Online scammers are now getting scammed themselves by an artificially intelligent chat bot invented by New Zealand's internet watchdog, Netsafe.
Photo: Pixabay
New Zealanders can now forward scam emails to Re:Scam, instead of deleting them.
The bot - created by Netsafe - strips away any personal details, takes on a new persona and continues the conversation with the scammer indefinitely, "or until the scammer stops replying".
Netsafe chief executive Martin Cocker said it was a nuanced system.
"It's got different personalities, it tries to provide enough genuine response, while at the same time dragging the conversation out with the objective of taking as much of the scammers' time as possible so they have less time to go after real victims."
The email programme can even crack jokes and make grammatical errors, as well as engaging with infinite numbers of scammers simultaneously.
In its first 72 hours of operation, the Re:Scam website was forwarded 20,000 scam emails from around the world.
With $12 billion lost globally to phishing scams every year, it was time to turn the tables on the scammers, Mr Cocker said.
"Bascially we don't want people engaging with scammers and we don't want scammers getting away with taking people's money and not having a fight on their hands."
