magha
n.— «The targets are called maghas—scammer slang from a Yoruba word meaning fool, and refers to gullible white people.…The e-mail scammers here prefer hitting Americans, whom they see as rich and easy to fool. They rationalize the crime by telling themselves there are no real victims: Maghas are avaricious and complicit.» —“I Will Eat Your Dollars” by Robyn Dixon in Festac, Nigeria Los Angeles Times Oct. 20, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
What’s it like to hike the Pacific Crest Trail all the way from Mexico to Canada? You’ll end up with sore muscles and blisters, and great stories to tell. Along the way, you’ll also pick up some slang, like NoBo, SoBo, Yo-yo and...
I must see thousands of these come through–or rather *attempt* to come through–every day. I have several “spam-trap” fake email addresses that block the IP of anyone sending to any of those fake email addresses. Thus, my 419-scam count is extremely low.
Out of maybe 5,000 attempts each day, two might slip through.
There’s a link at my Web site on how to set up such a filter. The web site is http://www.cmosnetworks.com, and the article first appeared on Linux.com last year.
–TP