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Click farms: a shadowy internet industry is booming in China

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Re: Click farms: a shadowy internet industry is booming in China

#101

Post by wruza »

LeonM wrote: post #74
firethief wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lying about having bills to pay?

People lie about having kids, for compassion.

I don’t have kids, neither do I participate in fraud activities, but it always depresses me when someone thinks that they can dismiss someones requirements for not having a family. Of course that will be abused, because most people don’t give a single fuck about our life. If a family guy needs X to feed a family, it doesn’t mean that I’m okay with X/2 and should just shut up and work harder to achieve the same amount. It is yet another wrong cycle, of which our root comment talks.

Re: Click farms: a shadowy internet industry is booming in China

#102

Post by arbitrary_name »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #89
mruts wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you want to make your own clothes as well?

Are you suggesting that people should be kept poor so you can get cheap clothes?

Hilarious, because that is is some ways an effective description of capitalism working as intended.

Re: Click farms: a shadowy internet industry is booming in China

#103

Post by close04 »

lazyjones wrote: post #97
wpietri wrote: post #7

There was a reply here, now dead, that I wanted to discuss: "Hey man, I'm just trying to feed my family. I have kids so that means I can behave however I want so long as it benefits my kids. And rather than trust some reviews on a platform anyone can sign up for, how about you do some reading on the app developer and their ToS and Privacy Policy." I'm adamantly opposed to spam, and back in the early days of the web (…

> Things like click farming do extract wealth, but they increase systemic waste, meaning less value can be produced. That in turn increases the amount of desperation, making people more likely to join them in doing something exploitative just to survive. Perhaps these click farms are just an evolving reaction to the PITA that is online advertising. It's the advertising industry that gets harmed by it and not some oth…

People (advertisers) are surprised that the internet is beginning (continuing?) to be reshaped around their business and a whole ecosystem emerged to take advantage of this, no matter how unfairly.

Re: Click farms: a shadowy internet industry is booming in China

#105

Post by rb808 »

wpietri wrote: post #7

There was a reply here, now dead, that I wanted to discuss: "Hey man, I'm just trying to feed my family. I have kids so that means I can behave however I want so long as it benefits my kids. And rather than trust some reviews on a platform anyone can sign up for, how about you do some reading on the app developer and their ToS and Privacy Policy." I'm adamantly opposed to spam, and back in the early days of the web (…

I like the article of the Swedish lady who went to Nigeria to help her 419 scammer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37632259

Re: Click farms: a shadowy internet industry is booming in China

#106

Post by close04 »

heymijo wrote: post #92
social_quotient wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how different is this from CRO, form abandonment, tracking, and advanced user analytics? I get the sense that if it pays really well and is for a large company it’s not often judged, in fact it’s amazing, but if it’s for a smaller company with a less clear business model then it seems shady? How do we sure that up? In our technical morality brains?

I really appreciate this question. Illuminated my cognitive dissonance. My mind didn't even think to ask it as I was reading the GPs comment and thinking about that small company as scummy.

A big corporation is usually seen as an inanimate monolith that you can't "blame". It's not a person and it has no morals. Just like a soldier's morality is mostly obscured by the "morality" of the whole army. But in small companies you can "see" the people behind them. You can suddenly directly assign blame for what they do. It's no longer a giant doing what giants do, it's no longer a blame split between 10.000 anonymous employees, it's a handful of people being scummy.

It's easier to assign blame and judge morals the smaller the group is, all the way down to an individual. You can put a face to the crime.

Re: Click farms: a shadowy internet industry is booming in China

#107

Post by wpietri »

cageface wrote: post #53
wpietri wrote: post #7

There was a reply here, now dead, that I wanted to discuss: "Hey man, I'm just trying to feed my family. I have kids so that means I can behave however I want so long as it benefits my kids. And rather than trust some reviews on a platform anyone can sign up for, how about you do some reading on the app developer and their ToS and Privacy Policy." I'm adamantly opposed to spam, and back in the early days of the web (…

Parasites show up in just about every complex ecosystem. Often they eventually establish some kind of symbiosis with their host. Life is chaotic and messy and that is often hard thing for us to accept. Ecosystems that endure find a way to balance these competing forces.

That can be a useful analogy, but it's important to realize that this is only metaphorically an ecosystem. Human society is created by conscious agents with specific intent. It's a designed system.

Talking about parasites can explain what is happening, and point us in the direction of solutions. But is must never be used to justify.

Re: Click farms: a shadowy internet industry is booming in China

#108

Post by wpietri »

Merrill wrote: post #81
wpietri wrote: post #7

There was a reply here, now dead, that I wanted to discuss: "Hey man, I'm just trying to feed my family. I have kids so that means I can behave however I want so long as it benefits my kids. And rather than trust some reviews on a platform anyone can sign up for, how about you do some reading on the app developer and their ToS and Privacy Policy." I'm adamantly opposed to spam, and back in the early days of the web (…

It's the Game of Life. People play it according to whatever rules and penalties they perceive to be in place using whatever strategies and tactics they think will succeed.

Sure, I'm not really faulting the individuals here. But we collectively set the rules for the game of life. Maybe we should pick ones with better outcomes for both individuals and society as a whole.

Re: Click farms: a shadowy internet industry is booming in China

#109

Post by moate »

ryanlol wrote: post #79
wil421 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretend I’m a scammer. Buy 10,000 CC#s in bulk. Most are bunk but I’ll buy iTunes gift cards with the good ones. Then I make clean money on the developer side. Maybe I’ll use gift cards to buy gift cards to buy gift cards. Now take this and have an organization doing it. They probably pay people across the world to get the gift cards they use.

I’m sure a prosecutor could fit in a money laundering charge too, but I still find it weird to call this money laundering. The goal here isn’t to obscure the source of the money, the goal is to monetize credit card fraud. Nobody would actually use iTunes to launder money, the fees are simply too high. >Then I make clean money on the developer side. That money is not clean. >Maybe I’ll use gift cards to buy gift cards…

"A high % of your money" is not "all your money".

Let's say I've bought these bogus cards. This is the starting point, with dirty money. Anything bought here is obvious and traceable. I take that money, and I buy Visa gift cards, which basically function as cash. I take those Visas and buy Amex gift cards, losing 6% (ballparking here, it's actually 5.95% for $100) of my take to fees and then another 10% to fees/shipping for Amex. I funnel those through fake app purchases on the app store and lose a further 20% of my original take.

I now have about 55-65% of my original take in relatively clean money that I convert to bitcoin and back. If you're talking thousands of dollars here, this can easily be worth it. Doubly so if you live in a country where the expectations of police are that they're not going to have the resources to pursue this kind of crime for whatever reason. Get enough people doing this and enough accounts to make the flow through multiple channels, and you've got yourself the makings of a multi-million dollar money laundering service you can sell out to identity thieves (or use for your own thieves).

Re: Click farms: a shadowy internet industry is booming in China

#110

Post by davinic »

danielscrubs wrote: post #67
mrep wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App stores are also used for money laundering. Create a bogus app, spend a bunch of money "buying" your app and now you have "legitimate" money.

Is that really a big problem? I mean, Apple would take a 30% cut AND you'd have to put the money in the bank first which would make it traceable if I'm not missing something?

The whole point of money laundering is to get it in the bank as legitimate income. This accomplishes that.
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