U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#121

Post by BLKNSLVR » Fri, May 30, 2025, 3:07 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #120

infecto wrote: post #94

The US does not do enough in this space to punish companies. It feels like such low hanging fruit too that would significantly help the elderly population. Reported to Vercel a bank phishing site weeks ago, no response still. It’s amazing how little companies care.

Forcing telecos to authenticate phone calls would probably be the single most important change. But instead of forcing them, we have been letting them drag their feet while while regular people are losing billions to scams. The whole phone system is ancient and long deprecated. When I get a call from my bank I should see their name and a badge of authentication. Not a random phone number. Imagine you could register i…

Telcos have systems in place that are specifically to allow international phone calls to appear as if they're local calls. This is to "facilitate business".

They have these services and continue to offer them because they get paid for having them, despite the double decker bus sized hole this provides for scammers.

I agree 100% that there should be much tighter regulation on telcos.

What I'm not sure of is actually whether it's possible without having to rebuild a lot of their networks almost from scratch.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#122

Post by larrled » Fri, May 30, 2025, 3:08 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #38

abletonlive wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experienced the same thing in my family. It sucks. I still haven't fully forgiven them (the supposed victim). As much as I agree it's partially mental decline, it's hard for me to imagine it's not at least also partially a character flaw that would get you into this situation

> character flaw It's usually greed. The aphorism isn't entirely true, but you can't cheat an honest man.

No, older people aren’t greedy. They are insecure about their age and doing things they perceive younger more successful people as doing reduces their existential angst and fear of mortality. Wanting to live and be loved is also not greed. The actual flaw is a society that permits crypto currency, and encourages trade and globalization at any cost. Gotta give all the elderly 5g cell phones and Facebook accounts, and be saddened when millions of Indian scammers reach out and touch someone.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#123

Post by jaoane » Fri, May 30, 2025, 3:09 PM UTC

lesuorac wrote: post #98

mmooss wrote: post #4

Don't fall into the trap: Government penalizing private parties without due process can be appealing when it's a private party you don't like, but even those people deserve due process - that's the point, everyone does. Also it's arbitrary, unchecked power that is used for corrupt purposes, and by supporting it in a situation where you like to see it, you are legitimizing that power in every case. Edit: It's tough to…

Seems like some process was followed here to me. FBI investigated a bunch of scams and found somebody assisted scammers. It's not like they pulled a name out of a hat and sanctioned them.

Where’s the judge in all of this?

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#124

Post by eugene3306 » Fri, May 30, 2025, 3:13 PM UTC

naet wrote: post #25

Cryptocurrency enables a big part of this. Not saying that there weren't any wire scams before crypto, but crypto has made it much easier for average people to make anonymous international money transfers that can't be reversed. Not to start a big argument, but to my eyes the main usecases of cryptocurrency are to bet on them as a speculative asset or to use them for various forms of crime. Someone will probably tell…

I use crypto often. I am Russian, I left Russia when Putin started the war. For me, it is quite hard to open a bank account. So I use crypto. I work remotely for a Singaporian company. Now I'm in Vietnam, I can pay for my groceries with crypto using QR code. I can cash USDT crypto with a rate better than paper bills.

I have two bank accounts in Kazakhstan. Both card credentials were stolen after I used a popular hotel booking website, which, by the words of reddit, shares my card details with hotels. Some money was stolen. Seems like 3D-security only affects my payments, and theifs have a freedom to choose a website without 3D. Now I have to keep that cards always locked. Unlocking them for a short moments, when I need to make a card payment. Like booking an hotel, or buying an airline ticket.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#125

Post by HamsterDan » Fri, May 30, 2025, 3:14 PM UTC

mmooss wrote: post #4

Don't fall into the trap: Government penalizing private parties without due process can be appealing when it's a private party you don't like, but even those people deserve due process - that's the point, everyone does. Also it's arbitrary, unchecked power that is used for corrupt purposes, and by supporting it in a situation where you like to see it, you are legitimizing that power in every case. Edit: It's tough to…

They are a foreign company. They have no due process rights. We could hit their data center with a cruise missile tomorrow and it would be perfectly legal.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#126

Post by Workaccount2 » Fri, May 30, 2025, 3:15 PM UTC

jerry1979 wrote: post #13

Auracle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happened to my father. I told him he was getting scammed. My mom (divorced) told him. So did my sister. It didn’t matter. He lost all of his savings - 300k+. I wish I had taken his phone away, changed his passwords, etc. My mom didn’t want me to take drastic action because she was concerned that if he knew how much I knew he wouldn’t keep telling her things. It doesn’t matter once they’ve lost everything, of cours…

This is horrifying. From your perspective, what's the hook that gets a person to hand over the money? Is it to make return on investment, or is it because they think the scammer loves them, or some other reason?

