gged way back in October. In an impressive Nostradamus act, EA SPORTS' preseason simulation accurately tabbed Vancouver to win the Presidents' Trophy before facing off with Boston for a chance to lift the Stanley Cup. In those initial predictions, the Canucks pulled through and won their first-ever Stanley Cup championship in a taut seven-game Final. This time around, with a chance to take a mulligan, EA isn't wavering.According to its latest predictions, the EA SPORTS NHL '11 Simulation Engine is sticking with the Canucks over Boston in what it expects to be a tight series that goes the distance. And that Presidents' Trophy? It factored in handily as the home team won each game, with one of the more thrilling moments an overtime win by the Bruins in Game 6 at TD Garden to force a decisive seventh game.In the end, that momentum won't be enough for the B's however, as EA SPORTS has the Canucks holding on in front of the Rogers Arena crowd with a 3-1 win in Game 7.If Vancouver winds up bringing the Cup back to Canada for the first time in 18 years, the people at EA SPORTS may want to begin investing in lottery tickets, but duplicating a 14-for-15 record would be an awfully tall order for 2012. For gamers who can't wait to see what kind of changes EA might make for next year's version of the game, which will be released in stores on Sept. 13, NHL '12 is already available for pre-order on XBOX 360 and Playstation 3 at the EA Store.For the cuAlthough most investigators and credit card fraud teams focus on minimizing cybercrime and identity theft activities launched through spam attacks, the California teams discovered a network of businesses that developed complex fulfillment systems to prevent chargebacks and to encourage repeat business.Under this model, a team of spammers could make more money over time selling many of the same goods to repeat customers than by simply selling credit card account details to fraud rings. Out of 56 completed transactions during the study, only seven of the team's orders failed to arrive.Though top rated credit cards already offer significant consumer protection, few customers feel compelled to file transaction disputes after packages arrive from fulfillment centers in India, China, and even the United States.Visa, MasterCard could team up to block spam fundingEfforts by the technical community to block consumers' access to potentially fraudulent websites have often been thwarted by a combination of hacker attacks and customer frustration. The researchers suggest that American credit card issuers could help curb the growth of spam-sending botnets by choking off the supply of cash to merchants on a "financial blacklist."The team suggested that a partnership between credit card platform providers like Visa and MasterCard could eliminate many spammers' financial incentives, just as a similar enforcement action closed off most Americans' access to illegal online gambling operation