When I teach people about finding gold, I often explain that it is helpful to think of any river or stream that carries gold as being something like a sluice box.

• How small should I crush my hard rock ore?

Data mining involves processing huge amounts of digital information to find hidden patterns and financial relationships. To executives, the findings are like gold, but on the weekends, I prefer seeing the real thing in the bottom of my pan.

Even though they have put down thousands of dollars, the buyers often stop paying on their claims part way through the process after they realize they’ve been duped, but the company just sells it again to another buyer.