I cannot find the article again, it was posted here a few months ago so maybe someone knows of it but,

A guy intentionally went down the rabbit hole of one of these and wrote about the anatomy of it. In his case it was a young (like 30 something young) woman who graduated at the top of dentistry school in Uzbekistan and got a large grant to start a practice in the UK. Something like that. They talked/flirted for weeks/months, sent pictures, all that. The mark of course lives in the UK and she will need a place to stay while she gets her feet on the ground.

Finally right as she is leaving to come to the UK there is a bureaucratic problem and she needs ~$10k to resolve it quickly before the grant lapses, and she cannot access the grant money for expenses until she is in the UK. Also her bank froze her account because of this mess so she needs to use these alternate means to get the money to her, and she can immediately pay you back upon arrival. You get the idea.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#127

Post by veidr » Fri, May 30, 2025, 3:17 PM UTC

TechDebtDevin wrote: post #119

silisili wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks aren't perfect, but they also aren't anonymous. If you feel wronged, you can take appropriate legal recourse. Crypto offers no such thing.

How is paypal / venmo / cashapp different?

you can sue them

modulo all the ToS / arbitration clauses, that is still the fundamental difference

and although not a recourse available to most people, still not nothing

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#128

Post by guerrilla » Fri, May 30, 2025, 3:20 PM UTC

RainyDayTmrw wrote: post #41

JKCalhoun wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, tiptoeing here, kind of agree. Am I missing something or do these scams operate on a person's greed? To be sure, I invest in order to see a return. That's greed, I guess? Or maybe not? I think having (unrealistic) expectations of doubling your money in anything shorter than ... about a decade ... should be sending up red flags for anyone. "Make money fast" should fire the same neurons as "Put it all on zero and sp…

That's a common enough take, and I think there's some truth to it, but I think it's overly simplistic. I think there is certainly a motivation that such scams target, but I don't know if "greed" is necessarily the right word. Some of it is not necessarily knowing what is or isn't realistic, given the stories that we hear on the news. Some of it is feeling stuck, and trying to go out on a branch, and picking the wrong…

With romance scams it's ego, especially with men. My neighbor needs to beleive that 25 year old blondes taking selfies on yachts are interested in him. Nothing in the universe could convince him otherwise. He would have to change so much of his personality and life to accept who he is or become who he would need to be. It's impossible. I think this is actually a question of thermodynamics at this point.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#129

Post by rs186 » Fri, May 30, 2025, 3:20 PM UTC

shoo wrote: post #28

Sue-Lin Wong has an excellent 8 part podcast series "Scam Inc" about pig butchering scams, the first three episodes are free to listen: https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/scam-inc

Listened to the whole show, and I am very disappointed that they don't put enough effort into stressing how much cryptocurrency facilitates all these. They talk about cryptocurrency as if it's just a way to transfer money, and it happens that bad people use it for scams. No, it's almost the sole reason pigbutchering works so effectively these days and works as the perfect tool for scammers in obscure corners in the world.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#130

Post by TimorousBestie » Fri, May 30, 2025, 3:23 PM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #112

aziaziazi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost world you describe didn’t emerge because of fear of god (which has been prevalent for milleniums, mostly everywhere) but the abondance of cheap energy and goods, basically since oil starts getting processed but other minor factors helped too. Democracy and peace emerges when peoples aren’t scared to miss food anymore.

In the US food is plentiful. Poor people die of obesity related illness. But trust is plummeting because of a decline in social cohesion. Building a high trust society is hard, and there is no monocausal solution. You can't plug in god, or food, into a low trust society to flip it to high trust.

Food is plentiful here, but unevenly distributed. Childhood hunger is still a serious problem.

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/14/childhood-hunger-food-insec...

During the initial pandemic, great strides were made in the United States to mitigate childhood poverty, but these measures were quickly overturned. Now the administration wants to defund SNAP and other food security programs. Alas.