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My Favorite WebComs, Cartoons and Riddles

No, I'm not that modest to forget myself here. This is my Squidoo Site... and the title says exactly what you get.

Woody Marx

My favorite WebComedian, publishing on the HubPages. He has a satirical and dry kind of humor, presenting himself on his Profile Page as "presently writing an autobiography about someone else". Some of his best "Hubs" (as they call the articles and stories on the HubPages) you could describe as being a "mockumentary", inspired by ghost and mystery stories, Victorian literature, mythology (both the "classic" and the "modern" one that is playing in the Urban Legend League, featuring ufo's and aliens). Some of my favorite pieces: "Letters To Santa", "Fairies As Pets", "How To Be a Conspiracy Theorist", "What to Do If Aliens Crash in Your Backyard", "The Future of Mankind"... 

Two Hot Girls in the Shower

Okay, maybe they are not that hot... But really, I think they are girls... And they are definitely in the shower, discussing trendy girly topics and answering all your burning questions! For instance, should you go all the way on Prom Night? YouTube StandUp Comedy about a boyfriend's sexual appetites that may not meet a mother's approval or some aspects of sudoku. If you want to ask these girls a question of your own, go ahead. They have email and you win a toaster if they don't answer!

The Dead Guy Interviews

Writer and performer Michael Stusser always wanted to ask Van Gogh what that was all about with his ear, and Beethoven what he thought about this whole American Idol business. Michael not only got his interviews in a book ("The Dead Guy Interviews: Conversations with 45 of the Most Accomplished, Notorious, and Deceased Personalities in History") but he also "audio dramatized" them on his MySpace page and produced some YouTube Vids, starring Sigmund Freud or Genghis Khan. (No StandUps here, but SitDowns!)

The International Organization for Investigative Cryptomystology

Your host Simon Boyd investigates mysteries and curiosities that have kept mankind spellbound and enchanted for centuries... For instance, how would Little Red Riding Hood look in bikini, now she has grown up? have looked if she had grown up? Simon has also some revelations for you about a group of people calling themselves "The Illuminati Society", that is found all over the world and goes for a New World Order. Great YouTube StandUp Comedy.

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Hunting Unicorns

Mystee is a renowned psychic, with credentials in Transgender Manifestation, Orbs of Love, Channeling Ghostly Activity into Financial Success, etcetera. She believes that you have to show some love to the spirits to find them (and making fine photographs of them). On her MySpace Blog she also organizes Mass Unicorn Hunts on the Gettysburg Battlefield. That can be dangerous though, because the Irish Brigade once fought there and there might be Leprechauns present. If you want to participate in a Mass Unicorn Hunt, you must also sign a list of safety rules, which include not go playing leapfrog with unicorns.

The Great Spam Recycler

I just love Spam! One of the great things that you can do with it, is recycle it into really dumb cartoons about the products that will help you regain control of your virility and length, male enhancement recommended by true herbal love doctors, outwitting Mother Nature with the new Karma (sic) Sutra Pills ("No One Will Laugh With This Giant Anymore!") etcetera. Yep, it's all about sex here, with these Great Pills of Fire. And of course, also about Britney Spears and that Hilton in Paris.

While all these progress about the internet is good, and while communicating with millions of people at the click of a mouse or a finger push is actually a major advantage of our time, this has also bred a new series of problems, violations, or if you wish to call it, a new set of crimes invented by man himself.

These crimes don't have specific punishments yet, and if George Washington or the Founding Fathers saw this a few centuries ago, they would have crafted a more elaborate constitution! But now, every law and precept in the world is either too vague, or has limited ability and specificity to punish these crimes:

SPAM

Of course, you like SPAM, especially if its fried in olive oil and served with eggs during breakfast. But believe me, you'd be annoyed if you saw dozens of these in your email inbox!

SPAM is the general term associated with unsolicited email. Remember the person with the weird name who emailed you and said he has cancer so please donate $500? Or how about the 'naughty girl' who says she's ready to be viewed online? Or how about the oddball who emailed you about a pyramid scheme? These are all examples of SPAM!

