name? I am sure the entire Sprint Ambassador Team did not collectively send either one of these mails. Since you feel free to be on first name basis with me, it's only fair that I am on first name basis with you.

John? Christy? Jorgé? Bob? Charmaine? Hell, just choose one.

Let's assume "Bob" until I am corrected.

Bob... the Cluetrain Manifesto says let your people come out and talk to us possible customers. Don't hide behind some sort of "team".

Ok. Now let's go back to the start:

You did not read my blog, Bob. Admit it. If you had, you'd know I was the wrong person to approach for two reasons:

1) I hate being pitched by anonymous pitchers who think they are hip because they have sold "bloggers" as a target group to their boss.

2) I live -- hello? -- 4000 miles from your nearest outpost. Send me the damned phone, but be aware I can only use it as a paperweight.

And, Bob... it was, and is, spam.

Do you really want me to be Sprint's ambassador? Well.... I could easily be. Not every ambassador is exactly what the foreign ministry had in mind.

I hope -- I most certainly hope -- Rubel and anyone else who grabbed this "deal" a few months ago were wined and wooed by Sprint. Because if they fell for this piece of hucksterism, then they sure aren't the gurus some think they are. Jarvis took them to task pretty fast.

Me? I've sent out the gunboats. I break all diplomatic relations with Sprint.

Technorati: diplomatic immunity, jeff jarvis, sprint ambassador, steve rubel, lame pitches, micropersuasion

Related post: Steve Rubel lashes out at the Blogging for Benjamins crowd... about time, I'd say

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:07am in Bizarre & Amusing, Communication Skills, Is Tedious in the House?, Public Relations, Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2)

Following the Intelligent Design Debate? Here's Something to Snack On

Intelligent Design is the big thing in educationally-circumscribed circles, but what can you do? Belief is belief.

Now that the Pastarians Pastafarians have outed themselves, I suppose I will have to go back out on the Sweetbreads Are Grace in Beulah Land evangelical circuit.

Hat tip to friend Lisa.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:48pm in Scams, Science, Society, South | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (1)

Now, Was She the Bank President's Widow or the Dictator's Sister-in-Law?

From CNET comes the word that at least one letter-writer is out of work:

A Nigerian court has sentenced a woman to two and half years in jail after she pleaded guilty to fraud charges in the country's biggest e-mail scam case.

Related Desirable Roasted Coffee post: 419 Spam with a Twist

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 03:10pm in Law, Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

What Does an Invitation to Make Money Look Like?

I suppose it's just my day to encounter scams. Larry Borsato brings dreadful news of an outfit that encourages home-based ecommerce aspirants to rip off RSS feeds, then sells them the software to do it....

"When you see little buttons like these ...

  (This is what an invitation to make money looks like!)

...  it means that the owners of the content are inviting you to use what they've written."

Yes, it's an invitation. But subject to this Creative Commons license. You lose, scammer. (This way to the Egress!).

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:07am in Advertising, Marketing, RSS, Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0)

Companies Subvert Search Results to Squelch Criticism

I hate MLM (multi-level marketing) outfits, believing their circle of Hell is properly next door to that being built for spammers. So it's no surprise for me to learn Quixtar (memo to Central Naming: next time, come up with something less Scientologist/Raelian/Heaven's Gatey), an MLM based on the Amway pyramid scam, is using every unethical SEO (search enging optimization) trick in the book to marginalize critics, according to the Online Journalism Review.

Here's an excerpt from the article

"Eric Janssen is the driving force behind Quixtar Blog and became interested in the company when his wife became an independent business owner (IBO). Janssen is also a longtime journalist and online creative manager for the Memphis Commercial Appeal's Web site, so when he was pitched to join Quixtar, he was curious why no one would directly answer his questions. He found that unbiased online information on Quixtar was scarce -- with most sites being strongly for or against the company's practices as a multi-level marketing organization for energy drinks and cosmetics.

Janssen refused to join, and his wife was pressured to quit unless he shut his blog down. Later, Janssen started online forums on his site so people on both sides could discuss Quixtar, and he started to cultivate inside sources. He uncovered scoop after scoop, including extensive information on Quixtar's Web Initiative, including "adoration blogs," "character assassination blogs" and even fake news outlets such as eSource-News.com. Janssen connected the dots to Margaret S. Ross, one of the writers on eSource-News.com who specializes in "Web Reputation" and was hired to help lead Quixtar's Web Initiative.

"I don't have any problem with search engine optimization, and businesses have every right to do it," Janssen told me. "But my complaint is that this is something that you don't want everybody to know about, because you know that it's deceitful, and it's not about providing value for people. It's not about providing a great information resource that will be the #1 site on the Web. It's about flooding the Web with crap, and in that sewage, [they're] going to bury everyone else. That's my main concern. The implications go across to other businesses like Scientology."

Tip of the hat to Online Journalism Review.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:36am in Advertising, Marketing, Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

419 Spam with a Twist

Ethan Zuckerman, like all of us, receives "419 scam" or "Nigerian scam" letters from time to time. You know, the "we need to get 22 million dollars out of the National Bank, but need your help. We will offer you a percentage for your good will....." offers.

(And here I will just say that I believe 419 scam letters to be a woefully underappreciated species of rhetoric. English grad students and Ph.D. candidates should take note.)

Unlike most of us, though, Ethan was able to give the scammer good news! I so do like when a tale of sadness turns out ok in the end.

Via Ethan Zuckerman's ...My heart's in Accra blog

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 01:14pm in Bizarre & Unexpected, Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0)