Internet companies team up against fraud
Mar 15, 2013
It’s nice to see the big guys work together for a change. It appears that major internet companies working in Russia are planning to team up and fight SMS fraud. Yandex, Google, Mail.Ru Group, VK, Group-IB, Dr. Web and Kaspersky Lab have launched a joint initiative informally called "Operation Flyswatter". Here’s the deal: the state of internet security is not the best these days – it’s very easy to steal a password. Hence, more and more companies are switching to a better method for authorizing users - two-factor authentication. This means that apart from the password, users need to use something else to prove their right to access a service. Most web services use cellphone authentication – the user’s phone receives a text message with a code which needs to be submitted along with the password. People are getting used to this and criminals abuse this habit. They launch phishing websites faking Yandex, VK, Odnoklassniki and similar popular services, which claim to need some action from the user. After the user inputs phone number and submits the code, turns out that they’ve subscribed to paid SMS services. The companies have now teamed up to help combat spread of such fraud – internet companies will warns users not access these sites and anti-virus companies will take them down. Cellphone numbers used in these schemes will be reported by participating companies in hopes cellphone operators will cooperate as well. So ho
It’s going to a long weekend for Russians – on March 8 we’re celebrating the International Women’s Day! Which is sort of like Mother’s Day, but for all girls and women – in other words, flowers and chocolates all around! Anyhow, as I’ve mentioned last week, Google has recently updated its Hot Trends service and now gives specific results for several countries, including Russia. Without further ado, let’s have a look at what Russians looked for throughout this week.
Sunday was dedicated to Miss Russia 2013 beauty pageant and its winner, Elmira Abdrazakova, an 18-year-old student at the Siberian Railway University from the city of Mezhdurechensk. I guess a lot of webgoers in Russia like pretty women. Well, the event was also somewhat controversial – as you might have guessed from her name, the winner is not purely Slavic – in fact, she’s of Tatar descent. This did not sit well with some people. The same search actually was the top trend for Tuesday, but we’ll get to that.
On Monday the top search trend for Russia was… "sex". Okay, well, that’s sort of weird. According to Google, it was the one most common search query for people looking up on the Pope Benedict resignation amid ongoing Catholic Church sex scandals. The resignation itself was a big deal – he’s the first Pope to resign in modern times. Benedict XVI claimed his deteriorating strength prevented him from meeting the physical and mental demands of the papacy. Google suggested that another link popular with this search query was a risqué show put together by Russian Musical producer Bari Alibasov – I guess Monday was a slow day and people were interested in tabloid material.
On Tuesday, as I’ve said, once again the top search intially ‘Miss Russia’, specifically, the newly-crowned Miss Russia 2013 Elmira Abdrazakova. Here’s why: apparently poor girl received more attention that she was comfortable with. Elmira had her VK personal page accessible to everyone; all users could send her messages. After the pageant, in a matter of hours the address of her social network profile became public – it’s not hard to look up a person on VK knowing name, location and school. Upon returning to
her computer, the newly-crowned Elmira found hundreds of messages in her inbox. Initially she was flattered by the attention. However, not every message she received was a pleasant one. Since the winner of Miss Russia is to receive $100,000, some users, presumably, her real life acquaintances, decided the girl did not need all that money and could share it. I guess it’s true – I’ve heard stories of people suddenly becoming wealthy who suddenly find long-forgotten friends and relatives popping out of nowhere. Another popular theme was criticism – from her facial features to her blood. As I’ve mentioned, Elmira has Tatar heritage; and a lot of online commentators apparently believe that it was not appropriate to award "Miss Russia" to someone who isn’t "Russian" – yeah, I guess they forgot that the counter is multi-ethnic and Tatarstan is a federal subject of Russia. Miss Russia decided that all this attention was too much for her to handle and shut down her social network profile. Now there are only her doppelganger profiles, which, frankly, I never understood – I guess they’re good for a laugh, to trick a gullible user into thinking he really is talking to a celebrity.
Another hot trend for Tuesday was also dedicated to a famous woman – Lara Croft. The latest installment of the popular video game saga Tomb Raider, a gritty reboot of the series, was launched March 5th. Not sure what the users were looking for – most likely game reviews and manuals.
These searches were overshadowed with "March 8th greetings". Over 50,000 searches in a day. I guess where there’s a lack of creativity, Google comes to the rescue! But then again, seeing as how it’s a largely commercialized holiday – and which one isn’t these days – internet stores capitalize on the hype and offer all sorts of goodies to commemorate this day – generally things like flowers, chocolates and teddy bears. It’s a good thing it was a hot trend Tuesday 5th, not 7th – at least we know Russian men can plan festivities ahead.
