At the beginning of this year 2007, there was a major phishing operation directed at the customers of the inter-Scandinavian Nordea bank. The thieves got away with a sum equivalent to about 1 million US dollars. Because of the attack vector used (and of course to save face and for damage control purposes), Nordea was quick to claim that the attack was possible due to social engineering and that their security was not at fault. This is a false claim, and I shall explain why.
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Obtaining this loan is a bit demanding, but the beauty is you will never really be paying it back unless you want to. The downside is the continuous vigilance needed to keep the system going in the ideal case. Speaking of vigilance, can you spot the error in the logic?
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A friend asked comments about some websites he found, which promise to double your money deposit after you’ve joined them. The system works like this: you deposit N dollars to the site, and when new members join into the site, you can expect your payment to be doubled within some days.

The system in question seemed to be somekind of a variation of the snailmail pyramid schemes like chain letters, or a Ponzi scheme (named after Charles K. Ponzi), but in a different disguise. I decided to analyze the system a little bit as an intellectual diversion for that evening.
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