Propaganda-Spouting Fake Military Sock Pockets and Internet Trolls

Watch out! That new Facebook friend just might be a spy.  So, if you enjoy creating multiple fake people online, the military wants you!

Yes, the US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.  The multiple persona contract seems to spring from Operation Earnest Voice (OEV).

After contracting with a California-based company, Ntrepid Corp. for $2.75 million, creating and managing fake identities online will be easy as pie.

Meanwhile, the government plans to crackdown on Internet users, for what?  Ah yes, counterfeiting and forgery.  Well,  in the UK:

Legal experts say it could fall foul of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, which states that "a person is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person's prejudice".

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How To Research An Unknown Online Retailer

From the Consumerist:

• Do they have a toll free customer service number and published hours of operation?
• Do they take credit cards? It is no guarantee of quality if they do, but it is one step up. I think you should generally avoid any place that only takes Western Union money transfers.
• Do they have a security/hacker prevention or testing certificate?
• Does the checkout process use an encrypted HTTPS page?
• Are the company Privacy and About pages blank, or do they look like they are from a default template for an online shopping cart that was just set up the day before?
• Search Google for the store name and words like "scam" and "customer service." It is not a good thing if all the entries are for people asking if a site is a scam in Yahoo Answers.
• [www.google.com]
  [answers.yahoo.com]
  [wiki.answers.com]
• Check the Whois to see what the website registration looks like. It is not a good sign if it was just registered last week. It should not look like someone is trying to hide the fact that they are running a business out of their parents basement.
• [www.geektools.com]
• Check the Traceroute to see what network it is running on. It should match the WhoIs info to some extent.
• [www.opus1.com]
• Check if the company has a yellow pages listing and street address. If you have a phone number, a company with a street address is a lot more reassuring. Check the address on Google Maps to see if it is a vacant lot or an address in a housing tract.
• [www.411.com]
• See if the site has a warning listed on McAfee SiteAdvisor.
• [www.siteadvisor.com]
• Check fraud and scam report sites. Some of them also list sites that have allegedly scammed other people.
• [edsbandwagon.com]
  [www.fraudbureau.com]
  [www.ripoffreport.com]
  [www.scambusters.com]
  [www.scamclub.com]
  [www.cybercrime.gov]
  [www.fraud.org]
• Beware of "Online Review" sites. Some are little more than a site for scammers to post fake positive reviews, and the owners to make money on banner ads. Here are some you can trust:
• [www.epinions.com]
  [reviews.pricegrabber.com]
  [www.bizrate.com]
  [www.resellerratings.com]
• BBB online. Lots of places do not have entries because they are small and treat their customers well enough to not get a complaint.
• [search.bbb.org]

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The IP Rich List

Under IPv4 there are 4,294,967,296 possible IP addresses - each of which may be assigned to a device or computer on the internet. Four billion addresses equates to slightly less that two thirds of an IP address per person on the planet. As you may imagine, the IP addresses are not distributed evenly around the world - they are assigned to individual countries by Regional Internet Registries such as ARIN and RIPE. We take a look at how that information breaks down per person in each country.

First of all, I obtained an IP address to country lookup list, which revealed the blocks assigned to each country - from this I was able to calculate the total number of IP addresses allocated to each country. I then divided that total figure by the country's population, giving an indication of the number of IPs available to that country per capita (person).

Top 10 Countries

		Country	Population	No. of IPs	IPs/capita
1.		Vatican City	783	8,191	10.5 IPs per person
2.		United States	299,161,390	1,352,246,048	4.5 IPs per person
3.		Canada	32,547,200	70,313,601	2.2 IPs per person
4.		Iceland	297,139	589,790	2.0 IPs per person
5.		Monaco	35,656	63,480	1.8 IPs per person
6.		Gibraltar	27,921	47,097	1.7 IPs per person
7.		Liechtenstein	33,987	51,217	1.51 IPs per person
8.		Sweden	9,072,269	13,573,300	1.501 IPs per person
9.		Finland	5,255,580	7,705,691	1.496 IPs per person
10.		Australia	20,555,300	29,998,170	1.459 IPs per person

And so, onto the bottom 10 countries. Note that these are expressed in a slightly different way - rather that IPs per person, these are expressed by people per IP - the reciprocal.

Bottom 10 Countries

		Country	Population	No. of IPs	IPs/capita
195.		Afghanistan	29,863,000	20,476	1,458 people per IP
196.		Madagascar	18,606,000	12,286	1,514 people per IP
197.		Guinea-Bissau	1,586,000	1,203	1,550 people per IP
198.		Central African Republic	4,038,000	2,047	1,972 people per IP
199.		Burundi	7,548,000	2,302	3,278 people per IP
200.		Myanmar	50,519,000	12,286	4,112 people per IP
201.		Malawi	12,884,000	3,070	4,197 people per IP
202.		Ethiopia	75,067,000	16,383	4,582 people per IP
203.		Niger	13,957,000	255	58,139 people per IP
204.		Democratic Republic of Congo	59,319,660	1023	58,140 people per IP

As seen in the shaded map above, it's the African countries and disputed territories that have the highest ration of people to assigned IPs. The least IP-dense country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been stricken by war during the main period of growth of the internet, and has likely suffered. There is a clear reflection of GNP in these figures too - those countries with lower GDPs have similarly lower concentrations of IPs.

This IP shortage is the reason why the move to IPv6 is underway, which supports a markedly superior 3.4x10³⁸ possible addresses - more than enough for everyone on the planet, and no doubt we'll need the extra address space with the lesser economically developed countries catching up in terms of internet usage.

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