For an email to be considered as SPAM, it must meet certain 'qualifications': First, it is a commercial email. Second, it invades privacy of an individual. Third, there are weird letters and characters. Fourth, there is consistent flooding and repetitive sending of email. Fifth, you did not personally subscribe for that information. Sixth, you have no personal relationship or knowledge of the whereabouts of the email sender! Seventh, there is no 'unsubscribe link' or at least a way out!

SPAM is now considered a crime because of the popular Nigerian 4-1-9 scams. These scams became notorious online for many years now. The con men behind it will gather millions of email addresses using illegal or unethical means, then proceed to mass email them with a fraudulent letter! For example, the 4-1-9 con man will tell the recipient, "I am a rich sultan in blah blah country and I want to transfer some of my money to another country. Will you please be the account holder in your country? I'll give you 50% of the money!"

After the victim has believed the email, he will be asked for a small "wire transfer fee" of $100 or more. Then, if the victim indeed sends the wire transfer fee, the 'sultan' will never email back again. Ever.

The CAN SPAM Act Of 2003 is a bill passed to suppress the spammers and bring them to justice. However, this law is still very limited compared to the various cases of SPAM reported. How can you prosecute someone who sends emails from offshore? How can evidence be traced if the online world is free of thumb marks, blood samples, and even AUDIBLE CONVERSATIONS? This is the reason why SPAM is pretty much 'on the loose' and many people still get away with it every single day.

Phishing

Phishing is the 'art' of exactly copying a certain popular website and fooling people to subscribe there so that they can surrender their vital contact information. For example, a "phisher" criminal might want to copy the Facebook homepage and even attempt to buy a domain name similar to Facebook (something like Facbook). Then people unknowingly log in to this website. The result? The 'phisher' will get private information from individuals!

Phishing actually goes beyond copying websites. Sometimes it resorts to using tracking cookies and hidden "trojan viruses" and online worms. These "devilish tools" are designed to extract login information, credit card details, and even money accounts! This is the reason why popular online money exchange sites like Paypal and E-Gold have phishing filters to protect the money of their account holders! But sometimes, the smartest "phishing" experts still manage to fool many people by sending them to a fraudulent site and extracting their personal information.

Phishing is not a joke. People can go broke as a result of it. People can give up private details to criminals. Personal emails can be read and intercepted. We must be totally aware of the danger. Never ever give away your personal information on questionable sites!

Plagiarism And Copyright Infringement

This is really a problem. With the millions of sites out there, and the hundreds of millions of users surfing the internet daily, there is no limit to the amount of content being submitted online, per minute!

The problem is, not all the content submitted online are ORIGINAL. Some are copied works. Some violate the copyrights of publishers, movie production companies, inventors, and even intellectual property! Movies, software, digital books, videos, commercial ads, and many others, have been plagiarized and infringed time and time again!

The main problem? It is impossible to track all the people who infringe copyrights. With the viral nature of the internet, one plagiarized or illegally distributed piece of content can spread like wildfire. Thus, the original "fake piece" will be hard to trace! You might find thousands of copies of a poem, ebook, or software that got "pirated", but you will never know who first reproduced it illegally. Thus, very few prosecutions of plagiarism and copyright infringement have actually taken place.

The only solution to these three problems? Let's close the internet from public use (ok, I can hear people screaming!). But that will make way for a bigger set of problems (problem number 1: Microsoft will go bankrupt). So, if shutting the internet from public use is not an option, let's just temporarily satisfy ourselves with the idea that we're too smart to be a victim of any of these so called "crimes".

Note: The reference about Nigerian 4-1-9 scams does not in any way degrade, malign, or condemn the Nigerian population in general. Criminals referred to in this article are responsible for their own actions, and do not act in behalf of their respective country of origin.

It is common when my email opens to see no less than 75 emails in my spam folder and then another 20 in my regular inbox.  I go through the normal process of deleting these emails while trying to retain my temper as I wonder why and how these spam emails are still getting through.

