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A real-life
superhero is attacking crime on the Internet, and Google-related websites
are the ones that bite the dust.
From Alaska to
Argentina, from Rangoon to Brazil, bulletin boards and chatrooms are
filled with comments about a weapon called "the Batbot."
“It came right out
of nowhere, just like a demon from hell,” said Raj
Rayya, computer security
consultant, Bangalor, India. “It clicked on millions and millions of
links, hundreds of times for each link.”
According to Rayya, the Batbot (a specialized piece of
software that does automated tasks) targeted only websites that work in
collusion with organized crime.
“It appears that all of the sites attacked were used to
launder money through the Google Adsense program,” said Rayya, “a
complicated scheme invented by organized crime in Hong Kong.”
After attacks by the Batbot, which involved billions of clicks, Google removed the criminal websites from its Adsense
program.
According to
Wikipedia, “AdSense
is an
ad serving program run by
Google.
Website owners can enroll in this program to
enable text, image and, more recently, video
advertisements on their sites. These ads are
administered by Google and generate revenue on either a
per-click or
per-thousand-impressions basis.”
“By
creating billions of automated clicks, the Batbot made it
clear to Google that all of the clicks were fake,” said Rayya. “Google,
of course, was forced to ban those criminal websites from its Adsense
program.”
According to a former employee of Google (who spoke on condition of "not
for attribution"), the Batbot now is attacking sites all around the world,
but only sites that participate in Google’s Adsense program.
Said that former employee, “Google suspects that a rival company actually
made the bot. Clearly that rival is engaged in worldwide terrorism.”
According to Rayya, however, the Batbot was created by a real-life
superhero.
“The Batbot targets spam sites only, sites without any valuable content,
most of which are run by organized crime.
And
maybe the person who made the Batbot actually thinks that Google is
organized crime.”
According to Rayya
and thousands of others, the Batbot signals a whole new era of vigilantism
on the web.
"Millions of people
with lots of talent hate the way that commercialism has turned the
internet into a wasteland of crime," Rayya said. "Now, it seems, that some of those people are
waging war to drive the bad guys from the Internet."
And why do people
around the world call the bot the Batbot?
"The name is based
on a comic-book hero," Rayya said with a smile, "a hero made in America,
but I forget the name."
Republished with permission of the Daily
Internet Clarion of New York.
©
Daily Internet Clarion of New York
All Rights Reserved
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