July 21st, 2008:

There have been a couple of different views of internet scammers that I have read recently. 

At Wired.com [^] recently there was a comparison of the con-man in the digital and pre-internet ages.  Lore Sjöberg argues that in earlier times the con-man was an artist, individually tailoring each scam for each victim.  Once you had been bled, at least you had a good story, a very expensive story, as some form of consolation.  In the digital age you are just one recipient amongst many thousands being targeted but the scammer today.  Has the art of the scam been lost, or maybe the scam is just mass-produced so many other things in this modern age.

Confidence tricks revolve around gaining the confidence of the victim, and as obvious as most internet scams appear there are still plenty of victims.  This victims are often new to computers and the internet, luckily there is a group looking out for them – and I don’t mean the “security” software companies either.  The Age [^] has run a story about a group that are working on getting revenge on internet con-artists.  This group are known as scam-baiters, and they actively seek-out scams.  Along with the revenge aspect they also work with authorities to publicise the the issues and help to provide evidence for a conviction.

It seems that as far as the digital scamming is concerned the art may very well have moved on to the scam-baiters.  The efforts that they go to for no return, other than being able to feel good about themselves, are amazing.