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>The main driver of SEO spam, and online scams in general are countries that have little to no opportunity for economic growth. Not quite right because cybercr

>The main driver of SEO spam, and online scams in general are countries that have little to no opportunity for economic growth. Not quite right because cybercrime aka hacking, cracking, spamming etc. originated in US not in East Europe, Russia and third world countries which are dominating hacking and spamming scene today. Main motivation of cybercriminals is quick money and ease of getting away with it since you are not physically committing a crime but digitally/electronically.

adventured 5y ago
It is quite right. Those are the main drivers and it's due to lack economic opportunities. Hacking heavily originated in the US because the US practically built the entire modern tech universe from the ground up. The US was far out in front when it came to utilizing the Internet and the Web, so of course unethical people in the US pioneered various types of online crime, the US was the early adopter. If you're an elite engineer in the US, you can make millions of dollars doing legal work for big tech. It helps in a big way to drain the labor pool as it pertains to criminal activity online. You generally can't do that today in the countries that dominate SEO spam, online scams, etc. In those countries elite engineers suffer terrible wages doing legal work compared to what they should be able to earn for their abilities; commonly they can earn a lot more doing illegal work instead, it's a very potent lure. You're an elite engineer in Russia, top ~1%-3% globally. What do you do? Earn several thousand dollars per month doing legit software development in Russia (with either zero or little consequential equity compensation); flee Russia for a more affluent market; or do illegal work where the rewards can be dramatically greater. It would be difficult to resist if you were unable or unwilling to leave Russia.
- mrkramer 5y ago
  >You're an elite engineer in Russia, top ~1%-3% globally. What do you do? Earn several thousand dollars per month doing legit software development in Russia Become software entrepreneur? And many international software companies have software development teams and presence in Russia.
  - emerongi 5y ago
    > Become software entrepreneur? Exactly. Hacking for hire, making cheats, botnets, SEO farms, selling exploits and hacked social media accounts; practically anything you can think of that US software engineers can't be bothered with, as they already earn a healthy salary. That is entrepreneurism.
    - mrkramer 5y ago
      I wasn't speaking about that kind of entrepreneurism but about making legal software and legal web services that solve problems and are useful. So many Russian hackers got arrested when they travelled somewhere outside Russia and now they are serving 10 or 20 year sentences in US jails.
      - PeterisP 5y ago
        > So many Russian hackers got arrested when they travelled somewhere outside Russia How many? 20? 30? 50? IMHO the cases are rare (and get widely publicized whenever that happens, creating a disproportional visibility), you get a couple captures per year but the number is just a tiny fraction of the actual participants, more like an exception than the rule.
        mrkramer 5y ago
        My assumption is beyond 20. US is only after big time cybercriminals[0] smaller ones get away. [0] https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber
      - denton-scratch 5y ago
        > making legal software and legal web services SEO is perfectly legal. So is spamming, regrettably. I think Goo no longer cares about the quality of search results; they have other business priorities, so SEO works. Spam is another thing again; we still, after 30 years, don't have an agreed definition of spam. We still don't have a flawless spam filter - far from it. So it astonishes me how much email spam I get promoting SEO services for my non-existent website.
- winternett 5y ago
  Furthermore, the penalties for cyber crimes, and ability to track footprints are much more articulate and accessible for authorities in the US and UK for citizens that hack and abuse US & UK systems, which makes enforcement upon US and some EU hackers much more harsh/severe/less complex to enforce, and more likely to be apprehended... Many users in economically disadvantaged countries use older devices like PCs running older software, routers that don't allow Mac level reporting, and well past EOL cell phones that don't leave the kinds of footprints that modern devices do (on top of the well documented now legacy security measures they can take).

adventured 5y ago

It is quite right. Those are the main drivers and it's due to lack economic opportunities. Hacking heavily originated in the US because the US practically built the entire modern tech universe from the ground up. The US was far out in front when it came to utilizing the Internet and the Web, so of course unethical people in the US pioneered various types of online crime, the US was the early adopter. If you're an elite engineer in the US, you can make millions of dollars doing legal work for big tech. It helps in a big way to drain the labor pool as it pertains to criminal activity online. You generally can't do that today in the countries that dominate SEO spam, online scams, etc. In those countries elite engineers suffer terrible wages doing legal work compared to what they should be able to earn for their abilities; commonly they can earn a lot more doing illegal work instead, it's a very potent lure. You're an elite engineer in Russia, top ~1%-3% globally. What do you do? Earn several thousand dollars per month doing legit software development in Russia (with either zero or little consequential equity compensation); flee Russia for a more affluent market; or do illegal work where the rewards can be dramatically greater. It would be difficult to resist if you were unable or unwilling to leave Russia.

mrkramer 5y ago
>You're an elite engineer in Russia, top ~1%-3% globally. What do you do? Earn several thousand dollars per month doing legit software development in Russia Become software entrepreneur? And many international software companies have software development teams and presence in Russia.
- emerongi 5y ago
  > Become software entrepreneur? Exactly. Hacking for hire, making cheats, botnets, SEO farms, selling exploits and hacked social media accounts; practically anything you can think of that US software engineers can't be bothered with, as they already earn a healthy salary. That is entrepreneurism.
  - mrkramer 5y ago
    I wasn't speaking about that kind of entrepreneurism but about making legal software and legal web services that solve problems and are useful. So many Russian hackers got arrested when they travelled somewhere outside Russia and now they are serving 10 or 20 year sentences in US jails.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      > So many Russian hackers got arrested when they travelled somewhere outside Russia How many? 20? 30? 50? IMHO the cases are rare (and get widely publicized whenever that happens, creating a disproportional visibility), you get a couple captures per year but the number is just a tiny fraction of the actual participants, more like an exception than the rule.
      - mrkramer 5y ago
        My assumption is beyond 20. US is only after big time cybercriminals[0] smaller ones get away. [0] https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      > making legal software and legal web services SEO is perfectly legal. So is spamming, regrettably. I think Goo no longer cares about the quality of search results; they have other business priorities, so SEO works. Spam is another thing again; we still, after 30 years, don't have an agreed definition of spam. We still don't have a flawless spam filter - far from it. So it astonishes me how much email spam I get promoting SEO services for my non-existent website.
winternett 5y ago
Furthermore, the penalties for cyber crimes, and ability to track footprints are much more articulate and accessible for authorities in the US and UK for citizens that hack and abuse US & UK systems, which makes enforcement upon US and some EU hackers much more harsh/severe/less complex to enforce, and more likely to be apprehended... Many users in economically disadvantaged countries use older devices like PCs running older software, routers that don't allow Mac level reporting, and well past EOL cell phones that don't leave the kinds of footprints that modern devices do (on top of the well documented now legacy security measures they can take).