Re: Interesting combination of SPAM + Phishing + stupidity

[Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]

On Tue, 04 May 2010 19:38:15 CDT, Jorge Amodio said:

> Are spammers getting smarter ? or users getting dumber ?

http://uxmag.com/short-news/these-are-your-users-read-and-be-horrified

Remember that statistically speaking, roughly half of all people are below
average on the IQ bell curve.  A stupefyingly high percentage of your users are
either illiterate, innumerate, or both, or severely lacking in critical
thinking skills.  In addition, keep in mind that the spammers and other
miscreants probably come from the ends of that same bell curve - some brilliant
guys who think they can do better than the average office job, and some bozos
who can't get an average office job.

A few years ago, I was watching CNN, and they had a segment on Yellowstone Park
installing new bear-proof trash containers. They basically had a complex latch
that was too complicated for bears.  Unfortunately, a lot of tourists would
be stumped (or not bother) and dumped their garbage outside the dumpster, and
the bears would come along and get into the garbage.  The take-away line of
the segment was from a ranger at the park:

"There appears to be significant overlap in intelligence between the smartest
bear and the dumbest tourist".