Over the past year I’ve been getting probably 1-2 emails per month haunting my junk mail folder from broken-English speaking spammers trying to “sextort” me into sending them Bitcoin in exchange for not telling all my contacts about some videos I didn’t watch.
i.e. what computer security ex-spurts call “sextortion.”
The scam goes like this:
1. You get an email from someone saying they know your password — specifically, an old password you used 10+ years ago with Yahoo or some other big company whose data was recently hacked
2. The secks-torter says they put some virus on your computer when you visited a site they don’t name, just that it was some pourno site they say they recorded you watching
3. They also use your first name in the email to make it sound even more menacing and urgent, plus put the old password in the subject line
4. They say they will leak the video of you watching pourno to your contacts
5. But, they will be kind enough to delete the video if you send them some bitcoin
The first time I got this, I couldn’t help but think:
“I bet this actually works on some people…”
Turns out it does, according to the computer security ex-spurts.
In fact, this sextortion shtick is such a thing now, even the hit show Black Mirror did an episode about it. And, I hear-tell that was one of the more popular episodes. I also would not be surprised if that episode did more to “sell” anti-virus and anti-malware software than any ad or sales pitch run by these companies ever did.
And you know what?
There is an extremely powerful selling method at work with this.
A method best illustrated by a famous life insurance salesman who said:
“You have to make them see the hearse pulled up to the curb side…”
And so it goes…
To learn my non-extortionary email ways, go here:
Ben Settle
