A New Approach To Reducing Spam: Go After Credit Processors

WrongSizeGlass writes "A team of computer scientists at two University of California campuses has been looking deeply into the nature of spam, and they think found a 'choke point' [PDF] that could greatly reduce the flow of spam. It turned out that 95 percent of the credit card transactions for the spam-advertised drugs and herbal remedies they bought were handled by just three financial companies — one based in Azerbaijan, one in Denmark and one in Nevis, in the West Indies. If a handful of companies like these refused to authorize online credit card payments to the merchants, 'you'd cut off the money that supports the entire spam enterprise,' said one of the scientists." Frequent Slashdot contributor (and author of a book on Digital Cash) Peter Wayner wonders if "the way to get a business shut down is to send out a couple billion spam messages in its name."

95%?

[superdave80]

Indicating there are still other companies willing to process these transactions. The spammers will just switch to them if the 'big 3' refuse to do business with them.

Re:95%?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indicating there are still other companies willing to process these transactions. The spammers will just switch to them if the 'big 3' refuse to do business with them.

Which the article mentions and states that it would result in increased costs for the spammers.

Questions answered in this thread...

[nweaver]

I'm one of the MANY coauthors of this paper. Myself or others will try to answer questions in this thread.

Re:It's the business model, stupid

[insecuritiez]

Yes it is the business model of these banks. However, they are processing through a credit network (Visa / Mastercard) and consumers credit cards are backed by an issuing bank (think Chase, Citibank, etc). Either the credit network or the issuing bank can prevent the transaction without the cooperation of the shady acquiring bank. In fact, there is a "Merchant Category Code" (food, entertainment, drug stores and pharmacies, etc) that the credit network requires be on each transaction and requires to be correct. The credit network or issuing banks don't have to stop all credit transactions to the offending acquiring banks, they can just stop drug stores and pharmacies transactions. You should read the paper.