Avery Otto commented on my observations on sympathy hoaxes at https://chainmailcheck.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/information-week-seven-fantastic-internet-hoaxes with a link to her own blog article at http://www.dynamicalsoftware.com/cogenuity/PortalAbout.php?id=24 about her personal experience of an ugly form of fraud that is often referred to as Londoning.
The reason for that will be quite clear if you read Avery’s blog in conjunction with one I put up recently for ESET at http://www.eset.com/blog/2010/03/23/londoning-mugs-and-muggings-revisited.
Thanks, Avery. It makes an issue more real somehow if it’s described by someone who’s had some first-hand experience of it. And it’s as well to keep in mind that there’s more than one kind of sympathy hoax.
David Harley FBCS CITP CISSP
Mac Virus
Small Blue-Green World
AVIEN Chief Operations Officer
ESET Research Fellow & Director of Malware Intelligence
Also blogging at:
http://www.eset.com/blog
http://avien.net/blog/
http://smallbluegreenblog.wordpress.com/
http://blogs.securiteam.com
http://blog.isc2.org/
http://dharley.wordpress.com
https://chainmailcheck.wordpress.com
http://amtso.wordpress.com
Check Chain Mail and Hoaxes 
[…] Londoning and SEO: is that why Mums go to Iceland? I’ve just posted something else on “Londoning” or the “Friend in Need” scam at the ESET blog, as it’s based on a question someone asked me there. However, I’ll post the link here, as it would have been just as appropriate for this blog (and kind of follows on from my last post here). […]
By: Londoning and SEO: is that why Mums go to Iceland? « Check Chain Mail and Hoaxes on April 17, 2010
at 12:22 pm