The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Trade in secondhand BlackBerries booming in Nigeria

George Schultz

Cool 

Happy

So the fact that I am to cheap to buy one of those phones is a huge plus!

Herby

We need a new business... 

Just create a "personality" on an obsolete device and offer it for sale. Sounds like a BOFH idea if I ever saw one. Random number generators and large account balances ought to make for a tidy profit. Of course they could be pointed to honeypot devices to catch the crooks, but I doubt that banks would go that far. Way too costly for them, being easier to pay off the suckers that got taken.

/dev/me

So basically... 

Pirate

...next time I am informed of a rich remote family members death, I should really casually mention that I am Chief Executive Director of a large International Electronic Equipment Recycling Center.

Nigeria you say? Yes we love to do business there. And for you my friend, I will make a special price. I will ship out 50k worth of second hand (but in very good condition) Blackberries upon receiving payment.

EvilJason

Why is it.... 

Coat

When you ever hear of criminal actions on the net its mainly Nigeria or a Nigerian doing it?

I know that a lot of the gangs in other countries does illegal online stuff but they usually go after business rather than individuals.

And btw if airports are selling potentially private and personal sources of data i.e. lost data sticks and who knows what else cant they be held as accessories to any crimes committed with that data?

I mean if i found a set of car keys and after a time to one claimed them and i sold them on and someone used them to steal a car i could be held accountable as an accessory, and i know that physical keys are different than data but memory sticks do contain electronic keys sometimes and can be used to steal as well

Wonder if anyone has ever figured out that data lost at an airport and sold on was used in a crime against them.

-Jacket because because I'm looking for my memory sticks where did i put them

-Jason

Jerome

Airports 

Airports auction off lost memory sticks with the data intact? I suppose you could argue that people shouldn't lose their stuff in the first place, and we all know that airports aren't famed for safeguarding people's property, but this seems beyond the pale.

Charles Manning

Please help a Nigerian child 

http://www.steppingstonesnigeria.org/howtohelp

Wonder if this crowd are getting their funding from selling phone to crims?

Or maybe it is just a straight forward scam.

Moss Icely Spaceport

Data Deletion 

Thumb Up

Easy.

Old phone or blackberry?

No longer needed or working?

1 x Ball peen hammer

5 x minutes

Apply force

Repeat until finely diced

Season to taste

Dispose.

Stu Reeves

Mmmmmm... 

Dead Vulture

This was commuters at London...yet...

"One in 10 (11 per cent) keep social security..... "

as the only people I can think would keep these numbers in the UK are scroungers, so WTF are they doing with cackberrys?

I don't even know if I have a SS number....

Or am I being a tad cynical in presuming this info has been reworded for the US market?