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Fraud Fighter "Bobbear" To Close Up Shop

Posted by kdawson on from the one-of-the-good-guys dept.

Krebsonsecurity.com has a writeup on the decision of UK anti-fraud activist site bobbear.co.uk to retire from the fray. The 66-year-old fraud fighter said he was getting too old for the work, which takes him about 15 hours a day. "We had so many messages of thanks, and congratulations on the site, but it is so stressful and takes so much out of you, and there is always the worry of litigation hanging over your head." "The owner and curator of bobbear.co.uk, a site that specializes in exposing Internet fraud scams and phantom online companies, announced Saturday that he will be shuttering the site at the end of April. Bobbear and its companion site bobbear.com are creations of [the pseudonomous] Bob Harrison, a 66-year-old UK resident who for the last four years has tirelessly chronicled and exposed a myriad of fraud and scam Web sites. The sites, which are well-indexed by Google and other search engines and receive about 2,000 hits per day, often are among the first results returned in a search for the names of fly-by-night corporations advertised in spam and aimed at swindling the unsuspecting or duping the unwitting." Any ideas on who might want to take over the domains and carry on the work would be appreciated by the Internet community at large.

6 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Go wiki by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Any ideas on who might want to take over the domains and carry on the work would be appreciated by the Internet community at large.

    Turn it into a moderated wiki. Allow interested parties to post, and a queue of submissions from forwarded emails to be reviewed. Like the slashdot of the spam underworld. :|

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  2. How about the Government? by Bearhouse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any ideas on who might want to take over the domains and carry on the work would be appreciated

    If one man can be acknowledged by the cyber-community to make a difference, (and, in passing, hats off to him), imagine what Government could do with a well-financed team of, say, ten people?

    Cyber-crime costs a hugh, and increasing, amount of money, (see comments here on /. about the true cost of spam). Unfortunately, Governments do not seem to take it seriously enough. Maybe because it rarely hits to headlines, and so is perceived as less of an issue, (i.e. vote winner). Shame.

    1. Re:How about the Government? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      As many times its not that they are 'stupid'. It is that they are greedy. There are some out there that prey on people being nice. But I would be willing to bet 99% of the scams out there are people scamming on peoples greed. People seem to turn off their 'there is something wrong here' when large sums of money are involved and they could get some. People want to get rich quick with little effort.

      Now the ones who prey on someone who 'wants to help'. Well those are a different story. However I do need to ask if you are just turning over some sum of money to someone else what sort of accountability do you hold them to? If you are unwilling to make them go thru with what they said they will do or have no way to make them do it why do you give them money? It is why in many cases I do not even give to 'reputable' clearing houses such as united way. I give directly to the organization they would give the money too. The end organization gets more money and less hassle. 'but you can designate' give me a break it all ends up in some large pile of money with percentages going to different places plus some taken for 'overhead'... People who prey on my guilt are nothing more than salesmen using a sales technique that is well understood.

  3. How about Google by Herkum01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Since these sites keep turning up high in the search results, it would be to their benefit if there was someone to help cleanup the mess.

  4. If We Had Tort Reform... by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If we had lawsuit protection and a loser pays rule it would be a lot harder to threaten these sites with frivolous lawsuits. Especially if a judge ruled that you had to put up a bond to pay in the event you lost before you were allowed to file. You can argue the other way that this denies the poor justice, but the current system is crap to innocent defendants.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  5. Re:Google? by troll8901 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm pretty sure Google has an anti-fraud team behind the scenes.

    1. Search for, e.g., "Healthcare Payments Inc", and the first few search results link to anti-fraud pages (Bobbear). There's no link to the scam's website.

    2. Granted, it can do better with "Harper Logistic", but there's still no link to the scam's website.

    3. "This site may harm your computer."

    4. Red and grey page in Firefox, with a huge warning. (Thanks, Mozilla!)

    5. Others that we don't see.

    The efforts may mostly be done by other people (domain registries, browser developers, fighters like "Bob Harrison", etc.), but that doesn't mean Google doesn't do anything.