Like most people I use an outside email service that is supposed to have a spam filtering program or at least they advertise that they do. In fact now that I think about it my email provider notes proudly that they are committed to eliminating spam. If that is the case then why in the hell is it that every day I have to delete the same 75 spam emails from my mailbox that I did the day before? And I don’t do this just once a day but at least twice a day. Yes that’s right, I see more than 150 spam emails every day in my personal email and I am sick of it.

I’m sick of real and fake businesses trying to get me to open their advertisements. I’m tired of seeing spam emails advertising dating or offering for me to “see their pics.” I don’t want the same retailer sending me the same sales flyer three times in a row, just to make sure that I “don’t miss out on this sale.” And I’m tired of just getting the spam cleared out and just as I start an email another 5 spam emails land in my mailbox.

Is there any end in sight to spam or is this just what the world of emailing has become? And if this is what email has become is it going to move some of us back to the old way of communication – hand writing letters and sending via snail mail? I guess it could happen, if I can find where I put my pen and pad of paper as well as learn to wait a week or longer for those pictures or that note from my family and friends.

Spam, it really should only be that unknown block of mystery meat that comes in a can and not a bunch of bullshit emails in our inboxes.

********** Confidentiality Notice **********

This electronic transmission and any attached documents or other writings are confidential and are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) identified above. This message may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure under applicable law. If the receiver of this information is not the intended recipient, or the employee, or agent responsible for delivering the information to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, reading,dissemination, distribution, copying or storage of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender by return email and delete the electronic transmission,including all attachments from your system.

*****

This means the story about the man and the donkey, or the lady and the six kids, or the puppy with two days to live, or the joke about the old couple, was sent from some office by someone who was supposed to be working. Now I don't know about you, but I don't have time to read the long story about the man and the donkey. I am too busy to be shedding tears over the mother and her six hungry children, maybe the joke is funny, but seeing those screens of addresses and know that it's another, yes! another chain email, I delete it. I know that many of these chain emails demand that I send it one to seven of my friends. As I have friends who are also busy and would not be my friends if I sent them this junk, I disobey the exhortation. I'll take the risk. But what about those superstitious folk? The way the email is worded, breaking the chain, causes a very large bolt of lightening to come out of a clear sky and fry their employer's computer. This really shouldn't bother them, save they'll lose their games and contacts.

You don't have to ponder why there's a problem with American workers, or a recession, or failing economy. I am sure every single company has at least one employee who spends his/her time sending or creating this drivel and passing it to other employees, so that thousands of hours are wasted every day dealing with chain emails. Bandwidth is clogged with this gunk, meaning that vital data will be bumped so that another funny picture can make the rounds. As a service to humanity I have taken it upon myself to be the "dead email office". Any gunk sent to me is deleted. There are open positions at the dead email office so you can apply. Simply delete the next chain email unread. Don't worry about lightening strikes, remember, it's probably your company's computer that will be struck, and I'm sure you're looking for another work holiday.

Never do this!!!

As soon as not, when you put in your E-mail in that little box, the company will sell it to a 3rd party site or send more emails to you as it so unclearly states in their legal terms in size 4 translucent font at the bottom of the page. This puts your identity at great risk, or doubles your amount of spam E-mail you get every day.

I have experienced it, the company sold my name and address and I had government officials at my house and I will tell you, they were not happy about what I did. I also get Inappropriate things in the mail now. Never unsubscribe from spam E-mail.

I sat and thought about why I was suddenly receiving them and it dawned on me that the only thing new was that I had opted to receive correspondeces from these sites affiliates. It is not mandatory that you check that little box next to the fine print that offers you mailings of discounts and news, but each time I clicked it and went on with the sign-up process. They are clever in their placements and how the byline is worded to increase the chance that you will say yes to their offers of freebies and coupons and all "the new exciting products or services our affiliates offer". We all want to stay up-to-date and possible receive something for free so we all check that little box and go along our merry way hoping to be the next big winner.

