This is quite an interesting story. It discusses what the “white-hat” hackers, or ethical hackers, as well as ordinary citizens are doing to fight back against fraudsters. It’s amazing where a little thought and creativity can take you in the online world.

Most people hit the delete button when they receive an apparently fraudulent e-mail promising vast riches if the recipient co-operates — co-operation that can rob gullible victims of tens of thousands of dollars.
Not Mike Berry.
The Britain-based computer engineer launches into an elaborate “scam baiting” response, in which he convinces the scam artist to do his bidding and even send him money.
In the case of one e-mail from “Prince Joe”of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, it led to a hilarious correspondence in which Berry convinced Joe to join the Holy Church of the Order of the Red Breast, complete with appropriate photo evidence. Before he was finished, Berry managed to get Joe to send him $80. Joe never saw a nickel of the $18,000 he was hoping his victim could be conned into sending.
The tale can be found at www.419eater.com, one of a growing number of sites that document how ordinary citizens fight cyber crime. Scam baiting, the subject of 419eater (another name for the Nigerian letter scam and based on the article of the Nigerian criminal code concerning fraud) is just one of the many ways Internet vigilantes are fighting back.
Fighting back can take as many forms as there are Internet cons. There is “phishing” fighting, hitting back at e-mails or instant messages that pretend to be from legitimate businesses and organizations and hit victims in a variety of ways — whether it’s getting them to reveal passwords, financial details and other confidential information or simply getting them to unknowingly install malicious software on their computers.[more]

Tags: Good on the Net