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Phishing Is a Minimum-Wage Job
rohitm918 writes "A study by Microsoft Research concludes that phishers make very little (PDF): '...low-skill jobs pay like low-skill jobs, whether the activity is legal or not.' They also find that the Gartner numbers that everyone quotes ($3.2B/year etc) are rubbish, off by a factor of 50. 'Even though it harvests "free money," phishing generates total revenue equal to the total costs incurred by the actors. Each participant earns, on average, only as much as he would have made in the opportunities he gave up elsewhere. As the total phishing effort increases the total phishing revenue declines: the harder individual phishers try the worse their collective situation gets. As a consequence, increasing effort is a sign of failure rather than of success.'"
I always wondered what the remaining 5% of computer science majors did, who didn't end up working minimum wage jobs at McBurger Queen...
Minimum wage in the US perhaps but when the phishers live in a country with a higher exchange rate. They can be making considerably more than minimum wage in their own country. Infact I bet you could work and also do some phishing on the side (just like granddad use to do).
Everyone knows that if you overphish a stream, there's no phish left for everyone else. Its a classic case of resource depletion!
Damn, and I had just planned to enter the phishing business for a quick buck..
Do you D?
I mean for one thing, a lot of crime really doesn't pay well. Sometimes even less than a minimum wage job. I remember a few years ago there was a problem of newspaper machines getting broken in to and the change stolen. They finally caught the guy and estimated he'd been making well less than minimum wage. It wasn't a trivial job to get in them and it isn't as though a ton of papers are sold from those. While there certainly are criminals who make bank (like drug lords) often you'll find that really criminals would do just as well to get honest work.
Another thing is that you are talking about something where your success rate is very low, and even when you do have a success in terms of getting info, you don't necessarily get anything with it. Just because you steal someone's account and try to use it, doesn't mean it works. For example I had my credit card stolen. Wasn't a phishing scam, just someone that had got a hold of the number, but either way they had it. As soon as they tried to order something, I noticed. I had the card disabled, the merchant stopped shipment on the goods, and so on. The thief didn't get squat. So even though they were successful in getting my card, they weren't successful in getting anything with it.
So all in all ti doesn't surprise me that phishing is a low paying job. You aren't going to get many bites, some of the ones you DO get will be fake (I love filling out phishing forms with fake data), and even when you do get legit info, you might not get to use it.
So basically there are too many people trying to exploit a limited pool of suckers to make the endeavor profitable. So sad. However, I have a solution, check out my site at http://www.h0wtoph1sh.com.
Trey Anastasio seems to have made a pretty good living at it.
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
...and neither does farming!
(slogan I saw on a baseball cap as a kid, maybe 25 years ago. One of my grandpa's buddies was wearing it.)
Just send me your bank details and I'll compare our earnings.
If you read their paper.
Also it is even worse, when you get down to it: People (contrary to evidence some times) have the capacity to learn. As phishing becomes a bigger problem, there's more news on it, more efforts to educate people about it and so on. So the pool of candidates shrinks. Likewise some companies start implementing technologies that make it hard/impossible to do (Paypal has a secure ID token you can get now for example).
So it isn't just a case of depleting the pool of dollars belonging to the people who can get phished, it is also a case of less people being available to be phished. While you'll certainly never educate everyone, I'd say awareness of phishing is much higher these days and many more people take care to protect their information.
Yes, you have the first post, but edit your hosts file to point slashdot.org to 69.16.232.239, then log in with your username and password and comment for yet another first post! I promise it'll be worth your while, just like your twitter is!
And in case your browser does not stop you, do NOT actually log in to the access-login page above, unless you drool and make funny noises. And the IP used for the hosts file joke was random and does not VHost-phish slashdot.org. Disclaimers suck, don't they?
Phishers don't make squat. Right. Because obviously it's not as profitable as working at the local oil change shop, or at Wally World.
I'd like to see 419 examples of how Nigerian scammers don't make money.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
You have the choice:
1. earn minimum wage at McDonalds
2. earn less than minimum wage selling drugs
Which do you choose? Selling drugs of course. Why? Cause you've got respect for yourself and refuse to work a demeaning job.
Before you object, whether or not you agree that working at McDonalds is demeaning is irrelevant. Many, many, many women have been given the choice:
1. work as a stripper
2. work as a waitress
and decided that working as a waitress is less demeaning than working as a stripper. You may disagree with that, also but that's also irrelevant. The facts are that you can make a lot more money working as a stripper than as a waitress, and yet so many people choose not to.
The economically rational human is a myth.
How we know is more important than what we know.
They'd do better with a real job.
lol, just kidding
Why does the security industry have such a problem with it?
If phishing was a no talent game, there would be better detection methods built into web browsers to deal with it.