Since realizing this mistake I no longer checked the affiliate boxes when I sign-up for a program or newsletter and my spam has greatly decreased since. Be especially vigilant when taking the hundreds of various quizes online, although they are free most of them have this little box just waiting for you to check it so they can explode your inbox with anything from "Free Personal Friend Finders" to "you just won a new laptop, click here to redeem". If you don't have the time to check your emails daily these spam mailings can eat up your free space and cause your account to be shut-down until you clean it out. Do what I have done and "Just Say No" to the affiliate question and save yourself the time and headaches before they ever become a nuisance.

I used to do online surveys for advertisers seeking reactions from consumers regarding new products, packaging/labeling, cost, existing products, etc. My favorite surveys were of new commercials for television. Those are fun! Some of the best commercials that I reviewed were the early Maxwell House coffee TV ads featuring homebuilder/contractor aficionado Mike Holmes. Those were brilliant! Better than ‘upcoming previews’ at the movies, this was like a ‘special screening’ of a much anticipated new movie! And I got to have a say on whether is good, great or uninteresting. It is your opinion that they seek, for if the commercial is not good they improve it based upon consensus opinions! How neat is that!

Some Trustworthy Online Survey Sites

There are hundreds of online survey sites out there eager for you sign up and use them. Some of the best are listed below. These are just a few of the many that I have used and feel that I trust:

• LightSpeed
• SurveySavvy
• SurveyLion
• MindfieldOnline
• SurveySpot
• FreePayingSurveys

My favorites online survey sites are SurveyLion and SurveySpot. Their surveys are easy to complete, well-written, and the reward payment worthwhile. I have earned some mad cash with LightSpeed too (link above) but this is achieved via an earned points system, redeemable for cash or gifts. I usually won’t do business with any survey site that doesn’t handle payments either by PayPal or personal checks via postal, or only offer 'coupons', 'retailer credit' or 'gift certificates.' LightSpeed is one of my exceptions in regards to 'earned points' rewards. They DO pay cash for accumulated points if that is what you wish, so I do continue to take their surveys.

Above is just a partial list of the many survey sites that I have been or currently am still a member of. Some survey sites I had signed up with proved to be a dismal disappointment. I had signed up with “OpinionOutpost” and only received one or two surveys, one at about every six months or so. And in both cases, I either failed to meet some nebulous minimum requirement or, even though I had taken the survey within minutes or an hour of receiving the e-mail notification, I was told at the end of the survey that;

“…this survey has reached it’s targeted number of participants for your demographic and has been closed.”

I’ll write about that next.

Too Many Requirements

And while the following link did provide some useful site data and led me to additional contacts, thesurveypro.com has a requirement that you must ‘register at 20 of the Top 25 Survey Sites’ that they provide and this is a little too shady for my taste. I seem to recall that 19 of these recommended sites were legitimate, trustworthy sites that could be found elsewhere on the web by their own merits. But the rest of this ‘list’ to pick and choose from to attain your “pick 20” were some kind of ‘webinar’ or 'web-commercial' that you would have to sit through and ‘sign up’ or ‘purchase’ something at the end to qualify or continue. Those endless ‘how many of THESE intrusive pop-up spammy-ads do you want to sign up for?’ seemed inexhaustible. We used to call those kinds of sign-up forms ‘popcorn.’ -A rather extensive and mind-numbing list of offers that you ‘tick’ the checkbox next to it. Then, you submit your sign-up page to move on to the next survey page. You cannot proceed without ticking at least ONE spammy offer. You will be presented with about a quarter-dozen more of these pages before you reach paydirt at the end, -if you ever do at all. Well, you will learn by the end of the first week or two how to create wildcard filters for your e-mail client to catch & kill junkmail as you WILL be getting many innovative and insistent spam-mails by the dozens I can guarantee that! Just be careful about creating 'blind filters' for specific text in the SUBJECT line. For instance; an 'e-mail filter' that blindly blocks any unsolicited ad containing the word "Cialis" (the male 'performance-enhancement' drug,) will have far-reaching effects. The 'wildcard block' might look like "*Cialis*" in your e-mail filter and it will stop e-mails containing this word used anywhere in the SUBJECT line, but this will also block e-mails containing the word "Specialist" as well! This could be a problem if you are an engineer, draftsman or perform any service that is considered 'specialized' and you receive work-related or job-offer e-mails in this same e-mail account.