Anyway, moving on.
On Wednesday almost everything was overshadowed with, as you’ve probably guessed, the news of death of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president – not much to add here. This was the most searched subject, too. Whereas other topics had mostly over 10,000 searches per day, this one, just like International Women’s Day, had over 50,000.
Another trend was Champion’s League – soccer clubs (Paris Saint Germain) PSG and Juventus reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League – judging by my social media feeds, indeed, a lot of Russians were interested in this week’s soccer matches.
March 8th, again, had a reappearance on Wednesday – over 20,000 searches. I guess most figured out what is it they would give women in their lives the day before.
Pavel Dmitrichenko was one of the top four trends to break the 10,000 search query threshold that day. There’s quite a story behind this one. On January 17 artistic director of Bolshoi Theatre, Sergei Filin, was attacked by an unknown assailant, who threw a jar of sulphuric acid in his face. This attack did not come out of the blue. The Bolshoi Ballet company has been going through a rough time, tensions were high and infighting was going on for a while. After conducting an investigation, on March 5, 2013 the police announced that it was Pavel Dmitrichenko who orchestrated the attack – allegedly, he hired two men to do his dirty work. The crime was considered to be solved; the trial date was set for Thursday, March 7th. This event was quite a shock – after all, Bolshoi Theatre could probably be called one of symbols of Russia – and this sort of treachery, and complete lack of human decency is not something people expect from someone working in the forefront of the nation’s culture.
On Thursday the first trend surfaced around noon. Unfortunately, it’s more bad news from the world of Russian Culture. Andrei Panin, a beloved Russian actor, was found dead in his apartment, lying on the floor with a head wound. By Thursday night, over 20,000 searches were made on this subject.
Well, that’s it for our Runet week with Google. By the way, ahead of the International Women’s Day, Yandex decided to analyze what kind of cars Russian women are interested in, based on their internet searches. Mazda 3 is number one in this rating; it’s followed by Range Rover Evoque. Wow, those are two very different price ranges! Mazda CX-7, being somewhere in the middle, took the third spot. Yandex noted that female webgoers are almost completely disinterred in Russian car brands. The search giant decided to not leave out men after all and put together a rating of most "manly" cars as well. The rating is as follows: Mercedes (C- and S-class), followed by Lada Granta, pretty much on the opposite side of the price spectrum. These are followed by a Russian off-road UAZ Patriot, Peugeot 408, Volkswagen Golf and Skoda Octavia. As you can see, most are budget cars and the only luxury brand is Mercedes – I guess this could be explained by cultural history – these were the default luxury cars back in the 90s, and all the "new Russians", successful businessman with questionable histories were driving these bad boys. If you’re wondering how Yandex knew user genders, it used an automatic technology called "Crypta", which claims to have 74% success rate. This software scans through the digital trail left by the user – cookies, searches, visited websites, social media accounts and so on – and based on all this, it decides on the gender.
It’s going to a long weekend for Russians – on March 8 we’re celebrating the International Women’s Day! Which is sort of like Mother’s Day, but for all girls and women – in other words, flowers and chocolates all around! Anyhow, as I’ve mentioned last week, Google has recently updated its Hot Trends service and now gives specific results for several countries, including Russia. Without further ado, let’s have a look at what Russians looked for throughout this week.
Sunday was dedicated to Miss Russia 2013 beauty pageant and its winner, Elmira Abdrazakova, an 18-year-old student at the Siberian Railway University from the city of Mezhdurechensk. I guess a lot of webgoers in Russia like pretty women. Well, the event was also somewhat controversial – as you might have guessed from her name, the winner is not purely Slavic – in fact, she’s of Tatar descent. This did not sit well with some people. The same search actually was the top trend for Tuesday, but we’ll get to that.
On Monday the top search trend for Russia was… "sex". Okay, well, that’s sort of weird. According to Google, it was the one most common search query for people looking up on the Pope Benedict resignation amid ongoing Catholic Church sex scandals. The resignation itself was a big deal – he’s the first Pope to resign in modern times. Benedict XVI claimed his deteriorating strength prevented him from meeting the physical and mental demands of the papacy. Google suggested that another link popular with this search query was a risqué show put together by Russian Musical producer Bari Alibasov – I guess Monday was a slow day and people were interested in tabloid material.
