Uncovering online fraud is our bread and butter, but we ran across an article in Information Week that forced us to admit that sometimes, a little fraud may be a small price to pay to preserve, well, priceless antiquities.

The Information Week article first came to our attention for citing a WebWatch report on online auction fraud we published last December. But what really piqued our interest were the comments of UCLA anthropologist Charles Stanish, who says his fears of eBay promoting the looting and selling of ancient artifacts online hadn't been realized. Instead, he explains, scam artists have realized it's far more profitable to hawk knock-offs on eBay than the real thing. Read the article.