This filter would also block any e-mail with the word "Socialist" so there is a good side to this too I suppose. Best yet, create a dedicated e-mail account and use that one account exclusively for your 'online surveys.' No personal contacts, no forum use. Just surveys. This dedicated e-mail is also useful to identify which sites re storing 'tracking cookies' on your computer, too. But that is for another article.

This dedicated e-mail account is deletable if the situation become too tenuous and impossible to continue, and your security and privacy are left intact. For your Online Surveys if you need to change e-mail accounts, just create a NEW account and switch over to it from your survey host's option board.

Too Much Stick And Almost No Carrot

All those endless Sign-Up for a $1000.00 Shopping Card from Wal-Mart offers only fill your e-mail box with DOZENS of similar offers. –You just have to meet their impossible and esoteric requirements to get the promised shopping card. Generally, you are required to buy several hundred dollars of ‘qualifying merchandise’ that you otherwise would not even want. Next, you get a half-dozen or more of your best friends in your ‘downlevel’ to do the same thing after you have referred them via their personal e-mail addresses and only after THEY TOO have also signed-on and purchased several hundred dollars of stuff, do YOU get the promised $1000.00 shopping card. It has a definite ‘pyramid’-like structure to it, huh?

You will have no friends left at the end of this but you can get your $1000.00 shopping card. Maybe

Avoid those offers. They are scams. It took me a few months to get off of some insistent mailing spammer lists for the early signing-up I undertook before backing out of the offer. They had already at that point nailed my e-mail address and I started receiving offers for pharma products like Viagra and Cialis and information on 'how to 'increase the size and girth of my you-know-what' that very first night!

–That promised “$10.00 in 30-minutes” at “thesurveypro” is probably real but you have to jump through some ugly hoops to get there. They keep changing the Suggested Survey Sign-Up Sites too. You sign up for twenty sites on their list and turn in your ‘proof’, -they have CHANGED the list again! I failed to complete this requirement and for the pithy requirements stated above. I suspect that many others have stopped short also.

I had only completed 19 of the required 20 ‘sign-ups’ through them without having to purchase something, turn over my computer's Address Book or practically sell door-to-door for them. Friends don’t sign-up friends for these offers, no! I could not do just one more of the remaining requirements (I only had to do ONE more to qualify!) Ten dollars was not worth it. Your results may vary but I seriously doubt it.

And never, ever PAY anyone or any company to 'refer online surveys' to you! STOP! These are 100% guaranteed RIP-OFFS. Advertisers WANT you to take their survey and they pay YOU for doing so. Not the other way around.

A New Trend in Online Surveys?

I have been declining more and more online surveys since about the First of the New Year. I have grown weary of a recent trend towards not rewarding with immediate payouts, but the ‘reward’ is cumulative. One completes a 15 or 20-minutes survey and instead of a cash reward at the end, you ‘earn points’ that accrue for months until you have enough to redeem for merchandise at ‘select retailers’ of their choosing. While these retailers might include such notable places such as chapters.indigo.ca or amazon.com, -which are excellent places to shop, I just find it very limiting. I prefer to make my own choice where to redeem or shop. Pay me cash. It really is just that simple.

Read my lips: CASH IS KING! Don’t pay me with ‘store credit’ or a 'gift coupon.' Pay me in CASH or step aside.

Doing It On the Cheap

Another trend in online surveys which bugs me terribly is this “…if you qualify for our survey, a $3.00 honorarium will be paid’. These can be legit but way too often in my extensive experience you still get shafted. The diminutive reward is part of the rip-off. If they offered, say, $25.00 and did what I am about to explain, they would get buried alive with complaints!

