[LINK] astroturfing

[Jan Whitaker]

New kinds of dark forces are being unleashed online

Gareth Cook
January 9, 2012 - 6:46AM

Until now, the story of the internet wars has been a tale of 
escalating software. Shadowy criminals (or bored teenagers) design 
code that infects a computer, or spits out spam, or steals credit 
card numbers. They get better and better.

Our protectors, meanwhile, struggle to keep up, designing programs 
that build protective walls around our computers, and filter the 
lottery notifications and Nigerian petroleum appeals from our inbox.

But the crucial ingredient of a novel form of attack, recently 
detailed by computer scientists in California, is not software, but 
people. Growing numbers of mercenaries are being hired to help twist 
the landscape of social media - to write rave reviews of products, 
post convincing spam, set up accounts on social networks, or perform 
other tasks.

This gives their employers new ways to do everything from legally 
questionable marketing to outright theft.

China appears to be the epicentre of this new black market, which is 
running to the millions there annually, but it has also arrived on 
American shores, according to Ben Zhao, an associate professor at the 
University of California, Santa Barbara, whose detective work has 
shed light on what is happening.

What Zhao and his team have found is darkly fascinating. It's a 
reminder of the forces being unleashed as the world, with its massive 
economic disparities, is connected by the internet.

It also serves as a warning. As we hurdle headlong into a world 
shaped by social media, profits and power will accrue to those who 
know how to play the puppet master.

Zhao tells me he gained his first look into this world while doing 
research on RenRen, a Chinese version of Facebook. RenRen provided 
him with a large set of accounts it had shut down for abuse, such as 
spreading spam or viruses.

As Zhao and his graduate students looked through the blocked RenRen 
profiles, though, they found that many looked quite convincing, 
nothing like the usual computer-generated nonsense.

People just glancing at one of the profiles would probably think it 
came from a real person; they might read the opinions, and perhaps 
click on a link or two.

''They looked too real,'' said Zhao, ''to be machine generated.''

The accounts were the product of what Zhao has dubbed 
''crowdturfing'' - a combination of ''astroturfing'' and 
''crowdsourcing''. Astroturfing is an older term that refers to fake 
grassroots efforts, such as secretly paying people to send notes to 
their senator in favour of a bill.

Crowdsourcing is outsourcing to a crowd - a form of mass 
collaboration in which someone puts out a public request for help 
with a large number of well-defined tasks.

Combine the two and you get websites such as one called Zhubajie in 
China, which publishes offers for work like singing the praises of a 
particular dress on social media.

The pay for each of these jobs is measured in pennies, but Zhao says 
there are some people earning several thousand dollars a year, a 
living in China. And the activity is growing quickly. Zhao's computer 
surveillance found about 100 crowdturfing campaigns advertised a 
month on Zhubajie in 2007, and recently it was nearly 10,000.

Crowdturfing operations are starting up in India, where there are 
plenty of people with English skills, and the lack of economic 
opportunities, to make working in American social media practical.

The rise of this new technique means that any web service with user 
accounts - from eBay to Twitter - can be readily invaded in large numbers.

It will also make it easier for criminals to spread malicious 
software. Being on Facebook or Twitter can lull you into complacency. 
You have a sense that you are among friends. But one of your new 
friends could be a teen on another continent, working for pennies in 
the hope that you'll make one false click.

Gareth Cook is a columnist with The Boston Globe.


This story was found at: 
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/new-kinds-of-dark-forces-are-being-unleashed-online-20120108-1pq2f.html 




Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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