Also in Canada, who only get the iPhone in July, you can buy it unlocked. Whether it is a change in Apple’s strategy or whether it is due to local conditions in those countries is not clear. France has always could buy unlocked iPhones, but it is new that can be the same in England and Canada.

Prices in England is £ 499 for 16GB and £ 599 for 32GB, equivalent to 4.470 and 5.360 kr DKK In France it costs € 629 and € 739, equivalent to 4.680 and 5.500 kr DKK They become, in other words not entirely cheap, but in return you are indeed totally free in relation to subscription. It is certainly super positive that we now have the option to buy with or without subscription. One should indeed take note that it does not prevent telco monkeys in offering iPhone inc. subscription. Yes indeed, it’s the iPhone 4 pris.

Now we can just wait until Apple comes with Danish prices.

If an e-mail is found in the list of red flags, it means the scamming has been proved. If the e-mail is found in the list of yellow flags, it means the e-mail (and the person behind it) is in some way associated with scamming. You should refrain from trading with people found in BOTH the yellow flag list and the red flag list.

Head over to the list here: List of known World of Warcraft scammers.

Perhaps not to your great surprise, industry insider Aiden points out that both porn and online gaming are both forms of entertainment that appeal to similar crowds.

“It is all entertainment that you are getting involved in the same way as porn is entertainment,” said Aiden. “I won’t say everyone, but a lot of people in the industry play videogames. The games are competition for porn. Fans jerk off to porn and are done, but you can keep playing a game.”

Aiden, an avid World of Warcraft player himself, is no stranger to spending time in the online gaming world. “Yeah, my wife and I occasionally argue about the amount of time I spend playing,” he admits.

Finally, Aiden nails the coffin by underlining the biggest reason why porn-for-profit is dying. “People can download stuff for free these days, so why the heck are they going to buy it? The only ones making money out of porn are the novelty companies,” Jeremy said.

Source: Tom’s Hardware US

Authorities say Lauri Price, 42, Houston mother and housewife,  flew to Canada and lured a 16-year-old boy, whom she allegedly had an online sexual relationship with for more than a year, away from his home. According to Harris County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Donna Hawkins, the relationship started in September 2008 when Lauri Price met the then 15-year-old boy through popular online video game World of Warcraft.

Lauri Price now faces charges on two counts of online solicitation of a minor and one count of enticing a child with the intent to commit a felony. “She talked to him about sex and a lot of different stuff. It was a very long, long grooming process” said Lt. Matthew Gray with the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce.

A dispute in the case is regarding the legal age of consent, which is 17 in Texas and 16 in Canada. Lauri Price’s attorney, Skip Cornelius, said he finds it both interesting and sad that Texas authorities are prosecuting Price for solicitation even though the boy was old enough in Canada to give consent.

If convicted, Lauri Price faces from two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for each charge, said Donna Hawkins.

Source: AP

The basic Auction House scam that many people utilize is completely within the game rules set by Blizzard. The scam is innocent enough in that it only involves manipulating the in-game economy a bit. This basic variant is pretty easily detectable. All you need to do is keep track of prices and values in the Auction Houses across different realms. By having a general overview and impression of what an item costs, you’ll easily be able to single out prices which seem incongruous or out of place.

The scam can be broken into a few steps. The first step is in the gray area of what can be defined as scamming, contrary to later steps.

Scammers often use rare items as an items bait efficiency rises exponentially with rarity. Let’s use Silk Cloth as an example. The scammer purchases all Silk Cloth on the Auction House (perhaps 4-5 stacks). This is to ensure he or she is the only one selling Silk Cloth. With this power the scammer is efficiently capable of setting the price of Silk Cloth to whatever he or she pleases. Keep in mind, this is not what I would describe as an actual malicious scam. I would rather define it as creative use of an in-game mechanism.

After the scammer has gained full control of the market, there is a series of scams available to make sure the items are sold quickly and at the asked price. One scam is to hotlink an item that they do not have in the trade channel. The item could be an epic or blue weapon or similar. The scammer then offers to trade the epic weapon for a random number of Silk Cloth.

Hopefully this will send atleast one player rushing to the Auction House to buy the requested amount of Silk Cloth. When the buyer then whispers the scammer, he or she simply states that the item has already been traded.

This post will be updated regularly as new variants emerge.

This scam is probably the oldest one in the book and it happens almost every day. With 11,5 million monthly subscribers, the economy related to buying, selling and trading World of Warcraft accounts is huge. I am very pleased to see the authorities dealing with the losses inflicted by these scammers in such a serious manner.

The thing about Western Union is that payments are in no way traceable or accountable. The underlying system behind Western Union was crafted so people could send money to friends, relatives and trusted recipients ONLY. This is a well documented fact and Western Union even have it written on their website: “The service a great way to send money to someone you know and trust but if you need to send money to someone you don’t know well you may be putting yourself at risk of fraud.” In my opinion this sums up exactly why you shouldn’t be using Western Union as a means of expediting funds to someone you’ve never met.

Accepting a Wester Union payment requires no proof of identity but solely relies on a ‘pre-established code’. This code is what proves your right to the funds. So in essence, anyone who has this code in their possession is entitled to the funds connected to it. Anyone with the requisite recipient information can claim the funds as cash and vanish! This is the exact reason why so many scammers use Western Union as their payment method of choice. To my knowledge, the only known means of checking the identity of the person drawing the funds is to contact Western Union to see whether the branch had a CCTV record which could be passed to your local police department. This would require you to file a complaint first, and as the amounts are usually small, a lot of people simply don’t bother. It’s always worth it though, perhaps not to your own personal case but it could build up a picture of the scammer, if he pulls the same stunt on a lot of different people.

A Western Union transfer as I’ve described it sounds like a pretty horrible thing, but it isn’t. It’s great for the purpose which it has always been intended to serve. Worth noting however is that you should never, never, never use Western Union to send money to someone you’ve never met and isn’t directly related to.

Phishers adapt to the environment and current trends. Even the slightest speculation about a new World of Warcraft beta always spawn hundreds of phishing sites. As always, the quality of these sites vary. Some are hardly believable while others appear very real. Another scam related to beta opt-ins is the premature sale of beta keys.

Let’s make something completely sure: The Cataclysm expansion is no-where near release. Educated guesses indicate we’ll see an Alpha version in the first quarter of 2010. The Alpha is not open to the public and it is impossible to opt-in, regardless of what anyone tries to persuade you. Naturally, the Cataclysm Beta will be publicly available at some point and when it does, the word will come centrally from Blizzard.

To increase safety, I can recommend the Blizzard Authenticator. It comes in both a Mobile version and a physical version. An authenticator is worth every penny.

As usual, MMOwned delivers. Please find below an example of a fake Cataclysm Beta e-mail and also be sure to read my post on avoiding fake e-mails from Blizzard.

Q: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm – Closed Beta

A: Blizzard Entertainment would like to present to you the World of
Warcraft: Cataclysm Closed Beta!

If you are looking at this page, you are one of the special few who will
recieve FREE invites to the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Closed Beta.
You will be able to transfer one (1) of your current characters onto
our Closed Beta realm and embark on the epic journey against the
dreaded Deathwing!

All participants of the Closed Beta must confirm their account by
typing their account information at the link on the bottom of this
page, so that we can verify if you are currently a subscriber to
the World of Warcraft. An e-mail will be dispatched to you, providing
further information about the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Closed Beta.