You will undertake a 10 to 15-minute survey and when almost finished, the very last screen shown to you is a dismissive;

“…we are sorry. -You do not meet the minimum requirements that our advertiser is seeking”

and the survey is effectively ended. You are 'opted out' and will receive nothing. They HAVE your data now. You completed the survey. But they changed the rules and terminated the survey. You were just voted off of the Island. Without pay.

Another ‘easy out’ for them is that you take the survey and some 20-minutes into it, the almost last-screen reads something like;

“…we are sorry, but this survey has reached its quota for the select group of which you were competing”

and again, they now HAVE your data and the survey has closed. Ended, without you getting paid. At only $3.00 per denied survey, it would take a Class Action Lawsuit (and a lawyer willing to work on-the-cheap) to actually fight against this. Even at that, it would take over a year probably to align enough people together to sign-on, review the complaint and determine the damages. Most people just ‘give up’ over a three-dollar promise-broken. I know that I have.

I will bend over soiled candy wrappers and brown dental floss on the ground to pick up a dirty penny but I will not take a $3.00 online survey. Why? -The penny lying on the sidewalk is a sure thing. The $3.00 survey is not.

And The Survey Says…

Having said all of this, I will continue to say that most Online Surveys are legitimate and worthwhile. Over the course of maybe 6 or 7 months of doing this actively and nearly two years of doing it selectively, I probably have taken maybe one hundred+ surveys. I failed to qualify for probably that many more. Of all those, I probably made several hundred dollars.

My most profitable survey was this one-hour survey that I could take in two parts. The payout on that was $65.00-USD and it was VERY enjoyable. I got to take it to completion and was thanked profusely at the end of the survey. I also received the payment promptly. These things made me feel important and valuable. Those are the shining examples of what Online Surveys should be like.

I am probably not the best target market for 70% or more of the available surveys out there, but you may be. Your personal or familial demographic may be some retailers dream and there are always online surveys waiting for you regarding food, drink, consumer products, HBA (Health & Beauty Aids,) lifestyle, clothing and more. Best of luck to you if decide to try Online Surveys. It can be very rewarding and satisfying.

It can also be very frustrating and mind numbingly tiresome.

When you're going back and forth, messaging or emailing with someone who doesn't see to want to end the exchange, close things down by sending an unmistakably final salutation.

Try one of these:

- Have a good day.

- I'll get back to you soon.

- Okay, that covers it. I'm signing off now.

- Sounds great. No need to reply.

When people forward you jokes, videos, and chain letters, you can always delete them, of course. If you don't want to recieve virtual inbox cloggers at all, however, reply with something like, "Hey, I want to be excited when I see your name--but when you send me forwards like these, I just delete them, so I'll never know if you're sending a personal message." That should stop even the most avid chain-emailer.

Here is the guide for " No spam Messages for your email"

Don't give you personal information to ANY Message

If someone would send you a mail where you need to put your Personal Information mark it to dangerous. Then block those mails from that sender. Never put your real name or address there!

Read suspicious looking mails VERY Carefully

Mail, what looks very suspicious and there reads “this is no joke” or “ Send this to 10 your friends” They are spam messages.

Keep your password safe

Create safely password for your mail. Like using more than 7 marks. You can use BIG and small letters to make password harder to find/guess.

Act

If you believe someone have used your email Windows Page looks wrong, or you get suspicious mail that tries change your password, what you haven't done. Change your password!

I hope this guide helped you a lot.

If you have something to ask,

please, do a favor to me and ask what you have to ask.

See you later!

P.S

If this helped you even a little, please click that 'I Liked It'

Thank you.

Recreation and/or Personal Gratification

For the Thrill of it - Believe it or not there are those who get their jollies by hacking into networks purely for the “fun and adrenalin pumping thrill” of it. The thrill of the chase has often been shown to be the most alluring of motivations. This has been attributed by many social and behavioral analysts to originate from our deeply rooted subconscious drives to “hunt”.

