First published: 30th April 2008
Cheating people out of their money is a highly-competitive "industry" where innovation is essential to keep ahead, so it is hardly surprising that spammers are now taking advantage of the Beijing Olympics. An example received is basically a variant of common lottery fraud messages, saying that the recipient's email address was "selected" to receive five tickets to the entire Olympics, with hotel and flights included, to a total of half a million US dollars. Naturally, the chances of someone receiving the promised prize are rather less than the chances of the development of porcine aviation.
The message was received from an IP address in Madrid, Spain, but the contact email address was in the yahoo.com.cn domain, and the contact phone number had a +86 (Chinese) country code.