BEWARE! DO NOT COPY AND PASTE POSTS ASKING YOU TO COPY AND PASTE!

One of the most effective methods that hackers use to identify potential prey, is the copy-and-paste social engineering trick. Facebook is a goldmine for just that. The more gullible someone is by nature, the easier and the more they'll fall for it. And that's the target market scammers love. 

Take a look at the below post from one Wendy Botes that I came across on Facebook this afternoon. Will use it as example of how dangerous it actually is. Below it, a very important message you need to get into the heads of your friends. 

Y U racist sucker no congratulate da stolen photo?

Have you ever seen posts like this one on the photo in groups, with such groups being totally unrelated to the post? There's a whole science behind it, that scam artists exploit. It evokes sympathy from gullible people, and then the latter post positive comments below for encouragement. And, religious bullshit in every comment. Eeuw.

An older version of the photo above, was to simply use a stolen photo of a pretty girl, with 'her' then saying via a bot that posted on several groups: "It's my birthday and nobody congratulated me." It's mind-numbing to see the birthday wishes stream in, thousands of it. When did people became so superbly retarded? 

The syndicate behind the scam uses a bot to make automated posts like these, and the bot then later scrape and screen the comments. Comments containing certain 'positive' words to determine the 'mood' of the comment, especially religious words, are marked as promising, with the commentators then proven to be gullible and ready to be targeted.