Primitive Instincts - The advent of agriculture on a massive scale has; in the majority of Western societies, removed the direct “life or death” importance embodied by a successful hunt. As a society we no longer actively participate or depend heavily on traditional hunter/gatherer or subsistence farming lifestyles. Through attacking information systems many are able to fill this perceived gap in their everyday life experiences.

Self-Importance - Then there are those who instigate attacks against information systems to prove their “technical prowess” either to themselves and/or their friends and associates. This class of attacker genuinely believes that their actions will somehow raise their standing in the community. While this result may be true of attacks at the micro-level (the attacker and/or small group of the attacker's peers), we tend to find that society in general will for the greater part collectively think otherwise.

The Group Effect - Never underestimate the power of peer group pressure or the compulsive behaviors that can result both directly and indirectly (collateral damage) from it. On top of this; the “group effect” is just as relevant and applicable to both individual styled attacks and group attacks.

Group Dynamics - The fact that many of these collectives/groups of attackers are such loosely bound collectives makes defending against them all the more difficult.

Group Effect Gratification - The specific gratification that many perpetrators of information systems attacks desire can often be as simple as believing that; in some manner or way, successful attack exploits will result in the elevation of their (the attacker) perceived level of esteem within the group collective. It could also be a means of proving their “worth” in the eyes of those they perceive to be their peers.

Sociopathic Tendencies - The motivation behind this group of information systems attackers can be deeply rooted, long seated, anti-establishment or genuinely deep antisocial tendencies. Many times have; the initiatives and outcomes instigated and driven out of sociopathic intentions and behaviors, so nearly resulted in chaos/anarchy. Collateral damage is most common when an attacker's sociopathic tendencies take center stage.

Counterculture - Underground and counterculture type motivations are also prime factors contributing to information system attacks. It's all about some sort of “the in thing” among a group generally priding themselves in their “alternative” lifestyles and views.

Notoriety - Never forget those driven to personal gratification through notoriety. Getting one's 15 minutes of fame has often proven too hard to resist and driven purely by this desire an attacker will perpetrate many attacks.

Sometimes hearing of the consequences of their actions is not anywhere enough. The maximum publicity to be gained from becoming a “hacking legend” anonymously simply won't do for some people. They need to be caught in order to truly become the center of the universe.

Those motivated to commit persistent multiple attacks in order to gain notoriety are one of the more dangerous types of attackers since crashing or denying access to a large number of prominent web sites brings the highest publicity and hence the greatest notoriety. This group also exhibits a very strong underlying compulsion to do as much malicious damage as possible for the same reasons as stated above.

Spam - Spammers are a group where notoriety and fiscal gain meet in the cyber war. Being the world's most prolific spammer has an egocentric side to it that most people quite simply just don't understand.

Forbidden Fruit - We should not forget the “forbidden fruit” factor either. More or less similar to the “dangling the carrot in front of the donkey” to get it moving. The need to reach that which is just out of reach is so deeply in-grained into some people that they cave-in to temptation.

Curiosity - Curiosity can be such a compelling core human motivation that it also merits mention here. I think all of us have at some time or other wondered “I wonder what it's like on the other side of the fence”.

In the case of membership privileges websites this can be manifest in users lacking the appropriate credentials and access permissions and privileges attempting to gain entry into the restricted registered member only zone. “The grass is always greener on the other side”.

The Age Factor - While the mass media tends to portray many of these “hacker” groups as being comprised solely of persons under the age of 25 (and usually in their teens) the reality of the statistics gathered in a number of recent studies tells a very different tale.

In what is more or less a case of mistaken identity or being hung out to dry by default. In reality they were wrongly maligned and innocent of malicious intent. Their “crime” was that due to a total absence of forethought or lack of appropriate due care and consideration they may have unwittingly created havoc for others. Quite often this class of attackers does what they do simply because it was there.

Increased Access Rights and Privileges - One group commonly found to be engaging in “hacking-type” activities are those modifying the system functions in order to maintain greater levels of user access rights, privileges, privacy and freedom for themselves (personal gratification).