Phishing is always going to work. There are tons of stupid people out there, and even more that are intoxicated or high on something. Either way, its easy pickings.
Nah... they just wanna demoralize the phishers so they'll give up and beg Microsoft to hire them for the $10 an hour they now know they're worth.
How come Microsoft people are using Latex? The PDF from article is produced using tex (dvipdfm).
Perhaps open source is welcome even in Redmond.
And thus being a perfect master of all questions of human economic activity(except for currency related theory, which is why I'm just going to parrot gold-standard talking points until we get to that chapter next semester in Econ 102) I have a solution!
Clearly, since phishing shows the classic signs of being a tragedy of the commons(if I were serious, I would put a patronizing link to the wikipedia article I had read just moments before in this spot) we must divide up the world's computer using idiots and make individual blocks of them the property of particular phishers, thus aligning incentives and ensuring optimal exploitation of the Lusers. I call all AOL usernames that start with "a"!
Stats compiled by a company running Excell and built Windows vs. the idiots of Gartner. To be honest, I am going to guess they are both way off.
The only ones who made any real money were the ones who bought in early; the vast majority of Amway reps break even at best.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
I don't think so.
I would expect that dollars phished would rather rapidly find their way back into phishable accounts. Every time a phisher uses phished money to buy something, say, a TV, that money eventually reaches common workers who put the money back into phishable accounts. The only way the pool of phishable money is decreased is when a phisher holds onto the money indefinitely.
It's the same philosophy as the money-multiplier effect in banking institutions.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_promises_to_stop_americas
I work in Criminology and know that studies that focus on drug dealers show that they make far less than what most people imagine. Instead, many are in it because they need to add to their existing, legitimate, source of income or because they are attracted to the lifestyle. Its very possible that many phishers are tolerant of the low income simply because they enjoy living the lifestyle. Anyone interested in looking into the other possible links might want to read this.
Make everyone happy.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I mean for one thing, a lot of crime really doesn't pay well. Sometimes even less than a minimum wage job.
Steven D. Levitt addresses this in his book, Freakonomics. Chapter 3 is titled Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?
Breakfast served all day!
Wait... now how in the hell is it possible for an enterprise to survive if it doesn't earn its actors any kind of profit?
This reminds me of the Freakonomics book's chapter on crack dealing. It states that most crack dealers would actually be making more money doing something else, but they still do it because (if i remember correctly) its what their neighborhood does.
Now how does that map to electronic thievery, i have no idea.
NO SIG
They make some assumptions that simply aren't true. They seem to imply that there is no barrier to entry. That there is neither a technical barrier nor a moral one and that there will simply be as many phishers as there can be until the money drops below minimum wage.
On the analogy of drugs that some have suggested there are two completely different kinds of drug dealers; those that get high off their own supply and those that don't. Those that don't tend to make pretty good money. I've known more than one who put themselves through school dealing drugs.
Every person places a different value on the same thing. If the difference in pay in X dollars per week, and girl A values her self-respect at X + 100 dollars, it would be irrational for her to strip instead of waiting tables (assuming other values are the same). If girl B values it at X - 200 dollars a week, it wouldn't make sense for her not to strip.
Just because you would make a choice differently doesn't mean they're not participating in the choice.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I always thought that spammers were all scamming each other more than the rest of us. It must be a very sad world.
For instance, some football players make a lot of money, so families, schools, colleges spend huge amounts of money to get people a position where they can make this money. In fact, even if one only considers colleges that are regularly recruited, the expectation value of income for these players are minimum wage. Of course, they can make money if they have others degress or skills, but the expectation if the rely on the game is very small.
As mentioned, many people prefer a small income with criminal activity rather than an honest, if perhaps uncomfortable job. People also prefer jobs they think they can have fun with to jobs where they actually have to put a honest days work.
We see this with the Madoff case, where it is better to be rich and work at a dishonorable profession than honorable and not so well off. Why would Madoff, or his criminal kids, be more respected than a person who is on time and does a good job at McDonalds?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This is speculation, but my (big fat) gut tells me that while this might be true in general, there's probably at least one person at the top of a major phishing scheme making decent money.
Sure, the peons (as in any industry) who do the actual labor get paid crud, my guess is that Upper Management does just fine. Sure, unskilled labor gets the market rate for such.
and I'd have to imagine that wow gold farming is less-than-US minimum wage as well. along with all kinds of other jobs both legal and illegal. While it may be less than US minimum wage, it might be a pretty good deal in the country of origin.
Minimum wage her is lots for the phishing schools in Nigeria.
Fight Spammers!
Why on earth would anyone ever want to work at a job that pays equal too or less than McDonalds, but with the added benefit of having less prestige?
Not to mention that you'll get pity from a McDonalds gig instead of a severe beating if you for some reason have too divulge what you work with.
whatever do you, not phish. low pay. do not phish.
illegal. Be doctors, lawyers and such.
