Making a telephone call to SABAM [the Belgian association of authors, composers and publishers] from a public toilet, a Basta [an investigative and satirical TV show in Belgium] team member looked at the manufacturer of a hand dryer and explained that Kimberly Clark would be performing at an upcoming event. That would cost 134 euros minimum said SABAM.

Next the playlist. What if Kimberly Clark sang songs not covered by SABAM? Titles such as ‘Hot Breeze’, ‘Show Me Your Hands’, ‘I Wanna Blow You Dry’, ‘I’m Not a Singer I Am a Machine’ and the ever-timeless, ‘We Fooled You’, for example.

Five days later the answer came from SABAM. All of the songs were “100% protected” and so Basta must pay 127.07 euros.

The proposed solution to stem the flow of blood diamonds was the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme. The Process set forth the rules that all diamonds mined and sold must be certified as "conflict free." It set up the World Diamond Council to look after the Certification Process. The WDC consisted of the major diamond-producing companies and gave them regulatory authority through the United Nations. In other words, the WDC is nothing but a cartel in disguise.

IS CYBERWARFARE (a) one of the biggest threats of the 21st century or (b) an elaborate hoax designed to extract money from gullible governments? Stuxnet, the computer worm running rampant in Iran's nuclear facilities, tells us the answer. An analysis

of the worm by computer security company Symantec makes it abundantly clear that a few lines of malicious computer code can trip electricity grids, burn out power-station generators, pollute water supplies and sabotage gas pipelines. That cyberattacks can become real-world attacks is no longer a matter of conjecture.


In a report being released today, Google said that between January 2009 and the end of January 2010, its malware detection infrastructure found some 11,000 malicious or hacked Web pages that attempted to foist fake anti-virus on visitors. The search giant discovered that as 2009 wore on, scareware peddlers dramatically increased both the number of unique strains of malware designed to install fake anti-virus as well as the frequency with which they deployed hacked or malicious sites set up to force the software on visitors.

Fake anti-virus attacks use misleading pop-ups and videos to scare users into thinking their computers are infected and offer a free download to scan for malware. [...] Worse still, fake anti-virus programs frequently are bundled with other malware. What’s more, victims end up handing their credit or debit card information over to the people most likely to defraud them.

Now can we agree that "anti-virus" programs are a bad idea?

One of the reasons the accusation was upheld was that Joe Galloway made another representation that was proven false by BSkyB's lawyers – that he had a degree from Concordia College in the US Virgin Islands.

Galloway gave detailed evidence on how he took plane journeys between the islands and attended a college there.

But while questioning Galloway in court, Mark Howard QC managed to obtain exactly the same degree as Galloway from Concordia College for his dog "Lulu" with one key difference – the dog got a higher mark.

Both Galloway and the dog received a letter from the vice-chancellor of Concordia College saying:

“Mr Galloway / Lulu demonstrated that he/she is prepared and fully equipped to add valuable apprenticeship to our institution’s activities by means of talented and profoundly investigated subject treatment."

But this was not just a rhetorical or a fictional conceit. A turn-of-the-century confidence man named George C. Parker actually sold the Brooklyn Bridge more than once. According to Carl Sifakis, who tells his story in "Hoaxes and Scams: A Compendium of Deceptions, Ruses and Swindles," Parker - who was also adept at selling the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Statue of Liberty and Grant's Tomb - produced impressive forged documents to prove that he was the bridge's owner, then convinced his buyers that they could make a fortune by controlling access to the roadway. "Several times," Mr. Sifakis wrote, "Parker's victims had to be rousted from the bridge by police when they tried to erect toll barriers."

In games like Mafia Wars, Farmville, YoVille and Vampires Live, you know, some of the major sources of all those garbage announcements cluttering up your Facebook, players compete to complete missions and level up. By leveling up, you can complete more difficult missions and fight off weaker opponents. You can wait for your various energies to regenerate naturally over time, or you can purchase with real money in-game boosts. Or, you can complete various lead generation offers, many of which are of the "answer page after page of questions and opt in and out of receiving various kinds of spam" variety. Some of them install malware and adware that is impossible to remove. And some of them secretly subscribe you to monthly recurring $9.99 credit card charges.

Who are scam baiters, and why do they bother trying to give scammers the runaround? Ars explores the flourishing communities of scam baiters who help each other do everything they can to waste scammers' time, including enticing them to get ridiculous tattoos and sending them on treks across Africa for nonexistent cash.

Committing copyfraud is astonishingly easy and costs nothing. I can borrow a public domain book from any library and scan it, or I could download the text from Project Gutenberg. I reformat it as a PDF, mark it with a copyright date, register it as a new book with an ISBN, then submit it to for sale. I may not even need to print and bind any books, I can offer it through Amazon's Booksurge print-on-demand service, or as an ebook on Kindle. Once the book is listed for sale, I can submit it to Google Books for inclusion in its index. I could easily publish thousands of books; most would never sell, but with zero up-front cost, any sale is pure profit.

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