The demonstrations
Each demonstration follows the same fixed format: a sourced public figure, a probability calculation with published assumptions, the psychological mechanism it exploits, and the defense that actually works. This is an ongoing re-cast of our original French-language pillar — not a translation, a rebuild with market-specific US/UK/AU/CA figures.
Fake package texts
6.8 billion parcels shipped by USPS alone in FY2025 — why the fake delivery text doesn't need to target you.
USPS · FTC · UK Finance · Australia Post · Canada Post 💼Fake recruiters
83.4M fake LinkedIn accounts detected in H1 2025 — why the fake recruiter doesn't need to target you.
LinkedIn · FTC 🏦The retreat of the human touch
6,005+ UK bank branches closed since 2015 — why the fake bank call sounds real.
Which? · Senate inquiry (AUS) · Canadian Bankers Association ⚡The speed of thought
$391M lost to Venmo, Cash App, Zelle & PayPal scams in 2024 — why speed removes your last chance to reconsider.
FTC · UK Finance · PSR · CFPB 📅The scam calendar
Tax season, fake Ramadan charities, Diwali shopping fraud — a shared date is all a scammer needs, across 5 countries.
HMRC · IRS · CRA · ATO · NCC 🔓What data leaks changed
1,205 data breaches reported to Australia's OAIC in 2025 — the Targeting Scale, explained.
OAIC · OPC Canada · ITRC · ICO · NDPC 🤖AI industrializes plausibility
$893M lost to AI-enabled fraud in the US in 2025 — the FBI's first-ever AI fraud category.
FBI · NCSC · Canadian Cyber Centre · ASD ☎️The multi-channel funnel
$450B drained worldwide every year — why three messages convince more than one.
Bitdefender · Ofcom · FTC 🎲The Coincidence Surface calculator
10 questions, a calculation that runs 100% on your device — how many contexts make you plausible?
USPS · BLS · FDICThe core idea
Scammers don't need to know you. The statistics already do.
Rigor note. This pillar is now complete in English — all 9 demonstrations and the interactive calculator, each built with its own market-specific research across the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and, where relevant, Nigeria — never a reused French figure. The original French version remains the canonical source for its own market: Les Mathématiques de la Manipulation. See our methodology for our sourcing standard.
Egidio — The Threat Laboratory, "The Mathematics of Manipulation: why scams work, by the numbers", egidio.app/en/laboratoire/mathematics-of-manipulation/. Licensed CC BY 4.0.
Free to reuse, including commercially, with attribution. Reuse terms.