Endangered Countries On The Internet 475
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 :/"
the net... (Score:2, Insightful)
How do you spell Hypocrisy? (Score:4, Insightful)
In conclusion, if you must blacklist a country, you should start for these 3.
Re:easy work around (Score:5, Insightful)
Brilliant. That's mentioned in the article, of course. But what the outcome is that any fraudsters can continue (though no evidence was offered of such), but the average home user will be stymied.
Maybe it's time for an update? (Score:1, Insightful)
WWWW - Western World Wide Web
We could descriminate even further and make that:
WWWWW - White Western World Wide Web
They don't call it the 3rd world for nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether it be a nigerian 419 scam, or a scam escrow service, these kinds of operations exist because law enforcement in these places is on the take. It isn't just the scammers that are screwing you, its the police as well because they're getting a cut of the loot.
The issue is one of law enforcement (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, the USA might account for a lot of fraud because of the sheer Internet population here, but at least criminals here have at least some fear of getting prosecuted and thrown in jail. If a country doesn't enforce the law (or there isn't one there to enforce), then the entire country might as well be waging war on my servers.
Much easier work around (Score:1, Insightful)
-> Get a workable leagal system and enforce laws
Works for:
UK
Canada
France
Australia
New Zealand
USA
hmmm...lots of former British colonies there...
A bit one-sided (Score:5, Insightful)
What they're missing is that it's probably the ratio of fraudulent order volume to total order volume. It seems that the blacklisters are accusing Macedonia of too high a ratio of fraud.
These complainers are failing to see the merchant's viewpoint. Fraud can really bite into profits. If I were starting an e-commerce business, I wouldn't ship to any questionable countries. Sorry to hurt anyone's feelings, but it doesn't make business sense.
Sound like Macedonia needs to start catching and prosecuting the fraudsters, then publicize this fact to the e-commerce merchants.
You must be new here (Score:5, Insightful)
Whilst written from a personal perspective, the article raises valid issues. Some anti-spam RBLs just blacklist entire countries like Korea and China. See this here [whirlycott.com] for more about that.
The difference is now it isn't just affecting email, but other parts of the web as well. It doesn't make living in one of these countries any easier, does it. If this article is to be believed, it seems that many admins have been quick to blacklist eg. macedonia perhaps because they are small and "not worth the risk" rather than actually being a source of trouble.
So, we're now excluding minorities on the so-called World-Wide-Web. Sure, it's an opiniated observation, but an observation that I'm glad to have encountered. I'm glad this article ran, I got something out of it. I'm sorry you didn't. At any rate, this article is a hell of a lot more "insightful" than the Linux Users Are Spoiled [slashdot.org] drivel I had to endure recently.
Re:They don't call it the 3rd world for nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
So Macedonia, Romania and Bulgaria would be part of the 2nd world, to the extent these terms retain any of their original meaning.
Re:Protecting Legitimate Users (Score:5, Insightful)
And obviously, since you personally have only received unsolicited email from Nigeria, where you presumably have few social contacts, thousands upon thousands of them must be spammers/scammers and only one or two "legitimate contacts."
By that logic nearly every country in the world would be blocked by nearly every other country.
It would seem more reasonable to assume that, given the nature of spam, a few bad apples are spoiling it for thousands upon thousands of "legitimate contacts."
Yes, it would be nice if the respective governments would/could do something about it. Perhaps "we" should set them a shining example of how to go about it properly, for a change, before we bitch overmuch.
KFG
The door swings both ways... (Score:5, Insightful)
Before starting my current job, I did some systems admiistration work for small ISPs here in South Africa. At one point last year, after long deliberations and searching for any other solutions we could find, we finally decided to blacklist seven U.S. ISPs, because of the never ending tidal wave of spam and worm attacks that originated from these. It worked.
Following from this, I have often wondered about the possible effect of completely disconnecting the United States from the rest of the internet.
