How to reply to abnormal harassing messages humorously

& ltbody & gt I'm confused. My name is not Kevin. I am not a veterinarian. I am not qualified to help this man and his dog. When I almost typed the reply "Sorry, wrong number", I realized that it might be a scam trying to get me to confirm my number.

I didn't reply, but many people who received similar news did. Some people even counter the spammers by making up absurd stories and sending interesting messages. They started cursing each other and sometimes posted screenshots of the conversation online.

Jack Whitaker, a sociology doctor who studies this phenomenon at the University of Surrey, said: There are more and more spam messages, and more and more people fight back through "fraud" ("fraud" means "pretending to be caught in an online scam to waste criminals' time"). However, experts say that replying to text messages will only make people receive more spam messages.

Spam that tries to trick the recipient into providing valuable information is actually nothing new. Some of the earliest digital spam messages were sent by e-mail chain letters, the most notorious of which was the fraud of pretending to be a Nigerian prince, claiming that the recipient's help was needed to deposit a large sum of money.

With the popularity of smart phones, scammers began to turn to texting. In 2022, spam messages became more personalized. They often imitate misleading information, or call the recipient by the wrong name, or use general greetings (usually "How are you?" Or "I am very happy tonight!" ) to urge the other party to respond.

If you have received this message recently, you are not the only one. Professor J. Michael Schibba, who specializes in cyber crime and international financial fraud at Colorado State University, said: "The number of spam messages has soared, which is unbelievable." He said that last year, 90 billion spam messages were sent around the world; In the United States, 47 billion spam messages were sent from 202 1 to 1, an increase of 55% over the same period in 2020. According to the data of the spam interception company RoboKiller, in 2020 alone, fraudulent short messages caused a loss of $86 million in the United States. "People are always bombarded by this information. "Professor Schibba said.

Professor Schibba said that from the swindler's point of view, SMS has several advantages over email-the prompt of phone number is less suspicious than that of simple email address, and the randomness of SMS makes grammatical errors less obvious. Many people also have the impulse to reply to text messages. Professor Schibba said: "This is a psychological trick, because you know that SMS is wrong, but it will arouse your desire to help each other and say,' You have the wrong number'."

However, the person on the other end of the phone is probably cooperating with a group of organized scammers in the call center. I hope you can say this sentence accurately. For a liar, a simple reply is enough to verify whether the phone number is true. This reaction will lead to a domino effect, which may make your mobile phone receive more spam messages. Finally, the scammer wants to at least verify your number so that it is possible to sell it to other organizations; Getting your personal information is a sweet reward.

"I 100% advise you not to reply." Professor Schibba said.

However, after browsing Twitter, Reddit, Instagram and Tik Tok, people found that people did not adopt this suggestion. On the contrary, many people are dealing with spammers and publishing their conversations to the world.

Gabriel Boslet, an associate professor of medicine in Indianapolis, decided to deal with people who recently sent spam messages, and their responses became more and more strange. He has been doing this kind of thing since the beginning of 2000, when he began to reply to mysterious emails, which were obviously scams of the Nigerian prince. Once he found himself communicating with a liar, Bosslet entered the "spray" mode and fabricated all kinds of strange stories and characters-the more outrageous the better.

When asked about the purpose of these conversations, Bosslet said that he just wanted to establish contact and interaction with strangers. He mentioned the example of Wanda Dench-a grandmother accidentally sent Jamal Hinton, who was then 17, an invitation message for Thanksgiving dinner (originally for her grandson). This mistake has become a sweet annual tradition (Hinton is invited home by Dench every year for the holiday). He said: "I know it's strange, but I'm open to this kind of interaction."

Jason Tanamore, a writer from Portland, Oregon, also began to reply to spam messages. Like Bosslet, he didn't try to change anyone. "I just want them to say' deeznuts' because it makes me laugh." Tanamore said. It may be interesting for him to chat with spammers. If he has time, he will try to keep the conversation going.

Bosslet and Tanamor didn't realize that replying to spam messages might verify their numbers and allow the sender to sell them to other spammers-leading to more spam messages. But none of them care. For them, answering some strange jokes is entertainment. Both of them expressed sympathy for the person on the other end of the phone.

Others took a more retaliatory approach. Whitaker of the University of Surrey said that some people have taken luring fraud to the extreme. They joined online forums and carefully designed scams to deceive criminals. This could be dangerous. He said: "Luring fraud may also invade criminals' computers as a form of public entertainment. "This is problematic, it may expose people's private information, and it is also illegal, although luring fraudsters may claim that this is the moral high ground.

Whittaker mentioned Jim Browning(YouTube pseudonym of YouTube user and software engineer), who used lure fraud to delete the stolen files related to spam messages in the call center. Other fraudsters exposed by people like Browning will take retaliatory actions, such as cracking down on luring fraudsters (making false crime reports to call law enforcement agencies) or luring them to dangerous places.

Whitaker said: "The activities of luring fraud may become quite radical." In addition, fraudsters can quickly master these strategies, so wasting criminals' time can actually teach them to waste their time more wisely. "

This is a dilemma for those who deal with swindlers. If only as a resistance to annoying modern invasion, it may be satisfactory. However, this boycott may be costly, which takes time and may lead to a large number of spam messages in the future. If fraudsters are lured into corruption, this information may expose them to the risk of financial or personal bankruptcy.

The United States Federal Trade Commission and consumer advocates tried to fight back by refusing calls and blocking spam messages on the Internet, but spammers are constantly improving their strategies to circumvent these laws. This may make you feel that there is only one way to deal with this frustrating situation: make a joke about "deez nuts".

What is even more worrying is that the rapid development of modern smart phones enables applications running in mobile phones to collect your personal information and data at any time, thus pushing a lot of "advertising information" to you.

As early as 20 14, cryptographer Zimmerman developed a highly secure smartphone-BlackPhone. It runs a special version of the Android operating system, which can prevent your mobile phone from revealing any of your data. In addition, this phone can also resist daily threats such as hacking and snooping. This Ultraprivate smartphone was also selected as one of the "Top Ten Breakthrough Technologies in the World" in 20 14 by MIT Science and Technology Review.

However, the current fraudulent means can not only deal with ultra-private smartphones, but also require users to be vigilant anytime and anywhere.

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