Re: Researchers Track Down a Plague of Fake Web Pages

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Date: March 21, 2007 12:49:50 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Researchers Track Down a Plague of Fake Web Pages

Neil Schwartzman's paragraph:
> 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.
is one of those interesting rhetorical passages that constructs an  
argument without ever grounding it "in the real".

"some participants are linked to organized criminal gangs like the  
Russian mob and traditional Italian Mafia" -
aside from bringing national stereotypes into the discussion, one  
might ask if there is any basis for this statement.   The traditional  
Italian Mafia does not seem to exist anymore.   There are still  
criminal organizations - but they are as likely to be people with  
last names like mine as to be "Soprano" or "Zhukov".   And then there  
is the question of "how many participants are linked" anyway.   I  
guess one or two would meet the standard of those who claim that  
Saddam is connected to 9/11 because some guy from al Qaeda stayed in  
northern Iraq for a week.

It's clear that spam makes money, and in lots of cases is criminal,  
but merely sending lots of email doesn't seem to be in the same class  
as becoming a "made man".

"competitive pressures" according to those who study economics do not  
*restrain* people from doing things.   In fact they drive creativity  
to new heights, if we are to believe Milton Friedman, etc.

politics, politesse, vacations, staffing shortages - gee, are  
spammers superhuman and incredibly well organized so they don't need  
sleep and so forth?   So 50% of normal human beings effort is  
diverted to sleeping.   Assuming spammers are human, they sleep  
too.   Of course if spammers are evildoers, super-horror-movie  
horrors, and the devil incarnate rolled into one, well then we need  
to seek better methods so that the merely human among us can have an  
impact on spam.   We need Jack Bauer to torture, kill, murder, etc.  
because this is a job for the baddest evilest good guy, and we need  
to punish ALL the lazy customers who don't find spam as evil as Jack  
does.

In fact, why not bring back the pure hate that inspired Goebbels,  
Hitler, etc. because spam is obviously a threat to the Vaterland uber  
alles.

I mean, spam is really, really the spawn of the devil.





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