Just think for a moment my fellow non-Americans, no more "legal" spam, no more pop-up adds that come from nowhere, because a hapless user clicked "Yes" somewhere, no more propaganda web sites telling us how wonderful they are and how bad we are, no more "you will use DRM because our laws say so, even though they are not your laws" attitude, no more open source projects being distributed with half the functionality removed, because it might infringe on some insignificant U.S. software patent, and someone from the States might download it, putting the author in violation of the patent, no more Carnivore servers reading every word I type as I compose this post, because I just might be saying something that could "endanger the interests or national security of the United States", ah, bliss...
Since the introduction of the CAN-SPAM Act, spam, even non-compliant spam, has been increasing. American businesses seem to interpret the Act as a free license to spam everyone with impunity. Oh sure, the very large spammers eventually get shut down by multi-million dollar law suits filed under the Act by the very large American ISPs, but that really doesn't help the rest of the world, does it?
We've all read the statistics about how China is such a large source of spam, but what the statistics fail to tell you is that this spam originates from Chinese companies, being payed by American spammers to do their dirty work. If spam from China could not reach the United States, because the United States isn't there in internet terms, there would be no point for the spammers to continue hiring the Chinese to do this for them, and spam from China would probably decline.
I'm sorry if this hurts the feelings of all the American readers, but I feel I must point out that the rest of the Western world is getting very tired of your incessant moaning and paranoia.
Inter-without-America-Net anyone? If they can justify doing this, so can we. ISPs of the world, blacklist with impunity!
I realise that this post will probably get me flamed or even moderated into oblivion, but I think it does serve to illustrate an important point, of which even the United States should take heed.
If the U.S. can justify blacklisting an entire country because of a minute security threat, do we, the rest of the world, not have more than sufficient justification to blacklist the entire United States?
This is a dangerous door for the U.S. to open, and it swings both ways. Yes, blacklisting the entire U.S. does seem to be impractical, as we would probably loose most of the internet, but to be brutally honest, the only American web site I would miss is Slashdot.
Re:Macedonia vs. the US is a poor comparison (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, let's exclude the minorities because it's easier! Blocking entire country's netblocks (China, Korea, etc) from email is one thing. Online store policies preventing shipment to Macedonia is one thing.
But to purposely block ALL 'net traffic from countries "not worthy" is just retarded - it provides no benefit to ANYONE, except for the blocker to say a big "FUCK YOU!!!" to those who want to browse the internet just like everyone else but happen to live in a country who's time is "not worth it"!
Geez, as if blocking a whole country from even viewing your site actually helps anyone!
I dunno - perhaps the owners of that mental health site were worried their precious web pages would become dirtied by TCP/IP packets from Macedonians?
Re:They don't call it the 3rd world for nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
The net's just a playground anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
The Internet still runs on protocols designed 20-30 years ago that rested on the assumption that everyone using the network could be trusted. As long as we stick with that assumption, we're going to have blacklists, spoofing, what-have-you. The trick is to not rely on the Internet for anything important.
Re:Slashdot renamed to Whine-dot (Score:5, Insightful)
Plainly. Any number of Slashdot stories have been based on similar complaints. Do they only count if it's an American doing the bitching?
. .
He said nothing of the kind. He pointed out a certain hypocrisy in the blacklisting.
I don't see why it's Slashdot's job to be free advertising for this guy's personal opinion. .
I rather thought that was one of its overt functions where the opinion might be relevant to the tech/computer/internet world.
. .
I disagree that it is pure opinion or of limited news value, but then I don't take a purely "western" point of view either.
C'mon, really, slashdot is a news site, not "opinionated rant of the week", for that I read the comments, not the articles.
And now you have mine.
KFG
Re:Foreign ISPs (Score:4, Insightful)
There is the other issue too. If it's so easy for people in these countries to get accountes elsewhere like the parent sugests... then it would be as easy for the non-legit users to get them as well.
This is why black listing whole countries doesn't work... you can always dialup to AOL in some other country.
