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Endangered Countries On The Internet
Vande writes "Balkanalysis.com has an article about Macedonia being driven towards internet extinction as a result of some blacklists, which also include Bulgaria and Romania. Namely, this poorly written quote from the 'export bureau' (non-gov org) states the reason for being blacklisted: 'Pay close attention to shipping or contact addresses located in countries with a high reported incidence of online fraud and many e-commerce web sites have found a high incidents of on-line fraud as well, such as Africa, Nigeria, Macedonia, Colombia, etc..' They must have lost the stats on fraud from Russia, Israel and the USA itself, because Macedonia's negligible internet population cannot possibly account for that much trouble. Cutting off an entire country only hurts the legitimate users. And I thought all this time I was surfing the 'World Wide' Web :/"
How nice, about time they got their own internet, they could call it FraudNet or ScamNet, and access to the real internet could be regulated by a border patrol or something.
I mean, I'd support the forcible removal of nations that cause trouble for the rest of us. That's the reason we went into Iraq. Prevent problems for the rest of the world.
Has anyone here spoken to anyone from Macedonia? Ever?
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
Make your own internet then. No one says you have to use ours. Add
The article seems to me at least to be little more than "blame everyone", it's the USA's fault, Israel's fault, Russia's fault, the political establishment's fault, that a non-governmental body has come to the opinion that Macedonia has an unreasonably high number of scammers running out of it compared to legitimate users. I for one would love to know what the hell the political lobby in the USA has to do with internet blacklists.
C'mon, really, slashdot is a news site, not "opinionated rant of the week", for that I read the comments, not the articles.
According to Macedonia resident Sam Vaknin, economist, author and internet expert, "...commercially compiled lists of 'dangerous countries' for internet scams, viruses, lotteries, etc. are being sold to ISPs and hosting companies... every day, I find another website has disappeared... last week it was an investment company related to Fidelity, yesterday a mental health website, today a radio program from the US."
While this appears to have been an entirely corporate initiative, political lobbying behind the scenes may also play a role.
"The fact that Russia and Israel- 2 epicenters of internet fraud and hacking on a global scale- 500 zillion trillion times bigger offenders than little Macedonia- are off the list is incredible," charges Vaknin. Yet these countries also have a much stronger political lobby within the United States than does the beleaguered Balkan state.
American ignorance of Macedonia (and the outside world in general) is revealed by this idiotic warning from the so-called "Bureau of Export Administration":
"...pay close attention to shipping or contact addresses located in countries with a high reported incidence of online fraud and many e-commerce web sites have found a high incidents of on-line fraud as well, such as Africa, Nigeria, Macedonia, Colombia, etc.."
Not only does this sentence violate grammar, it also transgresses geographical good sense (since when was 'Africa' a country?) and unfairly lumps Macedonia in with other, utterly different nations, quoting no specific sources to justify its inclusion in the list. And, despite its deceptive title and American-eagle background logo, the website (named "Exportbureau.com") is not governmental. Rather, this self-proclaimed "manufacturing and export information association" claims to be
"...a non profit organization [that] has been providing a completely free unbiased worldwide export manufacturing company directory to the worldwide public for the past 5 years since late 1998."
Or not...
On 19 March 2004, computer fraud was added to the Macedonian criminal code for the first time, in reaction to an initial (and relatively minor) upsurge of email lottery fraud and (non-internet) identity theft.
The first known case of identity theft in Macedonia occurred last year when a couple of young men, in affiliation with a foreign partner supplying plastic cards with magnetic strips, were able to knock off a few ATMs. However, the police soon put an end to this amateurish scheme, which succeeded in taking only 12,000 euros-peanuts in comparison to the $1.5 million snatched from New York ATMs by the Russian mafia in one case last year, or the Israeli mafia's multi-national ATM-milking efforts in 2002.
Moreover, Macedonia has a very low rate of general internet use. Leading Macedonian information technology site Metamorphosis rec
Or you ran out of pets to eat and need something to sell to buy a new breeder.
Then get out. Simple problem, simple solution.
If only people knew more history, they woult not call this country Macedonia.
For the love of God! This is a Slavic people that move to the land that once belonged to Macedonia, and appropriated the history and cultore of Macedonia.
They don't know Greek (not even greek based language) they don't have Greek names, they are not related to Macedonia in no other way, except occupying formerly Macedonian ground.
