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The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

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Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#41

Post by 999900000999 »

autobodie wrote: post #10
ronnier wrote: post #5

> Romance scams cost victims hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As people grow increasingly isolated “People” is accurate but this is largely a male dominated issue. Men are targeted at higher rates and fall for these scams at much higher rates. Men need to be taught that random unknown women will largely not message them at random for sex. It’s almost always a scam. These scammers are playing on the psychology…

Source? A lot of the investigative reporting I've seen covers women targets. Maybe they just think women make better stories, but women do spend more time on dating apps than men. Women participate differently, but they definitely participate, and women are extremely vulnerable to emotional exploitation.

Women absolutely make better stories.

I saw a crypto scam article with a fairly attractive girl who *could* of probably meet someone in real life. Instead she let a crypto scammer take her for like 300k. Her dad was scammed too and invested another 200k.

The entire story was shaped to make her look like a victim who could have never just said, wait you want me to put $50,000 into a random account and I've never met you in real life, I think I'm going to delete this app and talk to Billy down at Cafe.

There's no way on Earth, if some 400 lb guy thought he was talking to a supermodel and ended up losing his life savings would people react the same way. Everyone would correctly point him out as being an idiot, why would a supermodel want you, don't you know anyone who's that attractive is probably not on a dating site looking for 400 lb guys to go out with?

Although, what I'll never understand about these higher end scams is that at a point you can literally just book a flight to Berlin and pay a professional for services. These service providers have health care, access to affordable higher education, and arguably a higher standard of living than the average American.

Anyway, regardless of gender I think most media outlets are reluctant to look at the elephant in the room. The match group knows a lot of fraud occurs on their platforms, and doesn't take basic steps to ensure the safety of their users. It's to the point where you're much more likely to get robbed, scammed or worse then to actually meet a partner.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#42

Post by danielodievich »

This was the topic of an amazing podcast Scam Inc from the Economist https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/scam-inc that I finished last week. It's subscriber only but absolutely worth it.

Key points are:

"Pig butchering" scams were developed and mastered by Chinese organized crime targeting chinese citizens first, before going worldwide.

The crime is industrialized with call centers with thousands of people working on this. Many of these people are victims themselves, doing this against their will, trafficked from all over the world. Most call centers are in asia/asia adjacent, but also in eastern Europe and near Ireland

Amount the scams steal is $500BMoney is then washed via incredibly clever ways including sports betting. In fact there is very heavy connection to rise of betting everywhere.

Final clean money is invested into real estate worldwide. Heck, my little island has fancy huge houses bought by chinese sitting empty all year long, likely from this.

Nobody is safe from scams, especially the older/lonelier people. And yes, it is very much a national security threat. The podcast called out Singapore for doing a government sponsored and very empowered task force to combat it. USA was called out for sitting complacently.

Listen to the podcast if you can. Great stuff.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#43

Post by prox »

ronnier wrote: post #13
autobodie wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? A lot of the investigative reporting I've seen covers women targets. Maybe they just think women make better stories, but women do spend more time on dating apps than men. Women participate differently, but they definitely participate, and women are extremely vulnerable to emotional exploitation.

I work on this problem at one of the world’s largest social media companies. I deal with it 7 days a week for several years now. This is my life and it’s extremely sad as to how people are being exploited in these scams.

So what are the ways people get exploited, or tricked? Is it a lack of knowledge on part of the people, are scammers just really sophisticated, or just one trick ponies that work at scale?

Any ideas on how to stop or how we can protect he people around us from these scams?

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#44

Post by PaulHoule »

ronnier wrote: post #13
autobodie wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? A lot of the investigative reporting I've seen covers women targets. Maybe they just think women make better stories, but women do spend more time on dating apps than men. Women participate differently, but they definitely participate, and women are extremely vulnerable to emotional exploitation.

I work on this problem at one of the world’s largest social media companies. I deal with it 7 days a week for several years now. This is my life and it’s extremely sad as to how people are being exploited in these scams.