Re:How do you spell Hypocrisy? (Score:1, Insightful)
In defence of "Africa" (Score:4, Insightful)
As an African living in Canada, I hear Africa being lumped as a single entity when referring to a country in this vast place! Africa is unique in that it has climates ranging from temperate to tropical to semi-arid. Back to the point: I agree that this piece has been very very poorly written! But it's worth the read.
Re:Foreign ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you happen to live in one of these marginal countries, as the author of the original article does.
Re:This isn't gonna work in the long-run (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In defence of "Africa" (Score:4, Insightful)
When they do, though, we do take notice. South Africa has a national identity to us thanks to the controversy over apartheid, Nigeria has a national identity to us thanks to the Nigerian scam (which is unfortunate, and according to a Nigerian lady I once spoke to is very bad for the country's reputation), and, in a more limited sense, Zimbabwe has a national identity to us thanks to Mugabe and the various controversies there. Rwanda and Sudan have come to Western attention due to genocides there. Egypt, Libya, and Morocco similarly have national identities to Westerners for similar reasons.
HOW ABOUT OUR WORK???? (Score:3, Insightful)
You have no idea how difficult is to persuade a hacker to stop; in some cases we had to meet him in person and kick his ass.
And now this. There are some reasons why the fraud is taking place through and in Romania; one is the goverment because they don't have the necessary expertise to deal with the issue; second is the general state of poverty (generated by the corrupt goverment as well).
Of course you might say, it's your govt, deal with it, in the mean while you are blacklisted; but think about it: the net is the only viable way we can use to keep the people informed, to communicate to each other and all; and cutting us off will NOT lead to a fix, but to an even darker period for the people(read lemmings)
We thought that the WWW did something good here : it helped people learn about freedom and decent living; and now, what's gonna happend? China style WWW? It tastes bad already;
Back to 1947?
It's a simple matter of responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the virused home-user PC, its a matter of local responsibility, having better safeguards means the Web community won't ever need to act against you. I hope Macedonia actually takes action to regain the trust of the world rather than just looking for ways to get around the blacklists and relays through foreign proxies.
Re:I run an online store (Score:4, Insightful)
And how do they do that, if the entire country is blocked?
Cheers,
Ian
Re:This may surprise some people, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
The same is true of America, but how many USians here are aware of that?
Well if you truly believe in freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
People doing something is very different from a government doing something. If the government stops something form being published, that is censorship. However if I stop something from going on my website, that is free speech. It would be against that ideal to force me to publish something on my site.
There are also objective realities to be considered when running a bussiness. If a given country has a very high occurance of fraud, which costs you money, you don't have much choice other than to not deal with them. Fraud is a fact of life, but in most countires the occurance is low because the authorities prosecute it. In countires that ignore it, it's very problematic. If it is to the point that the amount of money you make from legit sales is less than what you loose to fraud, you cannot justify doing bussiness.
This is, for example, why so very many places will not do COD. COD these days isn't cash on delievery but check on delivery. So someone buys something, you send it to them, and when they recieve it, you get a personal check. Well if that bounces, you are screwed. Fraudsters know this, and exploit this. Hence, COD is a blacklisted method of purchase for most merchants, eBay sellers, etc. The additonal money you make from legit COD sales is less than what you loose from fradulant ones.
The Internet is still, at this point, a real anarchy in that anyone can join and there is no overall authority. That means that people can, and will, make their own rules. That is real freedom. It is NOT freedom to tell people "YOu will not ban any IP address/range, regardless of what it does." That is being authoritarian, just as much as mandidating a ban would be.
Except for... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I run an online store (Score:1, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anarchy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I run an online store (Score:2, Insightful)
And? He should deal with those 100% fraudsters that have tried to bilk him just because you (who don't order from him anyway) live near them?
Re:Collective punishment is wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then why the hell should we give them access to our servers?! If the government is corrupt and the criminal element runs rampant, then you block them to protect yourself. It isn't "collective punishment" or any such bullshit. When >50% of transactions from a given country are fraud, it's decision time. When that number raises into the 80-90% and up range, its kind of obvious that its time to stop pissing away your own money for some unrealistic ideal and some criminal's bankbook.
