Researchers Track Down a Plague of Fake Web Pages

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Date: March 19, 2007 7:41:51 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Researchers Track Down a Plague of Fake Web Pages

This is consistent with my sense that much of the problem is due to  
alpha sources. As the article goes on to observe this doesn’t mean a  
complete solution but we need to be careful about naively assuming  
that there are a million spammers. I read that more spam is getting  
through because they are using images yet it seems as if 100% of  
these are essentially identical pushing identical stocks at the same  
time – they are just not identical to screening programs. It is  
surprising – people are supposedly good at finding patterns yet they  
seem to miss the most obvious when setting policies and deploying  
enforcement resources.



The effort to block port 25 may help a little but it seems to make  
more sense to go at the root of the problem at the social level – we  
may use technology to do so but ultimately it’s a social problem.



Researchers Track Down a Plague of Fake Web Pages

By JOHN MARKOFF

Published: March 19, 2007

Tens of thousands of junk Web pages, created only to lure search- 
engine users to advertisements, are proliferating like billboards  
strung along freeways. Now Microsoft researchers say they have traced  
the companies and techniques behind them.

A technical paper published by the researchers says the links  
promoting such pages are generated by a small group of shadowy  
operators apparently with the acquiescence of some major advertisers,  
Web page hosts and advertising syndicators. The report is available  
at www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~hchen/paper/www07.pdf

The finding is striking because it hints at the possibility of  
curbing the practice.

The researchers uncovered a complex scheme in which a small group,  
creating false doorway pages, works with operators of Web-based  
computers who profit by redirecting traffic passed from search  
engines in one direction and then sending advertisements acquired  
from syndicators in the opposite direction.

“A small number of rogue actors who know what they are doing can  
create an enormous amount of disruption,” said David L. Sifry, chief  
executive of Technorati, a blog-indexing company that works to keep  
junk pages of this sort out of its indexes. “It’s sort of like  
putting a blindfold on you and spinning you around three times and  
then taking off the blindfold and showing you an ad.”





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