One Step Ahead

You've probably heard of the famous "Nigerian scams", which have been around long before e-mail, but have become more common since the widespread use of e-mail. You get an e-mail from some rich banker in Nigeria (or fleeing Iraq, or some other hot-spot), promising you untold riches if you help them get a large sum of money out of the country. Of course, it's a scam, but some people do fall for it. And some unfortunate victims have even been killed by the scammers.

This has been doing the rounds for so long that you might wonder why people keep falling for it. But the scammers are getting smarter and smarter, and are doing more and more to make themselves seem credible. Here's an excellent article from The Register, giving you a blow-by-blow account of how the scam works. It's well worth a read!