Why Nigerian Email Scams (sorta) work (On the Media)

September 20, 2012 7:17 AM

"Why don't these spammers try a little harder to be less obvious" - On The Media may have an answer Signal to noise ratio theory saves Nigerian spammers valuable time! "When Nigerian prince scam spam hits our inboxes, most of us know to politely decline requests for assistance. One might wonder why scammers don’t come up with something a bit more believable. But according to a new paper (pdf) by Cormac Hurley of Microsoft Research, the email’s overt scaminess helps identify the biggest suckers. Psychology professor Daniel Simons, who wrote about the phenomenon in the Wall Street Journal, explains." (link to the article in WSJ if you'd rather read the gist of it than listen)
posted by randomkeystrike (2 comments total)

Previously
posted by modernnomad at 7:20 AM on September 20, 2012

Eh, I searched. sorry. Mods, feel free to take it down if you like.
posted by randomkeystrike at 7:23 AM on September 20, 2012