Scam Attempts
I get one of these scams about once a month. I supppose it's only a matter of time until the scammers figure out how to send malware to change the host file on the victims computer to do a dns direction whenenver they go to paypal.
My favorite though is the Nigerian bank scams though. Whenever I get one I respond with my scam I made up involving a dead corrupt CIA agent family member that I use as a standard response to these retards, mainly just to waste their time.
Considering that some of the same scams have been going on for thousands of years (I can just see Jesus on the corner hustling people with three card monte), I think it's long overdue for a public education campaign. Every school that can afford it should give classes on all of the standard scam artists techniques and how to properly respond to them, and maybe even do a series of public service announcements and well as use other forms of media to get the point across. Then maybe some of these cons would become rarer then honest politicians.
Of course, this would never happen because of the few people that would use his knowledge of scams to scam other people, thus causing people to complain about getting such an education, nevermind that the end result would still be less people being scammed regardless the few people who would use the knowledge for evil.
People would also fail to realize that most knowledge can be used for a bad end if your creative enough, not just knowledge of scams or hacking or what have you. Stuff like accountancy being used for even greater evils by corporations like Enron wouldn't bother them, but everyone would be worried about the con artist down the street who is all but harmless if everyone had even a modicum of knowledge about the subject.
Nor would it really be a problem to get such a message out. When AIDS first hit the western world, the concerted effort to reach the public was successful and everyone knows today how AIDS is spread even if they don't know how to find their bloody country on a world map. There is no reason other knowledge couldn't similarly be hammered home if their was a serious effort to deal with such cons.