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

krebsonsecurity.com

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

#271

Post by nobody9999 »

DaSHacka wrote: post #253
nobody9999 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How do you get the typical person to fall for a scam to open a crypto account, buy it, go through kyc, etc With spam like the below (note that the original contains mostly UTF8 characters to avoid spam filters). I get these every so often on the NOC and postmaster addresses of domains I manage. It's not even phishing. Just spam blasts to find anyone uninformed enough to believe it, and insecure enough to be afraid o…

> I'd expect that each spam recipient is given a unique BTC address, so that they can be identified for further "blackmail"[0] should they actually comply. They typically aren't, actually. Most of the time when you enter the wallet address into Blockchair or another BTC transaction monitoring service you'll see tons of payments for the demanded amount having been sent to that sole wallet. Even thinking of it logistic…

Fair points.

But if you use the same bitcoin address for every email, you won't know who the mark that actually paid was -- potentially leaving money on the table for the future.

I did (before posting the comment to which you replied) check to see if there was any activity[0] on the bitcoin address in the email I posted. There was none. Which strengthened my conclusion (I have no evidence) that unique bitcoin addresses were in use.

But I certainly could be wrong.

[0] https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/bc1qt30ya4...

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

#272

Post by tw04 »

latchkey wrote: post #244
tw04 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve literally just described getting around capital controls.

In some countries, there is nothing to get around.

I guess citation? Provide a list of countries that don’t have any control over their own currency? Because unless they don’t control their own currency, it’s impossible to not have capital controls in place. That’s a basic function of every sovereign nation.

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

#273

Post by latchkey »

tw04 wrote: post #272
latchkey wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some countries, there is nothing to get around.

I guess citation? Provide a list of countries that don’t have any control over their own currency? Because unless they don’t control their own currency, it’s impossible to not have capital controls in place. That’s a basic function of every sovereign nation.

Anywhere people are unbanked. If you're not part of the system, then there is no system to get around.

Nomads are often unbanked too. When I was living in Vietnam for years, I was certainly under US laws and I obviously have to pay my taxes and follow Vietnam laws.

But, as a foreigner (especially one who doesn't speak the language), I'm still quite outside of the system there. If you've ever been a nomad, you'll understand that difference.

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

#274

Post by const_cast »

abletonlive wrote: post #226
const_cast wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scams operate on any character flaw, with varying degrees of effort required. They exploit the human mind. They might target greed, or loneliness, or insecurity, or even fear of loss. But we all have character flaws. Everyone. So we are all vulnerable. Not to the same scams, but to some scams.

Sure but can you admit some people are more flawed than others? I don't think it's useful to just handwave this away and act like we are all the same.

Yes, some people are more flawed than others. My point was that if you believe you are immune to scams, you're not. In fact, arrogance is another character flaw that scams routinely exploit.

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

#275

Post by mmooss »

lesuorac wrote: post #266
mmooss wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a traffic ticket and does not require a judge Yes it does. You can have a trial for your traffic ticket. > Due process does not mean "judge approved". It just means consistent with written law. That's just false. In fact, courts overrule laws and the procedures they authorize because they lack due process.

> Yes it does. You can have a trial for your traffic ticket. A trial was not required for the city to issue you a ticket. You can contest the ticket in traffic court where you will _not_ get a jury of your peers. Everything the government does can eventually be contested in court (with a judge). Even if Liu makes an appeal and it gets denied he can still turn to the courts. > That's just false. In fact, courts overru…

> A trial was not required for the city to issue you a ticket.

A trial is not required for the police to arrest you for murder, which you can contest in court or not.

> Courts overruling some laws and some procedures does not change the definition of "due process".

It does when they overrule them for omitting due process, as I said.

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

#277

Post by TeaBrain »

latchkey wrote: post #273
tw04 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess citation? Provide a list of countries that don’t have any control over their own currency? Because unless they don’t control their own currency, it’s impossible to not have capital controls in place. That’s a basic function of every sovereign nation.

Anywhere people are unbanked. If you're not part of the system, then there is no system to get around. Nomads are often unbanked too. When I was living in Vietnam for years, I was certainly under US laws and I obviously have to pay my taxes and follow Vietnam laws. But, as a foreigner (especially one who doesn't speak the language), I'm still quite outside of the system there. If you've ever been a nomad, you'll unde…

You aren't describing a situation where there is a lack of capital controls.

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

#278

Post by strogonoff »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #172
whimsicalism wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the degree to which this is fully true is overstated from when i've looked into it. a lot of it is not the best working environments, but people are still scamming people for pay and are largely not forced to do so.

Various stories from people who have been on the other side of this tend to concur. I unfortunately cannot find the story, but a Pakistani call center scam artist who was hired by one of these crime syndicates went on record recently talking about the experience (I think it was in a podcast) and he said that he was recruited into a well paid, well organized machine and the workers themselves were treated well. He pai…

The source is welcome if you ever find it.
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