Spamming for science: Active measurement in web 2.0 abuse research

Spam and other electronic abuses have long been a focus of computer security research. However, recent work in the domain has emphasized an economic analysis of these operations in the hope of understanding and disrupting the profit model of attackers. Such studies do not lend themselves to passive...

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Main Authors: West, A., Hayati, P., Potdar, Vidyasagar, Lee, I.
Format: Book Chapter
Published: Springer 2012
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59598
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author West, A.
Hayati, P.
Potdar, Vidyasagar
Lee, I.
author_facet West, A.
Hayati, P.
Potdar, Vidyasagar
Lee, I.
author_sort West, A.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Spam and other electronic abuses have long been a focus of computer security research. However, recent work in the domain has emphasized an economic analysis of these operations in the hope of understanding and disrupting the profit model of attackers. Such studies do not lend themselves to passive measurement techniques. Instead, researchers have become middle-men or active participants in spam behaviors; methodologies that lie at an interesting juncture of legal, ethical, and human subject (e.g., IRB) guidelines. In this work two such experiments serve as case studies: One testing a novel link spam model on Wikipedia and another using blackhat software to target blog comments and forums. Discussion concentrates on the experimental design process, especially as influenced by human-subject policy. Case studies are used to frame related work in the area, and scrutiny reveals the computer science community requires greater consistency in evaluating research of this nature.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2012
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-595982019-09-10T06:25:48Z Spamming for science: Active measurement in web 2.0 abuse research West, A. Hayati, P. Potdar, Vidyasagar Lee, I. Spam and other electronic abuses have long been a focus of computer security research. However, recent work in the domain has emphasized an economic analysis of these operations in the hope of understanding and disrupting the profit model of attackers. Such studies do not lend themselves to passive measurement techniques. Instead, researchers have become middle-men or active participants in spam behaviors; methodologies that lie at an interesting juncture of legal, ethical, and human subject (e.g., IRB) guidelines. In this work two such experiments serve as case studies: One testing a novel link spam model on Wikipedia and another using blackhat software to target blog comments and forums. Discussion concentrates on the experimental design process, especially as influenced by human-subject policy. Case studies are used to frame related work in the area, and scrutiny reveals the computer science community requires greater consistency in evaluating research of this nature. 2012 Book Chapter http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59598 10.1007/978-3-642-34638-5_9 Springer restricted
spellingShingle West, A.
Hayati, P.
Potdar, Vidyasagar
Lee, I.
Spamming for science: Active measurement in web 2.0 abuse research
title Spamming for science: Active measurement in web 2.0 abuse research
title_full Spamming for science: Active measurement in web 2.0 abuse research
title_fullStr Spamming for science: Active measurement in web 2.0 abuse research
title_full_unstemmed Spamming for science: Active measurement in web 2.0 abuse research
title_short Spamming for science: Active measurement in web 2.0 abuse research
title_sort spamming for science: active measurement in web 2.0 abuse research
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59598