[gttalbot]

Why would Facebook not just block messages from Nigeria to rando North American towns at this point? Shouldn't the network analysis required to detect this sort of crime ring be a slam-dunk at this point? I don't get how this is still even possible.

[petepete]

My parents' home phone used to receive several scam calls a week from India. There was no way to stop them short of giving up the landline, which is what I did.

I can't believe phone companies (in the UK) don't provide better protection, even a registry of whitelisted numbers, that could be set for the old/vulnerable.

[__rito__]

Well, I am in and from India, and I receive several scam calls a month from India.

Indians, by number of victims, are the biggest victims of Indian scammers. Several people I know personally have been burned.

Our phone numbers are in several lists, and they get leaked.

I think one solution to this is strict data privacy laws. If there is a list with phone numbers/addresses, it should be subject to highest level of care and security. Or there should be laws banning collection of phone numbers unless absolutely needed.

No amount of spreading awareness seems to work. The local law enforcement of the exact two states in India where the domestic scammers are from are also "involved".

[ta1243]

They do

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/cordless-phones/article/how-...

[jmopp]

On the one hand, I agree with you. On the other hand, the false positives (and the fallout from it) might outweigh the negatives: imagine a volunteer doctor who disappears in West Africa due to being kidnapped/robbed etc and someone local tries to contact the family back home, but all the messages end up getting blocked.

[orthoxerox]

Something simple like a face match or even an email unlock if you connect to the account from an unusual location should work. A lot of websites do that already. So a volunteer doctor from the US opens their phone in Lagos, gets challenged, answers, Meta now knows that Nigerian IPs or whatever VPN they use are fine.

[dclowd9901]

This seems like such a contrived example.

By all accounts the Dr would probably be in better shape if the kidnappers weren’t able to contact their family.

[master-lincoln]

Why shouldn't people in Nigeria be able to communicate with people from random North American towns?

Because there are some criminals in a geographical area you want to exclude the whole area? Why don't you demand a US-only internet instead?

[IG_Semmelweiss]

Correct. Yet you can easily inform the end user, to get informed consent.

"NOTICE: The user appears to be in XXX, Nigeria. Beware of scams or impersonations by people hijacking your friend's accounts"

But Social media companies would never do this because it would destroy their so called "brand-trust"

[graemep]

So people in North America who have friends of family in Nigeria would not be able to send them FB messages.