Well everyone knows that IDS is dead!
I ran host on that IP, and it belongs to zeldauniverse.net -- so, its probably more fun than you meant it to be.
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Lansing Michigan? God I couldn't get out of that town fast enough. Took me 10 years. I blame I-69 and I-96. Who can fucking figure that out? It's so confusing.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
a study put out by micro$oft says that a crime that mostly targets micro$oft software shows that, contrary to popular belief, that its not profitable. that is a SHOCK. wow, if i was a phishing publisher i would take micro$oft's advice and just shut down, because hey...they say it isnt profitable. Now i wonder if you apply the micro$oft saying of "As a consequence, increasing effort is a sign of failure rather than of success." quote to...oh...lets say....windows vista. interesting....is there a pot calling a kettle black
I always say if these people are so damn skilled that they can figure out ingenious ways to illegally gain illegal gains, then why don't they put those incredible skills into something legitimate and make billions? Instead they do illegal things and take the risk of ending up inside the slammer. Some people are just so shortsighted.
I ran host on that IP, and it belongs to zeldauniverse.net -- so, its probably more fun than you meant it to be.
Only on slashdot would you get people who run random IPs listed in threads just to see where they point to, and then make a funny comment about where it leads them to. I loves it.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
You fail at phishing. That IP address doesn't even look at all like /.!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Increasing effort is a sign of failure, according to the summary.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
They are assuming the time spent on phishing grows. However a good phisher can setup a method which requires very little human interaction. Thus getting money for free. If you do things right in the first place you don't have to spend the time later.
I-96'd yours.
Sure the rate of return might be low and you consider it 'not worth it' when compared to a minimum wage job... But the criminal activity has some things going for it.
No costs. Usually.
No asshole boss.
Can work whatever hours you want. And do as much as you want.
Hell. right there. no asshole boss. thats worth alot.
cap:pardoned
actually, that happens alot on b3ta.com, but mainly to 213.52.224.79
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Fortunately you don't see nearly as many Goatse, MeatSpin or Twinks links as you used to
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Sorry the only reason such a job is demeaning to many people is because they have an exaggerated estimate of their own worth.
Look, when push comes to shove, when your children need to be fed, there is no job demeaning in THEIR eyes.
To be up front, I have more respect for the men and women at McDonalds than I have for the majority of government employees, especially elected officials. The fact that some people see those jobs as demeaning only shows that society has its values screwed up.
Work is better than no work, and illegal anything is never work. Its just an excuse to cover a fragile ego. That same ego is probably the whole reason they cannot do better. You cannot improve until your willing to accept where you are.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The only ones who made any real money were the ones who bought in early; the vast majority of Amway reps break even at best.
The vast majority of any commission only sales reps break even at best. What is it, about 9/10 businesses fail in the first 5 years? Here's the reality, most people are conditioned to employment and have lousy sales ability. A business that relies completely on individual sales success where you go out and "learn the trade" without anyone organising the work for you and paying you a wage just isn't going to work for most people. That's not necessarily a fault in the business model.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
What's wrong with Lansing, I've lived there for about 3 or 4 months and have found nothing terribly wrong with it.
If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
Where fishers make more then phishers.
Wasnt technology supposed to be the future?
...and some of us are programmers :)
Poor phishers
I'll tell you what's wrong. The Sparty statue has no anus.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
And some of them are really good! :)
Its just that we are discussing this particular angle, not that any of us (certaintly not me: my mother has a masters degree in Political Science!), think that women are either strippers or waitresses.
Having said this, cut the average slashdotter some slack: for most of us, the only women we will ever fantasize about are waitresses and strippers.
NO SIG
Well I got modded down for my sarcastic comment, But really it was to point out
what a terrible example it was. Whooshes for all of you mods.
music lover since 1969
So your saying rather than hoping to get bill gates credit card number I should just buy a lottery ticket?
Isn't it curios that Microsoft publishes the results of a study and it appears almost everyone accepts the results? Now how would Microsoft gain this insight unless somehow they were behind this activity?
Regardless of which side of the arguement you're on, this isn't what the theory of economic rationality states. Unless one is making a strawman out of the arguement, it's not just about money.
Again, you're entirely focused on money, which isn't what rationality theory is about. It's about overall value for a transaction. Even if that's expressed in a dollar value, that's not just about the number of bills that change hands.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Worry not: slashdot internal moderators SUCK BEYOND BELEIF
NO SIG
Fortunately you don't see nearly as many Goatse, MeatSpin or Twinks links as you used to
citation needed
I'm surprised by how many slashdotters are taking this report as gospel. I completely agree with the propaganda... This is a great headline soundbite to lodge in the collective media conscience, but frankly, I think it's BS