Re:Foreign ISPs (Score:2, Insightful)
Or more closely... If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.
It's the same thing. If you blacklist IPs, then only blacklisted spammers will get IPs.
No, YOU miss the point... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I run an online store (Score:3, Insightful)
How did you verify that the fradulent orders from the UK were made by Indians?
Presumably, you are running an online store and you don't actually see your customers directly. So you have to make a mapping between some info they provide and their race.
What is that mapping? Name to Race? If so, how did you verify that the name provided is genuine?
I am not necessarily doubting you, I just want to know. I have been in England, and I have a few British friends. The level of contempt that they have for anybody from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh (whom they refer to as Pakis) is staggering. Just curious to see if that is based on anything other than old-fashioned racism.
Magnus.
They're not looking at the right problem... (Score:2, Insightful)
If Russia has 1 million IP addresses, and 9,000 or even 90,000 have been traced back to fraud and therefore blacklisted - the majority of the country is still able to access the internet even though the rates of fraud exceed Elbonia's by 100x to 1000x...
This rate is irrellevant as the country of Elbonia needs to look at fraud as a percentage of users in their country, then introduce efforts to reduce that percentage. This effect of whining because your country is being kicked off the net is pointless.
Macedonia, Ghana, Nigeria, et al: Clean your house, pass some laws, and we'll let you participate in the world economy again. Its as simple as that.
Re:easy work around (Score:3, Insightful)
The article was not just about refusing orders, but preventing people in some countries from even viewing websites, and not just sites selling stuff. So it IS about cutting a country off the Internet.
Africa's a Country? (Score:3, Insightful)
News to me. I always thought of Africa as more a continent with a rich and diverse assortment of tapestries of culture. With great cultural variances within groups of cultures and subgroups within those groups and so on...
This is pretty much the same for all indigenous peoples from all continents across the globe. The only reason we can think of the United States as having a sort of unified culture is because at critical junctures of forming our own identity as a people we had devised means of communication [telegraph-history.org] and transportation [si.edu] This is the reason that whether you go to Ann Arbor Michigan, Toms River NJ, Seattle, Southern California, Denver, (you name it) a suburb is a suburb is a suburb. All this had been done after we had already colonized this continent, which until then previously had previously as diverse a population of greatly differing cultures as any indigenous area of the globe.
I remember going to Lollapolooza [lollapalooza.com] (lots o' poor losers) back in 93. Someone had a table setup with a sign above it reading "African Food"....'Hmm..wonder what that tastes like'. So, I wander over there and ask her what kind of 'African' food they meant. It was loud so she kind of shouted back at me...'IT'S...AFRICAN...FOOOD!'...(as if I couldn't read the big bold letters above her). 'Ah! I see! What KIND of African?'...'Nigerian'...'What kind of Nigerian? Yoruba [si.edu] or Ibo?' Which I later found out is more popularly known as Igbo [qub.ac.uk]. But you could have properly referred to the plate in front of me as either.
This question really kind of floored her. And it shouldn't have. It really kind of annoys me when greatly divergent groups of people get lumped together like that. Just as it pisses me the fuck off when people speak of all Native Americans as if they were just "Indians" (as if there were quite literally no difference between a Lakota, a Navajo, a Lenape, a Choctaw, Oglala, Onendaga and and what have you)...it really pisses me off when people start speaking of Africa as if it were a "country". It's NOT!
Re:They don't call it the 3rd world for nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
Dago is correct, as part of the former Yugoslavia , Macedonia was not part of the Soviet Bloc. My main point was that, with the disappearance of the Soviet Bloc the term "third world" should be deprecated.
With Power Comes Responsibility... (Score:1, Insightful)
Many countries still don't think hacking is a crime. Many law enforcers consider online fraud is not part of their juridiction. As a result, computer crimes become a regular part of the internet in this countries. So, you can't really blame people for not wanting to do business with people from those regions. If you get robbed 9 times out of 10 when you go to a town to sell your products, you'll learn to avoid that town after several incidents. Until the town passes laws and enforces them, salespeople will avoid it like a plague.
