If you are ethically opposed to fleecing the less abled of their savings, then you can take heart that you can make a tidy profit without getting your hands dirty.

The benefits of an XML approach to this kind of problem are endless. With faster development turnaround, a wide choice of tools on any platform and a self-describing format, these helpless victims can be stripped of the wealth they barely knew they had in half the time it takes traditional fraudsters.

The data itself can be acrued using legacy techniques, such as hanging around differently-abled sporting teams, or posing as the family member of a mentally defective person in order to gain the trust of their community.

But once you've compiled the necessary information on their bank accounts, credit cards, home addresses and level of disability, that data can be sent straight into the modern age.

There is currently a lack of XML schemas available for describing potential fraud victims. You may find the need to compose your own XSD, though of course reusing schemas from the insurance industry should be a suitable starting point. You will find a number of these available through OASIS and Microsoft's BizTalk.

In this information age, such data is at a premium. With gross profits of up to one hundred thousand dollars per end-victim, you can charge huge sums for the data you supply.

By providing your data through a subscriber-based web service, you can make it available to numerous faceless crime syndicates, criminal cartels, banks and insurance companies all over the world.

Scalability is what makes this form of racketeering so lucrative and interesting. Once you've enabled the fleecing of a number of these underpriveleged persons, you will find them to be in a state where, for a minimum of money, they are willing to provide you with fresh and valuable data about their ill-brained friends. Once a certain critical mass of victim/informers has been achieved, the business will practically run itself, giving you a veritable licence to print money.

I may not be able to write a new column for a few weeks, as I have just purchased a large brick of cocaine that I intend to mix with egg white and paint all over my body. But sooner or later I will return.

In the meantime, try to keep thinking of new and interesting ways to use XML.

Breast of luck

Danford.

Danford C Meridius is a guest columnist. His opinions are not those of the Secret Geek website. His advice is provided for satirical purposes and should not be followed.