Near the end of the telephone call, the "victim" asked the scammer, who had identified himself as "Daniel" earlier, "How do you justify that you're stealing from people? When you wake up every morning, how do you feel knowing you're going to steal from people? Do you tell your mother what you're doing?"

At that point, the Amobius Group principal shut down his virtual machine that had been under the criminal's control.

The next -- and last -- comment from the scammer? "Are you a bloody ************?"

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at , or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Security Topic Center.