It shouldn't be much different here. The countries need laws to deal with computer crimes and enforce them. It is in their interests to do so. Computer crimes may be a start of a longer string of much more serious crimes. They may give them a bad name in the business world and prevent people from investing. They also prevent them from using the good things of the net.
You are right. Cutting off an entire country only hurts the legitimate users, but it is not the fault of the e-commerce companies. Do you seriously think that cutting off the entire population good for profit unless there is a good reason to do so? Blame the governments of those countries for failing to protect them after all these years. A decade should be enough to make laws, no?
Re:Are you one of the fraudsters? :) (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, that's the thinking of many slashdotters. Very simple. How about you change your government and reverse everything bad they've done? It sure is making a lot of trouble overseas and you're lucky, you have the chance to change it in November and make the world a safer place again. Unlike many other people in other countries who get locked out from needed information/communication by narrow-minded people like you. You know, life isn't always as simple as you think it is. (I'm just assuming you're American. Forgive me if you're not, although that makes this particular comment not any less stupid and shouldn't (What an irony!) make me think you're American, but unfortunately it does.)
Can't believe how people still think this way. The same people who haven't realized that RBL's are bad and make more damage than good. Blocking legitimate mail, because they "should change their email provider" is not always possible. Getting on your high horse doesn't help the legitimate users one bit.
</rant>
(Oh well, I leave my Karma Bonus and Subscriber bonus.... not worth it.)
Re:I run an online store (Score:2, Insightful)
How do you figure that? Does it apply to Americans in Iraq?
Re:Digital Gold Currencies (Score:2, Insightful)
And that is why I an leery or the E-Gold payment system for anything other that services already received, or goods already received.
In fact, E-Gold has on it's own website a "Fraud Alert" Step 8 of which is:
The victim makes the e-gold spend and never hears from the escrow service again.
It seems like a system that you can only utilize with people and businesses you already trust implicitly, since there is no recourse if you give your money to someone.
It's all about the percentages (Score:2, Insightful)
This is business, my friend, not some socialist expirement.
Re:What the hell? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I have the expectation that you will not pay, why should I even consider doing business with you?
Re:easy work around (Score:3, Insightful)
> Brilliant. That's mentioned in the article, of course. But what the
> outcome is that any fraudsters can continue (though no evidence was
> offered of such), but the average home user will be stymied.
I blacklist only Romania on my servers. It has cut down the number of probes
by a good percentage.
Sure, they can use a proxy and a hacked system elsewhere. But the last
three rooted boxes I have seen have had log entries that show them
download their cracking tools from Romanian sites. Complaints about these
cretins to the abuse entities at their providers are completely ignored
-- not even acknowledged.
In contrast, any report of probe from a real US ISP (rare these days) is
replied to and I believe these boxes are taken offline right away. That
is why it is now relatively rare to see probes from US-based boxen.
Re:I run an online store (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not quite sure what you're proposing. It seems to be either "lie back and enjoy it" or *forge your own headers*, neither of which seems a very good answer.
As to checking the bank reference...that would mean you could only accept rather sizeable orders, or added a significant surcharge. A viable answer for some businesses, but certainly not for others.
This banning of countries comes in two flavors: it seems ok when adopted by an individual web site/company, and it seems unhealthy when adopted by ISPs (of any other flavor, including, e.g., name servers).
Re:I run an online store (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple to fix. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No, YOU miss the point... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Foreign ISPs (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the USA has some problems with Ashcroft trying to be the new Big Brother, and the UK has some similar problems. But it's a lot better than living in Saudi Arabia and being locked in a windowless room until you die because you were a girl and flirted with some guys, or living in Rwanda and being hacked to death with a machete simply because you were in the wrong tribe. You want unfree? Try moving to North Korea and saying something about Kim Jong Il, or moving to China and criticizing the Communist party. If you think the US is worse than these places, you are truly stupid.