I'd think Skype should just not let anybody DM anyone they don't know at this point. Bluesky now has an epidemic of 'girls' who send creepy DMs.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#45

Post by jajko »

ronnier wrote: post #5

> Romance scams cost victims hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As people grow increasingly isolated “People” is accurate but this is largely a male dominated issue. Men are targeted at higher rates and fall for these scams at much higher rates. Men need to be taught that random unknown women will largely not message them at random for sex. It’s almost always a scam. These scammers are playing on the psychology…

Yeah if cute woman wants to have sex with you out of blue its either scam or you are so attractive overall that you dont need to look for women and its more of a nuissance that they keep hitting on you (I talk about balanced guys and not broken ones riddled with daddy issues who always sleep around)

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#46

Post by PaulHoule »

cdrini wrote: post #9
ronnier wrote: post #5

> Romance scams cost victims hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As people grow increasingly isolated “People” is accurate but this is largely a male dominated issue. Men are targeted at higher rates and fall for these scams at much higher rates. Men need to be taught that random unknown women will largely not message them at random for sex. It’s almost always a scam. These scammers are playing on the psychology…

I don't think this is true, I've only ever seen women talk about losing money due to romance scams on the news. Do you have any citations?

If it is older folks, it is more likely to be women who are unattached since: (1) women live longer than men, (2) women usually marry men older then them.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#47

Post by PaulHoule »

wink wrote: post #25
KittenInABox wrote: post #3

More and more I feel like online spaces are far more insidiously dangerous than anticipated. We have bots or malicious actors among the userbase explicitly to sow dissent and spin the quality of discussion downwards. We have algorithms that push content based on engagement, which isn't actually connection or anything resembling engaging with community. We then have online cultures that encourage lowering empathy for…

I don't get how or why it seems to have gotten worse in the last 20-25 years. I was a very online teenager at the end of the 90s and I have formed friendships that last to this day. Or at least staying in touch. And it's not just me, it's the same for a lot of people I got to know offline who have different such circles. Maybe because it was just a smaller circle of people? Maybe because it was so not normal that peo…

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

Early adopters of just about anything are smarter and better than the people who come along later.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#48

Post by PaulHoule »

prox wrote: post #43
ronnier wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on this problem at one of the world’s largest social media companies. I deal with it 7 days a week for several years now. This is my life and it’s extremely sad as to how people are being exploited in these scams.

So what are the ways people get exploited, or tricked? Is it a lack of knowledge on part of the people, are scammers just really sophisticated, or just one trick ponies that work at scale? Any ideas on how to stop or how we can protect he people around us from these scams?

People don't think straight when they think they are in love. [1] In my family we've learned not to confront people directly when they are experiencing this (even when it was me) because it's a delusional state where people won't listen to you.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Love-Limerence-Experience-Being/dp/08...

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#49

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

fullshark wrote: post #8
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the next decade will include a shift where we acknowledge that the web is a dark forest and we stop trying to block the scams/propagandists/malware/ads specifically and instead we start blocking everything that isn't signed by somebody we've met in person and trust explicitly (or somebody that they have met in person, etc...). We're going to have to learn a new kind of hygiene.

That's already here for me, and others I believe as the most interesting communication has moved to group chats. The open web is for advertising, and the best LLMs will be for information retrieval.

I'm a bit doubtful. You're seeing my words... do you have data on the transitive trust path between you and I? In the world I'm describing your browser wouldn't render this text unless it had confirmed that path decided that it was acceptable.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

#50

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #7
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the next decade will include a shift where we acknowledge that the web is a dark forest and we stop trying to block the scams/propagandists/malware/ads specifically and instead we start blocking everything that isn't signed by somebody we've met in person and trust explicitly (or somebody that they have met in person, etc...). We're going to have to learn a new kind of hygiene.

Except that phishing means our trusted contacts will get popped...

Trusting people with poor information hygiene is a hazard. Tell your friends. Train your parents.
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