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‘Maga No Need Pay’: Nigeria Gets Creative to Fight Cyber Scams
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Posted by Tim Cranton
Associate General Counsel
This week, a new pop song hits the airwaves in West Africa with a highly unusual message: Don’t be seduced by cybercrime.
Cybercrime is a global issue, but perhaps no form of cybercrime has been more associated with a region than the advance fee fraud collectively known as “Nigeria” or “419” scams (419 is the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud). Through schemes such as fake lotteries, bogus inheritances, romantic relationships, investment opportunities or – infamously – requests for assistance from “officials,” scammers promise an elusive fortune in exchange for advance payments.
West Africa is by no means the only source of these scams, but the region is stepping up to address their impact in a variety of creative ways.
419 scams have taken root in Nigeria’s popular culture. Scammers enjoy a rebellious, “cool” mystique, even producing songs and music videos that celebrate their own audacity. At the same time, 419 scam victims around the world are often stigmatized as naïve or gullible, which discourages many from coming forward.
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Chinese Consumers Speak Out Against Software Piracy
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Posted by David Finn
Associate General Counsel
Today is Consumer Action Day – a 24-hour period when we highlight the hundreds of education and enforcement initiatives around the globe designed to protect consumers from the risks of pirated and counterfeit software.
The harm done to consumers by pirated software is clearer now than ever before. Microsoft has experienced a surge of voluntary reports – more than 150,000 in the past two years – from people who unwittingly purchased counterfeit software riddled with viruses or malware. One of the most notable attributes of these reports is that the largest percentage – more than one-quarter– came from consumers in China.
China has struggled with software piracy for many years. Still, despite the efforts of the Chinese government, the software piracy rate in China stands today at 80 percent. We have long had a sense of what this means in terms of losses not only to Microsoft, but also to the Chinese economy; published studies indicate that lowering the piracy rate by 10 points would create more than $20 billion in economic growth, over 300,000 new jobs, and $1.5 billion in taxes for the Chinese economy each year.
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Public Service Ads Alert Bing Users to Online Scams
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Posted by Tim Cranton
Associate General Counsel
Two weeks ago you heard from me about Microsoft’s enforcement efforts to curb malvertising; today I want to tell you about another approach we are taking to help protect consumers online.
Along with using the legal system to help stop online criminals and fraud, my team does a lot of work with other groups at Microsoft and with public and private organizations around the world developing novel ways to actively prevent and disrupt online threats. In the realm of Internet advertising, we’re not only working to promote the safety and integrity of the online ad platform, we’re using that ad platform to directly fight fraud more generally across the Web.
Microsoft – in conjunction with the Federal Trade Commission, the United States Postal Inspection Service and Western Union – today launched a series of online public service announcements within our Bing search engine to remind consumers to be alert for common online financial scams. When consumers search using keywords that could expose them to credit repair, mortgage foreclosure, or fake lottery scams, the sponsored ad results in Bing will include educational information to help consumers protect themselves.
Here’s an example of how it will look:
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“The World’s Most Notorious Illegal Spammer”
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Posted by David Bowermaster
Administrator, Microsoft on the Issues
Earlier this week it was widely reported that Alan Ralsky, a 64-year-old Michigan man that a federal prosecutor described as “the world's most notorious illegal spammer," pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and CAN-SPAM charges.
The guilty pleas from Ralsky and four co-defendants are a credit to the hard work and dedication of U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg and trial attorneys Thomas Dukes and Mona Sedky Spivack, the prosecutors in the case, as well as the many law enforcement officials who helped conduct the complicated investigation, which included defendants from Canada, China and Russia.
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