What is even worse is that they are trying to explain Macedonian history in Slavic terms (as if the ancient Macedonians of Alexander were Slavs).
We have in front of us the biggest effort to falsify history. One that would make George Orwell very pround.
The only reason most people still know it as Macedonia is because that they don't care enough to find out.
But please note that the US Goverment officialy refers to "macedonia" as FYROM, which is a temporary name enforced by he UN until thre can be a final resolution.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
I don't normally reply to anonymous cowards, but here it is.
What are you talking about? This is not a problem of naming convention. It is a _real_ problem of naming and the history and culture tha accompanies it.
That would be the equivalent of having some chinese folks settle next to a region what used to belong to the US, and after some years they claim that George Washington was chinese or something.
But i would LOVE to be exlained this.
The Macedonians (eg with Macedonia.org) claim that Alexander the Great was a Slav.
And not only Greek but a Greek dialect unique to Macedonian territory (very common practice in Greece. Many dialects, even today). I am mentioning the dialect because it rules out the "Greek was popular so he also spoke Greek" explanation.
If hat was the case, he would speak a common dialect and not somethign unique to Macedonians.
FYROM has appropirated the Name and culture of Macedonia, and the rest of the world live in bliss not knowing history.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
we cannot have scams and fraud from third world countries clog up the Internet. If a certain percentage of their population is causing the scams and frauds, then by all means blacklist them. After all, if they are not able to Police themselves and put the fraudsters in jail, then something has to be done to stop them.
If they don't like it, they can form their own Internet, or move to a country that does not suffer from such fraud and scams. We are not in the Global Welfare business of supporting poor nations that have to rely on scams and fraud to earn an income.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Dear fellow Slashdotters,
Please be informed that there is no Macedonia country. There is not a Macedonia nation, a Macedonian language or Macedonian race.
The country that you refer to as Macedonia is actually named FYROM.
Macedonia is the name of the region that the Great Alexander was born at.
The Macedonians was a Greek race.
The name 'Alexander' is Greek (Alexandros).
The ancient Macedonians spoke Greek.
Macedonia is a region of Greece.
Excuse me for protesting here on Slashdot, but it is a good chance to know that the former Yugoslavians and Albanians have ACTUALLY STOLLEN the historic identity of Macedonia.
Before you say 'politically correctness', try to understand how painful it is to stole one's identity. It is the same as me coming to your neighbourhood, stealing your name (first and last) and claiming to be the sole descentant of your family tree.
Before you say that every person or group of persons can identify themselves as they like, think that one's freedom ends where another one's freedom begins. Everyone has the right to identify themselves as they like, but they can't just go around and steal other people's identity!
Imagine if I was rich enough to buy a huge farm near the American border, claim that my farm constitutes a country, write my own constitution, establish my own government and call it AMERICA! Not only you will be outraged, but in no time your army would take it over...
The only reason these former Yugoslavians call themselves 'Macedonians' is that they want to justify their existence as a separate country. Before Tito, no one called them like that, not even themselves. Tito, as a devious communist leader that he was, named the South of Yugoslavia as part of ancient Macedonia, in order to create trouble in the neighbourhood and obtain access to the Mediterranean sea!
I will not put any links that back up my claims, because the internet is full of such material. Just go to Google and enter the relevant terms (Macedonia, Greece, Alexander etc) and you will see for yourself.
A simple reformulation to help characterize the quality of the argument used by the article writer:
"Aside from that, there is always the argument for ineptitude. If someone is stupid enough to walk down the street their ass can be raped every time they go grocery shopping. Then they probably deserve to be stripped of their virginity. So why should Gangsta's right to walk free go the way of the dodo just because some 11 year old children don't like getting raped?"
"Vande" better hope I don't run across his/her mom on the street, because according to him the above is a valid argument to justify any sort of crime.
Maybe if those bloody neo-third-world shit-holes weren't run by organized crime gangs, they wouldn't have the problem of being blacklisted.
Bah.
Clean up your third-world-shithole of a country and you'll get off my list.
My intention is to hurt your economy and users like you. That's half of what those lists are for; protecting one's own services and servers AND causing deliberate collateral damage.
Whether you choose to sit there and whine, or clean up the place is up to you. Either way, Romanians won't be allowed to behave badly on my servers.