Slashdot Mirror
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 much? Negative how much you mean. They have their own country. Buy from shops there. What? No shops? I wonder why.
Seeing as every spam artiste has relayed through them, it appears your standing in the WTO has more to do with your access than any other criteria.
Russian Americans and Jewish Americans are the top 2 nations represented in the dominant influences on the United States if you take "influence" to mean the variance that can be explained in other demographic variables by one demographic variable.
The interesting thing from the fraud standpoint is that the top demographic influence is HIV positive tests per capita.
Seastead this.
There's a couple of issues here:
For one (admittedly, minor), not every company needs to permit access on a global basis to it's network. For instance, an e-commerce company located in New York might only be interested in selling to U.S. customers. Because of the complicated export rules, difficult credit card security measures and more, this company may be interested in only serving the customers of a particular geographic location. For what reason then, would they want to allow access beyond a particular segment of the internet?
There is another aspect to this, however, and it relates to the inability of the internet community to catch up with the phenomenon that it unwittingly created. There are problems in the following areas that have an adverse effect on the internet and ecommerce in general:
* Credit Card / Banking Security
For the last seven years, despite being aware of the security problems and despite losing in excess of USD 100 BILLION (in the last seven years) due to credit card and bank account fraud, the banking industry and the internet community STILL has not fixed the problems with security in this area. Consider this: $100 BILLION dollars would have been more than enough to hire experts, have those experts revamp the entire system and provide FREE security devices (whatever that may be) to all the people of the system and furthering internet security. Instead, the banking industry and the internet community has allowed $100 BILLION dollars to be lost...possibly to terrorists.
* "SPAM"
Despite being aware of the spam problem, all the major companies, as well as many of the "open-source" companies have been slow to respond to combatting the problem. Only recently has one minor "open standard" alternative been made available: SPF. There are several commercial altneratives that really don't work very well, such as "Cloudmark". But the real problem remains: Verification of Sender Identity and Verification of Message Authenticity. It's amazing that one can still send mail as billg@microsoft.com, sign up at websites using that email address and more. There is no "Internet ID" for individuals to "carry" that would allow simple verification of one's identity. Think of it this way, I can go to Starbucks and try to buy a $4.95 latte and I am carded, but I go online and buy a $300 Ebay item and there is no real verification of my identity. None. CVV2 doesn't do squat. Anyone can enter the entire MICR line without the banks doing any verification at all. This is why billions are lost every year. And how does the internet community respond? They don't.
I might point out that a mechanism for fixing this is already in place. The RFC system provides a mechanism for communities of people to come together and to invent, develop and distribute comprehensive standards that can then be adopted by the entire internet community. If the internet community would spend time working up a solution using the mechanism that is already there, instead of whining about them or just plain pointing it out and then expecting someone else to fix it, then we would be living in a secure world today.
Think of it this way: It's our internet. YOU are in part responsible for the security of the internet. Collectively, we decide what standards are allowed on the internet. If we don't like DRM, then we should develop a protocol that bans DRM and make it so that Apache and IIS cannot serve DRM-enabled content. If we like more security on our credit cards, then we should create an RFC and build it into Apache and every other web server. If we want Spam to end, we should devise a protocol through the RFC process that is incorporated into Sendmail, MDaemon and every other product.
We netzins can vote with our mouseclicks which products we favor over other products. If we don't like a DRM-enabled webserver, then we put up one that doesn't allow DRM content. If we don't like a DRM-enabled music browser, then we can use a web-browser that doesn't allow DRM content.
Just add {In Space!} to anything.
So block it out. What the heck do I care about news or opinions from Africa or China or Macedonia? They can call me on the phone if they need me -and if they have my cell phone number.
Vote Quimby!
Tell your politicians that they're losing international revenue because their ISPs and phone companies are too stupid, corrupt, or otherwise unwilling or unable to deal with spammers.
I have seveal countries blocked at the SMTP level not because I want to, but because I can't afford the excess bandwidth charges I get from trying to accept and spamfilter mail from them on a case-by-case basis.
I can't block the US, but I've been able to keep US-originated spam down to a nightmare cacophany rather than an expensive nightmare cacophany by blocking dialup, cable, and DSL.
It sucks, but it's what I have to do. I simply can't afford to accept this traffic.
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.
:/"
Why, Macedonian criminals aren't up to snuff with their Russian counterparts? We are talking about FRAUD, not legitimate purchases, so what makes you think the population significantly limits the scale?
Cutting off an entire country only hurts the legitimate users. And I thought all this time I was surfing the 'World Wide' Web
Really? It sure seems to me that cutting off an entire country where an enormous percentage of the transactions are fraudulent helps most of us, by keeping prices low.
Or do you think I should be forced to pay more because some guy in a country that isn't willing to enforce the law has a "right" (sic) to buy online?
If Macedonians don't like it, they need to change their government and crack down on fraud. Pretty simple stuff.
What the article doesn't tell you is the number of fraud incidents online, or the volume of spam. It does link to the recommendations made by a site, but it doesn't go in depth to explain why those recommendations were made.
This article, typical of a lot of editorial drivel these days, bemoans blacklisting without bringing up relevant facts or any theory for solution.
Macedonia has made a few laws. Good for them. How about arrests and convictions? The article also complains about the small number of users in Macedonia... 90K. And then it complains about the political situation that allow hackers/spammers/con artists in Russia or Israel to go unpunished. Big deal. Maybe the hackers will all end up in Russia, and then the blacklists will shrink? And as far as numbers go, if the volume of spam is high, or the volume of fraud is high, then the problem is worse in Macedonia than it is in Russia or Israel. But they don't mention any numbers, so we'll never know if that's true.
The bias here is typical. Cry for the little people. Complain, cry, moan. Poor Macedonians. Maybe the Macedonians need to step into the 21st century? Maybe, in addtion to making a new law or two, they need to go the next step? I love editorials that offer a solution. But this isn't one of them. Anyone can write complaints.
How about writing about ideas for a real solution?
-- No sig for you!