DARKMARK

tens of millions. The chances of finding a sucker are very greatly
enhanced.

The 419 scam comes in many shapes and sizes. It sometimes arrives
as an appeal to rich Westerners to come to the aid of an impoverished
African child. Letters, faxes and emails beseeching Americans in partic-
ular for funds to erect a new church or bolster a congregation are
frequent - in these cases, the motivation of the victims is well inten-
tioned and charitable. Another lucrative prey of the 419 scammers are
the lovelorn, in particular middle-aged widows and divorcees who
develop virtual relationships with West African toy boys, who slowly
leech them of their savings as an advance on sexual dalliance that never
comes to pass.

419s are now being dispatched from China in both Chinese and
English. This complements a second Chinese hacking speciality, which
is the theft of items from MMORPG, an awkward acronym for the
awkwardly named Massively Multiple Online Role-Playing Games, such
as World of Warcraft, or the 'real life' games, Second Life or Habbo
Hotel. These all have digital currencies that can be exchanged for
genuine money. This in turn invests value in the virtual goods and
services, which players can purchase to add to the pleasure of their
gaming experience. Although they are not alone, Chinese hackers have
learned to 'steal' these digital items or monies, which they can convert
to actual real-world cash. China's monumental computing potential
remains largely untapped at the moment, yet it is already regarded in
most sectors relating to computer security in civilian and military life
as second in the global pecking order after the United States. As China
begins to realise that potential, the nature of the Internet will change.

To combat these growing threats, governments and industry are now
pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into cyber security, whether in
law enforcement, the protection of intellectual copyright or the military
domain. Almost all of these funds are invested in technology, the idea
being that this will be sufficient to protect the Internet from all the
bad code, malware and viruses that are prowling around cyberspace
looking for unprotected computer networks to attack.

By contrast, there is virtually no investment in trying to ascertain
who is hacking and why. Nobody differentiates between the hackers
from WikiLeaks, from the American or Chinese military, from criminal
syndicates and from the simply curious.