Re: Researchers Track Down a Plague of Fake Web Pages

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Neil Schwartzman <neil () blackvine ca>
Date: March 20, 2007 7:14:08 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>, ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: [IP] Researchers Track Down a Plague of Fake Web Pages

At 7:02 AM -0400 on 3/20/07, David Farber wrote to a bunch of us,  
saying:
> 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.

there are plenty of spammers out there (remember, SEO spamming is  
relatively new, email spam has had an entire decade to develop into  
the plague it is. True, there are some alpha dogs, but there are  
countless associates, affiliates, proxies, and so on.

www.spamhau.org has a listing of the _known_ spamming organizations -  
now that the merge between spammers, phishers, spyware authors and  
virus-makers is well into its sixth year, I'd expect there are many  
higher up the foodchain whom we don't yet know.

Many spam investigations show some participants in these activities  
are linked to organized criminal gangs like the Russian mob and  
traditional Italian Mafia. They are not limited by the same  
constraints we on the other side of the fight are; competitive  
pressures, politics, politesse, vacations, staffing shortages ... and  
a failure on the part of many key individuals to understand and  
acknowledge the severity and depth of the problem.

The genie is out of the bottle, and I fear that even if we are able  
to decapitate the most active of spam gangs, there will be others to  
replace them in short order.

A social problem? Sure, but with technology that has facilitated the  
criminal ends. Only a combination of technological (and the techies  
have done much to make sure end-users don't see but 10% of the spam  
flung their direction), legal and political fixes will we be able to  
attenuate the problem of the criminal blended threat we are now  
enduring.

longer (much longer) rant here:

http://spamfighter666.blogspot.com/2006/12/trench-warfare-in-age-of- 
laser-guided.html
--
==
Neil Schwartzman
Blackvine Consulting G.P.
Email security, deliverability and policy
http://blackvine.ca

Canada: +1 (514) 485 9713
US: +1 (303) 800 6345
UK: +44 020 8144 6345
France: +33 0870 406 662
Skype: spamfighter666
Fax: +1 (419) 793 0430


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