The Nigerian Prince Scam — also known as a "419 Fraud" — has a long, weird, and fascinating history. But the basics of it are pretty easy to understand: a random phishing message riddled with grammatical errors, from a stranger claiming to be Nigerian Prince (or representative of one), who needs help shifting some money around through US bank accounts. If you would be so kind as to help this Prince launder his inheritance or whatever it is, he will bequeath you with a substantial portion of his wealth as a token of his gratitude. All you need to do is provide him with all the information he would need to access your bank account, and in six months, you'll be tens of millions of dollars richer!

It feels like an old joke at this point, but weirdly, it still works: in 2018, scammers managed to make nearly a million dollars off the ol' classic. There are other variations, of course, with wealthy orphans, lottery winners, et cetera. The trademark poor grammar is actually a deliberate mechanism used to help the victims self-select by weeding out false positives; basically, if you're smart enough to realize how poorly written it is, the scammers are better off not wasting their time with you. If you're gullible enough to fall for the fake bad grammar, then they know they have a sucker.

I share all of this, because of an email I received today:

TIRED: Nigerian Prince Scams

WIRED: Jeffrey Epstein's Financial Assistant Scams?

Today, the Boston Globe's investigative reporter Deirdre Fernandes reports that sex offender and accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein had his very own personal office at Harvard University, and visited dozens of times in the years after he was released from his 2008 prison sentence -- all the way through 2018. Read the rest

No surprises in Jeffrey Epstein's social media accounts. Read the rest