Some say they used to make $30,000 to $60,000 a month from emails promising great wealth, jewels, true love, etc. But first, of course, you have to pay endless fees, bribes, insurance and travel expenses.

Americans appear to be the easiest prey, and business is booming. The scammers are mostly young men, known as yahoo-yahoo boys, and they learn from each other by sharing tricks and tips. One said his top swindle right now is the work-at-home deal, presumably because of the huge job losses around the world.

Nigerian officials claim to be cracking down on these 419 fraudsters, named for the relevant section of the criminal code. They even say they are using software that filters and blocks the scammers’ emails. But the list of victims just keeps growing.

What to do? Do not open or read spam. Do not open emails with subject lines like URGENT ASSISTANCE. Do not be greedy. You do not have a Nigerian or African relative who died and left you millions. No one is going to send you cash for little or no work. Stay alert, and think before you click, please!

Phishing attacks are increasing, by way of text messages on cell phones. The message claims to be from your bank, and asks you to call a fake 800 number for more information. When you call the number, a voice mail system takes your account details. Then the crooks promptly empty your account.

Most people have not heard of this and similar attacks, because the crooks are careful. They are targeting smaller, lesser-known banks. Then every cell phone in that area code gets the phishing message.

What to do? If you get a message like this, do not call the number given, or click the link. Instead, pick up an old-fashioned, clunky landline, and call your bank using the phone number in the phone book!

This ground wire is connected to the PC power supply and then to the ground plug in the power socket, and from there to the electrical circuit supplying the room or area. So the information can be easily captured and read.

The researchers expect their methods and equipment to become more sensitive as they are further developed, allowing eavesdroppers to spy on users from farther away. Users take note. Try to minimize the confidential information you type into your computer, unless you are at home.

This type of attack is going to be demonstrated at the upcoming Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, which takes place July 25 – 30.

It appears that the bug has been used by hackers since at least June 9. Attack code can easily be found on the Web to exploit this vulnerability. In fact, researchers at IBM reported the flaw to Microsoft last year. Microsoft could not or would not say why they had not fixed this problem earlier. But they are no doubt trying to come up with a patch in time for the regular monthly update on July 14.

A researcher at AVG Technologies thinks this bug has the potential to be another Conflicker, or worse. Conflicker exploits a flaw in Windows that was repaired long ago, so all you have to do is keep your Windows up to date. However, this latest threat has no fix yet.

What to do now? Well, you can get the Microsoft tool to disable the ActiveX control here. It sets a whole bunch of kill-bits in the Windows Registry, which turn off the control. You can also switch to IE8, Firefox or Chrome.

The Canadian Competition Bureau is warning that victims are losing millions of dollars a month to this type of fraud. But these are just the people who report they have been scammed, usually because they have lost a fairly large sum of money. The real losses could be five to ten times higher. In 2008, over 11,000 victims said they lost almost $10 million to this fraud.

Losses from identity theft, promises of employment, lottery and other fraud are much larger. Even so, please remember that you do not have a long-lost relative in Nigeria, no one left you millions of dollars, and you are not going to get an instant windfall. No matter how difficult your personal situation is right now, do not fall for these scams. It will just make things worse.

It works like this: You get a check in the mail, and you are asked to deposit it in your account. The check is supposedly for some kind of payment, lottery win, deposit, rent, etc.

Then suddenly the sender pretends to have a change of heart, or discovers the whole thing is an error, and asks for part or all of the money back. That is when you should STOP, take a deep breath, and go talk to your bank or a lawyer.

You are very probably being scammed, because after you return the money you will invariably find the original check was fake. You are now on the hook to your bank for the whole amount.

You should know that it actually takes weeks for a check to clear, or establish that it is in fact good. It may take even longer for overseas checks. Lawyers, business people and Internet experts have been roped in by these schemes, and their endless variations. Do not be one of them.

But here is an interesting one. A company, usually in Russia, offers to pay you to edit texts. You may even get some checks, then a promotion! You become their local manager.

Now you begin to receive larger checks which you cash, and send on to another account. Bingo! You have become a money launderer! Steer well clear of these work at home scams, even, or especially, if they look legitimate at first.

So what is the problem? Bing does not distinguish between ordinary results and porn videos. So your precious little darlings may see stuff you would rather they did not, to say the least.

And if they actually search for porn videos, the results are a complete theater of, well, you get the picture, so to speak.

The previews make an end run around parental controls, and leave no trace in the browser history. Bing does indeed have search filtering, for example SafeSearch. But it is easily circumvented. Pretty much your only option for now is to block the entire bing.com domain, using a free tool like OpenDNS.

Microsoft is working to fix the problem. And by the way, OpenDNS may also speed up your Web surfing, and make it safer.

The problem is in the QuickTime Movie Parser Filter plug-in that is used to process files for another file. You could be vulnerable even if you do not have QuickTime installed on your PC.

QT is a media player from Apple. Microsoft says it has seen attacks based on this flaw floating around the Internet. For more info on this problem, and a suggested workaround, go here. No patch is available yet.

It is suggested that you will see pornographic content. Instead the malware pretends to scan your PC. Of course, it detects non-existent viruses, and urges you to buy a fake anti-virus program to clean it up.

YouTube is owned by Google, which claims to have removed the offending material, or most of it. Even so, be careful on such file-sharing or video-sharing sites, and on all social networking sites.