Re: Dirty E-Politics: When will virus writers get righteous?
Targeted viral mail that selectively wipes out Democratic harddrives, or that critically impairs the PCs of Republican activists? The day before an election, or the day before the other "side" has something *real* that will happen or be deployed or be announced?
Byond specific, highly malicious attacks that capitalize on social networks, it's interesting to note that email is highly under-utilized as a political tool: where is the political spam? I'm not talking about the DNC spamming me, but I wonder why there aren't more fringe groups filling inboxes. The political economy of non-commercial spam seems similar to commercial spam--i.e. low hit rate, bad PR images, high payoff for each successful hit--and there is also an "allies externality". If my group spams, the PR cost is not just borne by my group advertising, but probably my (potentially more mainstream) political allies. Moreover, just as you don't win customers by pissing them off, you don't gain adherents to your cause by flooding their inboxes. But most of us know political groups that clearly don't care what the mainstream thinks of them. Hate groups, prostletizing religious zealots, fringe political parties--these groups all have acknowledged that they are not going to win the PR battle. The reason LaRouchians stand on corners with large signs and Jehovah's Witnesses go door-to-door is that they want to catch the few people who might be interested, and public, annoying displays are the easiest way to catch them. I am curious as to why these groups are not filling our inboxes. There are enough web-savvy conspiracy theorists out there, and some of them must be desperate to wake us sheeplike masses from our ignorant slumber. They call in to AM talk shows. Sometimes they leaflet a neighborhood. Where is the spam? A few hypotheses: 1) They haven't discovered spam yet, or haven't thought of it yet. 2) Even extremist nuts aren't sick enough to spam people. 3) The cost of starting a spam operation is too high. 4) There is enough of it now and the above model is wrong, or there are fewer extremist groups than I think. I'm not terribly satisfied with any of these. Any ideas? /\llan
On Feb 19, 2005, at 5:54 PM, Allan A Friedman wrote:
I am curious as to why these groups are not filling our inboxes. There are enough web-savvy conspiracy theorists out there, and some of them must be desperate to wake us sheeplike masses from our ignorant slumber. They call in to AM talk shows. Sometimes they leaflet a neighborhood. Where is the spam?
It's in my in-box. I get stuff from someone in Cambridge, MA who appears to believe that every public official who has anything to do with the Charles River is part of an "evil" cabal attempting to kill off geese in the Charles. I have no idea how this person got my address, and I certainly never asked to receive their ranting. Further, I get political stuff from family members--mostly urban legends about political candidates/parties with whom they disagree--that is certainly unwanted, and which they must certainly know I don't agree with, just because they send these messages to everyone in their email address book. But this this spam? Must it be unwanted AND sent to people outside one's circle of friends, family, acquaintances, and co-workers? (If it isn't spam, its still an interesting phenomenon.) Whatever the case, why don't we get (more) stuff that is both unwanted and from folks we don't know? Part of the answer has to be that people dumb enough to think it would have any positive effect are unlikely to know how to spam people. Another part of the answer might be that those who could bring themselves to believe in the effectiveness of political spam--e.g., LaRouchian's who spam us with leaflets on the street--are political radicals whose radicalness is not the result of political thought so much as a need to be *seen* as outside of the mainstream and/or a need to feel rejected by the mainstream. Both of those needs are wonderfully satisfied by pamphleteering for unpopular causes on a street corner, but are not at all satisfied by spamming in its fullest, anonymous, form. (This also provides some explanation for the limitation of most political spamming--if we can call it that--to folks on the spammer's email address directory--those directories only contain folks who will be able to identify the "spammer" and thus be capable of rejecting them and/or contain folks who the spammer will be able to perceive as viewing them in a socially significant way as outside the mainstream.) --Christian Nelson Christian Nelson, Ph.D. Scholar in Residence Dept. of Marketing and Health Communication 120 Boylston St. Emerson College Boston, MA 02116-4624
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