Serendipity and Spam

September 9, 2011
Nicholas Weaver | International Computer Science Institute

What happens when a large research group sets out read a billion spams? A voyage of discovery through the underground economy which provides a major economic driver for botnets, spam, and other malfeasance. This talk describes the trip, including how we could identify the major programs based on the internal structure of their web pages, evaluate the (in)effectiveness of computer-infrastructure takedown and effectiveness of financial disruption, learn how to manage the press, discover what people purchase from spamvertized pharmacies, and provide estimates on the total revenue derived from (the V-word) spam.

Speaker Details

Nicholas Weaver is a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley. His primary research focuses are on network measurement and network security, including bots, underground economics, and related issues. Among the developments he’s been involved with is the theory behind high-speed Internet worms, network hardware for Intrusion Detection, how much money spammers can make, and the Netalyzr Network Measurement tool.