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virtual kidnapping

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2017.01.23

In addition to CEO fraud emails, now there's virtual kidnapping. The "original" version, apparently from Latin America, involved a bogus contact to a parent telling them that their child had been kidnapped, without going to the hassle of actually securing the child. Now it's extended to vacationing executives, with simple techniques deployed to effect a low-risk cash extraction.

rand()m quote

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.

—Sigmund Freud