Seeing Stars

What type of person falls for an online scam?  Who are the fraudsters and how does colonialism motivate them? And what’s the connection between criminality and pop music? 

This episode of LSE iQ looks at how we can avoid falling for online scams. We think it couldn’t happen to us, but incidents of online fraud are escalating at an alarming rate, affecting all areas of our day-to-day lives, from social media and dating apps to banking and business. 

As AI deepfakes and impersonation tactics become more advanced, scammers are finding new ways to exploit us, leaving victims emotionally and financially devastated. 

In this episode Oliver Johnson talks to a victim of a devastating romance scam, he hears about what motivates some of the fraudsters and what legal protections we have in the battle against the scammers.

Contributors: Dr Suleman Lazarus, Professor Andrew Murray, Lisa Mills, Nikki MacLeod

Research:
Fraud as Legitimate Retribution for Colonial Injustice, Dr Suleman Lazarus et al

Examining fifty cases of convicted online romance fraud offenders Dr Suleman Lazarus et al
Information Technology Law Professor Andrew Murray

Rethinking the Jurisprudence of Cyberspace Professor Andrew Murray et al

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science. We’re keen to find out more about our audience so we can better tailor our content to suit your interests. With this in mind, we would be grateful if you could please take the time to fill out this short survey and share your feedback.

https://forms.office.com/Pages/Respon...

How do we avoid falling for online scams?

In March 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to John Minnich, Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations at LSE about why semiconductors are so important in the global economy, and why the US is willing to go to what Dr Minnich terms, economic war, over them. They also discussed how the semiconductor trade is framed as a national security issue in the US and China, and how President Trump may approach the ‘chip-war’ in coming months. 

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.   

Further reading and resources 

Ling S. Chen and Miles M. Evers, "'Wars without Gun Smoke': Global Supply Chains, Power Transitions, and Economic Statecraft," International Security 48, no. 2 (Fall 2023): 164–204. 

Cornell University Press. (2024). Disaggregating China, Inc. by Yeling Tan | Hardcover | Cornell University Press. [online] Available at: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501759635/disaggregating-china-inc/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2025]. 

Cornell University Press. (2024). Disaggregating China, Inc. by Yeling Tan | Hardcover | Cornell University Press. [online] Available at: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501759635/disaggregating-china-inc/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2025]. 

Paragraph locked by Gilson,CH
11 November 2024 - China’s evolving approach to economic security with Professor Yeling Tan | The Ballpark podcast - https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2024/11/11/chinas-evolving-approach-to-economic-security-with-professor-yeling-tan-the-ballpark-podcast/  

13 February 2023 - China’s Belt and Road with Professor Taylor Fravel | The Ballpark podcast - https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2023/02/13/the-ballpark-podcast-extra-innings-chinas-belt-and-road-with-professor-taylor-fravel/  

 

 

LSE: The Ballpark | The Origins of the US-China Chip War with Dr John Minnich

A resident of Michigan's scenic Beaver Island shares the term, boodling, which the locals use to denote the social activity of leisurely wandering the island, often with cold, fermented beverages. There have been various proposed etymologies for this particular use of boodle as a verb, but boodle in this sense is most likely a nonce coinage, simply made up for the occasion, which then persisted among the islanders. http://waywordradio.org

1655-Caller-Cynthia-Boodling

Why do we write the sound of a dog barking as bow wow? Isn't that noise more like woof, woof or arf, arf or ruff ruff? Surprisingly, the oldest of these is bow wow, or as William Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest (Bookshop|Amazon), bowgh wawgh. It's difficult to render these sounds in writing, but in Catalan, it's bup bup; Italian bao bao; Greek, γαβ γαβ (gav gav); Spanish, guau guau; German, wuff wuff; Korean, 멍멍 (meong meong), Albanian ham ham. http://waywordradio.org

1655-Caller-Sam-Bow-Wow

A woman in Lincoln, Nebraska, says her father, a Missouri cattleman, would answer the question How are you? by replying Couldn’t be better with less in all my life! http://waywordradio.org

1655-Couldn't-Be-Better-With-Less

A member of the ski patrol at Vermont's Sugarbush Resort shares some workplace slang. Boilerplate denotes hard-packed snow with a ruffled pattern that makes skis chatter, death cookies are random chunks that could cause an accident, and escargot refers to slowpokes still on the mountain at the end of the day. http://waywordradio.org

1655-Intro-Ski-Patrol-Slang

Quiz Guy John Chaneski has been shopping at stores with misleading names. For example,he might buy baked goods from a bakery, but if he were to visit a store that sells flying mammals, he might assume it has something to do with power cells. What kind of "store" would that be? http://waywordradio.org

Troublemaker -Troublemaker(Cover Just For fun >Claire marie Tran xD)

Lino (B.Brave)

Recent comments

Floor-music

Related tracks