not2bon Hacker News • Recommends
On “What is a pig butchering scam? (2023)”
John Oliver did an excellent explainer about how pig butchering works. link to this video (apologies if the YouTube link has geographic restrictions, don't know if it does)
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#pigbutchering#scams#socialengineering
Pig Butchering Scams: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
10M subscribers • 5 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 5 people: 5 on Hacker News.
- Presented by John Oliver, host
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
6.7M views2 years ago5 recommendations
SecurityExploits and vulnerabilitiesPrivacy and surveillance
John Oliver explains the mechanics of pig butchering scams, showing how victims are groomed into fraudulent cryptocurrency investments by organized crime syndicates.
John Oliver discusses a popular internet scam, why it’s easier to fall for it than you might think, and, of course, boner alerts. Connect with Last Week Tonight online... Subscribe to the Last Week Tonight YouTube channel for more almost news as it almost happens: www.youtube.com/lastweektonight Find Last Week Tonight on Facebook like your mom would: www.facebook.com/lastweektonight Follow us on Twitter for news about jokes and jokes about news: www.twitter.com/lastweektonight Visit our official site for all that other stuff at once: www.hbo.com/lastweektonightWhy it's here
5 people recommend thisWhat people say. Recommended as an excellent, accessible explainer on how pig butchering scams operate.
gcanyonon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?”
link to this video It's well worth the watch, but tl;dr: it's a long-con scam. They invest as long as it takes to establish a relationship with you, and then engage you to do something (crypto mostly, apparently) involving cash online. They will say they made a bunch of money, and point you at the super-easy online exchange they used. You buy the crypto, you see the crypto increase in value (because it has in the real world) so you buy more, and more and more. The problems start when you say you want to cash out. They switch from "buy more, it's going up" to "there are fees to withdraw, just deposit another <whatever> and then you'll get the withdrawal amount plus <whatever>" and of course no money eve…
xyston Hacker News • Recommends
On “Filipino police free slaves toiling in romance scam operation”
These pig butchering scams play the long game with their victims. It's crazy. The payoffs are huge as well. These are just some of the stories I have heard through various mediums (ie, podcasts, news stories, media segments) - Kansas bank CEO charged with $50M embezzlement as a result of being a victim to "pig butchery". The bank itself was forced into bankruptcy due to this debacle 1 - Woman lost $450K in pig butchering scam 2 - US government often the subject of cybersecurity fraud as well. Pandemic relief programs paid out billions to scammers 3 - halfway decent segment on pig butchering on "Last Week Tonight" with John Oliver 4 Researching potential victims is so easy now with th…
hamashoon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Anatomy of a cryptocurrency scam”
…ey need to put some money. And the victim loses everything. It's not unreasonable for the victim to think the relationship is real if they've spent months chatting and calling, sharing really personal stuff. Plus, the app seems totally legit, both from the store reviews and how it looks and works. I really hope these scams will disappear soon. 1 link to this video…
gcanyonon Hacker News • Recommends
On “A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams”
For those interested in a lightweight summary, Last Week Tonight did a segment on pig-butchering about a year ago. link to this video The interviews with the victims are heartbreaking. There's one dad/daughter pair where the dad has lost almost literally everything, is on camera being interviewed about everything that happened, and is still flipping between "it was a total scam" and "maybe if I just send them another fee payment I can get at least some of my money back" and the daughter saying, "No, dad! It's a scam, and you are not sending them anymore money!"
ChrisMarshallNYon Hacker News • Recommends
On “DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia”
From what I understand, a number of them are Chinese nationals. I suspect that taking Chinese slaves might not be a great idea. China tends to carry a big stick; especially in that region. Wouldn't surprise me, if the DOJ had some "under-the-table" help from Chinese sources, but not in any way that anyone can prove. If you don't want to sign up for a podcast, John Oliver did a fairly decent bit about it: link to this video
noirscapeon Hacker News • Mentions
On “On DMA eve, Google whines, Apple sounds alarms, and TikTok wants out”
…at maintaining the App Store against these supposed external threats. 0: A "long con" scam, where the victim (the "pig") is lulled into a false sense of trust for an online stranger (making them fat and ready to for slaughter) and then convinced to spend large sums of money on dubious trading platforms ("being butchered") at a vulnerable moment. link to this video…
manqueron Hacker News • Mentions
On “FBI: U.S. lost record $12.5B to online crime in 2023”
…nds people working to do this but in most countries in this region few hundred thousand people are not significant and they are not paid much if at all. Both report cite internal analysis, I am not saying UN sources can not be wrong, they of course can. However in the absence of strong counter data point I would trust it. 1 link 2 link 3 link to this video 4 link…
fragmedeon Hacker News • Mentions
On “USPS text scammers duped his wife, so he hacked their operation”
Not sure why the chilling effect for linking to it, you have 26k karma, but here it is: John Oliver: Pig butchering scam. link to this video
colecaon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?”
Look up "pig butchering" (seriously). That is what those texts are all about. John Oliver did a whole segment on his show about it this summer. TL;DR they are scams link to this video