---
title: "Recommended Podcast: “The Enforcers” from This American Life"
date: 2008-09-19
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> For AI agents: a documentation index is available at https://idratherbewriting.com/llms.txt. Markdown versions of all pages are available by appending .md to any page URL.

# Recommended Podcast: “The Enforcers” from This American Life

Act 1 of this American Life's latest episode, [The Enforcers](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=363), mesmerized me. I highly recommend listening to it. Here's the description:

> Three guys who go by the names Professor So and So, Jojobean and YeaWhatever spend part of each day running elaborate cons on Internet scammers. They consider themselves enforcers of justice, even after they send a man 1400 miles from home, to the least safe place they can bait him: the border of Darfur. The three self-made enforcers tell Ira their story. For more on what they did, along with photos, maps and phone recordings, go [here](http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=133890). (29 and 1/2 minutes)

In short, Ira Glass tells the story of how some "baiters" returned a con on one of the Nigerian email con men. It's hilarious at first, and then becomes somewhat dark and unethical.

While you're downloading podcasts, be sure to include [Alistair Christie's podcast on Virtual Machines](http://www.itauthor.eu/2008/09/14/itauthor-podcast-15-september-13th-2008-virtual-machines/) -- very useful if you're writing installation documents.