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posted by janrinok on Thursday November 22 2018, @12:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the one-down,-lots-more-more-to-go dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Police arrest alleged Russian hacker behind huge Android ad scam

Though the exact details of his alleged crimes won't come to light until his extradition to the US -- where he faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years -- a Crime Russia report claims Zhukhov may have been involved in a fake advertising network that Google shut down last month.

The scam (outed in a Buzzfeed exposé) used bots to mimic user behaviour on a network of 125 Android apps connected to front and shell companies in Cyprus, Malta, British Virgin Islands, Croatia, and Bulgaria. This fake traffic was used to con brands out of "hundreds of millions" of ad dollars, according to a "person involved in the scheme." However, Google put the figure at $10 million, while Russian newspaper Kommersant says Zhukhov has been charged with ad fraud of up to $7 million, which took place between September 2014 to 2016. During this time, the hacker reportedly operated a network of 50 servers, renting them out to others, who later used them to inflate video ad views.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 22 2018, @04:11PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 22 2018, @04:11PM (#765234)

    Advertising seems like fraud

    Any examples? Genuinely curious.

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 22 2018, @05:09PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 22 2018, @05:09PM (#765249) Journal

    Oh my! It seems to me that you are out of touch with reality, as it pertains to the internet.

    Back in the bad old days, we had advertising. Radio, newspaper, television, posters, billboards. Television was kinda "in your face", but otherwise, it was pretty much "clean fun". The manufacturer, vendor, or advertising agency simply put stuff out there for you to see, or hear. You could look, or not look, tune it out, you could buy or not buy - and as you went about your day, you could easily forget the advertising. Turn a corner, and it was gone. Turn the radio off, it's gone. Turn the television off, and it was gone. And no one knew what you looked at, they didn't have the vaguest idea what your interests were.

    Today, we have a few dozen interlocking companies who actively track you, all day, and all night. Your credit card purchases are tracked, your loyalty card purchases are tracked, you internet searches are tracked, your online purchases are tracked, your normal browsing is tracked, your GPS and celltower locations are tracked, your medical conditions are tracked - if you are female, even your reproductive condition is tracked. Facebook and the other "social media" track you, and sell all of that information to the rest of the trackers. If you are in court for any reason, that is tracked and integrated into all the rest of it. There is nothing that is NOT tracked.

    All of that data demonstrably has value. Every bit of it has some value. Those marketing and advertising companies place value on all of it.

    Did they ever ask you what YOU think your data is worth? If you have a frequent fueler card, then obviously, you have "sold" the data to be gleaned from that card, and you have valued that data at about $.05 to $.10 per gallon of gasoline purchased. What about all that other data? Did you consent to having your prescriptions records monitored by a Wall Street corporation? How much is that data worth? Were you offered anything for that data? Your insurance company is selling that data. It's mostly "anonymized", but it's been demonstrated that the data can be "de-anonymized" easily enough, with enough computing power.

    It goes on and on. Whatever you do, you are monitored for data that has value. But, you are mostly cut out of the loop. You get nothing for most of that data.

    The second kind of fraud really hits me hard, because I have a crap internet connection. I load a page that has a few K of data, and along with that data, I get multiple meg of data for advertising purposes. They are outright STEALING my bandwidth - and probably yours, and that of every person you know.

    It's all fraud. I owe these people and corporations nothing, but they all want to have their hands in my life, and in my wallet. The ultimate fraud? THE SONS OF BITCHES ACCUSE US OF "STEALING" IF WE BLOCK THEM ON THE INTERNET!! If you use an adblocker, you'll eventually see a message claiming, "It costs to provide you with this content. Disable your ad blocker so that we can exploit you, or go away."

    Fraud, from start to finish, everywhere you look. Advertising owns the internet, as far as they are concerned. They really believe that.