A major focus of the website is to warn business school students of the consequences of sneaky behavior.
"The emphasis in business schools is more and more on teaching ethics," said Rock, who funds a namesake Harvard Business School entrepreneurship program. "But there's not only the carrot, there's also the stick, which the schools don't talk about much."
The site includes a Web page called "Art of the Con," which examines the patterns of scams, as well as a "Con Watch" blog. There's also "The Con Timeline," which shows cons clustered around noteworthy periods in the stock market's history.
Hellman said he and Rock had been fascinated with the subject of con artists for years, marveling at the magnitude of scams that were "so amazingly clever" and wondering how to stop them from happening in the future.
Though Hellman and Rock plan to add more profiles, they hope the website helps prevent scammers before they end up joining Madoff in the slammer.
"If these guys had devoted their energies to useful things, the world could be a lot better off," Rock said.
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tiffany.hsu@latimes.com