On Tuesday, as I’ve said, once again the top search intially ‘Miss Russia’, specifically, the newly-crowned Miss Russia 2013 Elmira Abdrazakova. Here’s why: apparently poor girl received more attention that she was comfortable with. Elmira had her VK personal page accessible to everyone; all users could send her messages. After the pageant, in a matter of hours the address of her social network profile became public – it’s not hard to look up a person on VK knowing name, location and school. Upon returning to
her computer, the newly-crowned Elmira found hundreds of messages in her inbox. Initially she was flattered by the attention. However, not every message she received was a pleasant one. Since the winner of Miss Russia is to receive $100,000, some users, presumably, her real life acquaintances, decided the girl did not need all that money and could share it. I guess it’s true – I’ve heard stories of people suddenly becoming wealthy who suddenly find long-forgotten friends and relatives popping out of nowhere. Another popular theme was criticism – from her facial features to her blood. As I’ve mentioned, Elmira has Tatar heritage; and a lot of online commentators apparently believe that it was not appropriate to award "Miss Russia" to someone who isn’t "Russian" – yeah, I guess they forgot that the counter is multi-ethnic and Tatarstan is a federal subject of Russia. Miss Russia decided that all this attention was too much for her to handle and shut down her social network profile. Now there are only her doppelganger profiles, which, frankly, I never understood – I guess they’re good for a laugh, to trick a gullible user into thinking he really is talking to a celebrity.
Another hot trend for Tuesday was also dedicated to a famous woman – Lara Croft. The latest installment of the popular video game saga Tomb Raider, a gritty reboot of the series, was launched March 5th. Not sure what the users were looking for – most likely game reviews and manuals.
These searches were overshadowed with "March 8th greetings". Over 50,000 searches in a day. I guess where there’s a lack of creativity, Google comes to the rescue! But then again, seeing as how it’s a largely commercialized holiday – and which one isn’t these days – internet stores capitalize on the hype and offer all sorts of goodies to commemorate this day – generally things like flowers, chocolates and teddy bears. It’s a good thing it was a hot trend Tuesday 5th, not 7th – at least we know Russian men can plan festivities ahead.
Anyway, moving on.
On Wednesday almost everything was overshadowed with, as you’ve probably guessed, the news of death of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president – not much to add here. This was the most searched subject, too. Whereas other topics had mostly over 10,000 searches per day, this one, just like International Women’s Day, had over 50,000.
Another trend was Champion’s League – soccer clubs (Paris Saint Germain) PSG and Juventus reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League – judging by my social media feeds, indeed, a lot of Russians were interested in this week’s soccer matches.
March 8th, again, had a reappearance on Wednesday – over 20,000 searches. I guess most figured out what is it they would give women in their lives the day before.
Pavel Dmitrichenko was one of the top four trends to break the 10,000 search query threshold that day. There’s quite a story behind this one. On January 17 artistic director of Bolshoi Theatre, Sergei Filin, was attacked by an unknown assailant, who threw a jar of sulphuric acid in his face. This attack did not come out of the blue. The Bolshoi Ballet company has been going through a rough time, tensions were high and infighting was going on for a while. After conducting an investigation, on March 5, 2013 the police announced that it was Pavel Dmitrichenko who orchestrated the attack – allegedly, he hired two men to do his dirty work. The crime was considered to be solved; the trial date was set for Thursday, March 7th. This event was quite a shock – after all, Bolshoi Theatre could probably be called one of symbols of Russia – and this sort of treachery, and complete lack of human decency is not something people expect from someone working in the forefront of the nation’s culture.
On Thursday the first trend surfaced around noon. Unfortunately, it’s more bad news from the world of Russian Culture. Andrei Panin, a beloved Russian actor, was found dead in his apartment, lying on the floor with a head wound. By Thursday night, over 20,000 searches were made on this subject.
Well, that’s it for our Runet week with Google. By the way, ahead of the International Women’s Day, Yandex decided to analyze what kind of cars Russian women are interested in, based on their internet searches. Mazda 3 is number one in this rating; it’s followed by Range Rover Evoque. Wow, those are two very different price ranges! Mazda CX-7, being somewhere in the middle, took the third spot. Yandex noted that female webgoers are almost completely disinterred in Russian car brands. The search giant decided to not leave out men after all and put together a rating of most "manly" cars as well. The rating is as follows: Mercedes (C- and S-class), followed by Lada Granta, pretty much on the opposite side of the price spectrum. These are followed by a Russian off-road UAZ Patriot, Peugeot 408, Volkswagen Golf and Skoda Octavia. As you can see, most are budget cars and the only luxury brand is Mercedes – I guess this could be explained by cultural history – these were the default luxury cars back in the 90s, and all the "new Russians", successful businessman with questionable histories were driving these bad boys. If you’re wondering how Yandex knew user genders, it used an automatic technology called "Crypta", which claims to have 74% success rate. This software scans through the digital trail left by the user – cookies, searches, visited websites, social media accounts and so on – and based on all this, it decides on the gender.