The recent rise in the numbers of publically accessible anonymous proxy servers now available on the Internet bears witness to just how strong an influence the pursuit of privacy by users can be. At some time or other, we all feel the urge to surf the net anonymously. Our desire to avoid spam greatly motivates one and all.

Fiscal Gain

There are a considerable number of individuals and/or groups whose sole purpose for invading other networks; to which they have no authentic access, is for personal fiscal gain. Common attack motivations and strategies in this category include:

Financial Records - Manipulation of financial records is often the ultimate objective driving an attacker to gain access to a network. They may desire to attempt to transfer funds to their own bank accounts or to erase all records of their debts.

Hacker for Hire - Some hackers are paid by others to break into various networks designated by those engaging the services of the hacker. Corporate espionage is included in this category.

Bot-Master for Hire - Bot-masters are also known to perform similar services for a fee of course although in their case this usually means a DoS or DDoS attack or PPC fraud.

Extortion and DDoS Attacks - The attacker instigates a DDoS and then contacts the victim to inform them of the fact. The attacker then halts the attack. At this point the attacker usually contacts the victim again to make demands upon the victim.

Basically; the message is “Pay up or I will continue crashing your network and thereby halt your ecommerce endeavors”. This is very much a new spin on the traditional “stand over” extortion practices of the past. The main difference is that in this version the extortionist does not need to threaten their victim with physical injury (break an arm if you don't pay up).

So long as the victim keeps paying the will attacker hold-off their attacks. No prize for guessing that if the victim stops paying the attacker will strike immediately by launching a denial of service attack (DoS or DDoS) specifically designed to debilitate the victim network. In this way the victim's ecommerce can be halted in the blink of an eye.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Fraud - Certain notorious bot-masters have been known to use their botnets (hundreds even thousands of compromised machines) to commit PPC fraud for some time now.

These scams work by exploiting the fact that website owners are paid advertising revenues on a per click basis by the likes of Google and Yahoo as part of their advertising strategies on behalf of legitimate advertisers.

Even though many sites may only receive 1 or 2 cents per click having a botnet consisting of thousands of zombie machines cruising the Internet performing these actions can be very rewarding. It really doesn't matter which ad gets clicked just as long as it is on a specific web page or website. Click through analysis and advanced traffic analytics can detect these activities.

PPC Greed - Because human nature is what it is greed can often overrun their better judgment with the result that some of the perpetrators of this type of scam get so overzealous that they have a website suddenly earning hundreds and even thousands of dollars a day.

Google and Yahoo are not that stupid and will promptly revoke the offending site's revenue generating advertising privileges and services. Advertisers can afford themselves some protection by capping their maximum daily or site click through limits.

Revenge

Revenge can also be a motive behind an information system attack. For example; dissatisfied customers, disgruntled former employees, jealous or angry competitors and even people who have a personal grudge or bear some other umbrage against someone in the organization rate among the highest incidence for reasons that an attack against an information system is perpetrated.

This group comprises the most persistent of all information systems attack motivations as well as being the attack motivation category that tends to cause the maximum malicious damage. Someone scorned is a very dangerous adversary indeed because more often than not they don't care about whether or not they are apprehended. On the contrary apprehension is in itself justifiable as they will present the aggrieved attacker with further opportunities to publically air their grievances.

Identity Theft

Motivations for identity theft related attacks include the likes of: avoidance of penalties (punishment for other crimes committed), fraudulent impersonation, character assassination, espionage, revenge, extortion and elevation of authentication credentials and the associated access rights and privileges.

Quite often criminal activity is required to commit identity theft which in turn is used to commit further crimes. Identity theft can vary considerably in form, nature, method and intent but can be loosely grouped as follows: financial identity theft, criminal identity theft, identity cloning, masquerading and impersonation and business/commercial identity theft.

It is through a basic understanding of the motivations behind information systems attacks that we can better arm ourselves and be truly ready for the cyber wars. We will also be better placed to know where and when to look as well as what to look for. Our next steps will be the construct of robust proactive defenses teamed with the essential knee-jerk responses we are more familiar with.