BBC: Porn 'Click-fraud' Used in Fake MH17 Facebook Tributes

CYBERSPACE—As with other such tragedies, the aftermath of the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17 has provided heartless scammers with an opportunity to make money off of personal misfortune, in the process inflicting even more horror on the families of the victims of the criminal act perpetrated on July 17. It is being reported by the BBC, The Sydney Morning Herald and others that a number of fake tribute pages on Facebook have sprung up that make money for their creators through a "click fraud" scheme in which visitors to pages dedicated to victims of the downing are, according to SMH, "hit with a series of pop-up ads for online gambling, get-rich-quick schemes, and other dubious products and services." Porn, reports the BBC, is another exploiter of the crash. According to an article published Monday, "A Facebook community page dedicated to Liam Sweeney, one of the 298 people victims, uses his name and picture. Its sole post is a link entitled: 'Video Camera Caught the moment plane MH17 Crash over Ukraine.' "However, the link takes users to a pornographic website," it continues. "Moreover, anyone who clicks on it is then asked to call a phone number in order to verify that they are aged 18 or older." According to Richard Cox, an online security analyst with Spamhaus, anyone who clicks on the link and calls the number is in for even more grief. "Whoever it is now has your caller ID and you could get a lot of nuisance calls," he warned, adding, "This is all based on a somewhat tasteless video that probably doesn't exist and is presented in a completely tasteless way. It is a fairly rapid and predictable response by the individuals behind it. They are all to make money. There is no compassion involved.” Indeed, the lack of compassion exhibited by these fraudsters during a time when the families are still reeling from the treatment of their loved ones' remains makes the abuse related to this particular tragedy especially galling. "Disturbingly," adds SMH, "three of the fake pages have been set up in the names of young West Australian children who were killed. The sites are further traumatizing already grief-stricken families, including relatives of Canberra victim Liliane Derden. "Carly Taylor, a close friend of Ms. Derden, said the family had been told of the Facebook page by grieving friends," adds the article. "They said they had deleted Ms Derden's personal Facebook page to reduce confusion." In response to complaints, Facebook says it is deleting the pages as fast as it is informed of their existence, adding, "We encourage people to block those responsible and report suspicious behavior to our team of experts via our reporting buttons so that we can quickly take the appropriate action." But Alastair MacGibbon, director of the University of Canberra's Centre for Internet Safety, said that the "whack-a-mole" strategy of dealing with the scams almost assured their continued use and profitability because the pages are put up faster than they can be taken down, telling SMH, "There's a lot of money in click fraud. You're really dealing with a base type of person who uses the name of a person recently deceased in a tragedy to monetize. "But that's why they're criminals and we're not," he added. Facebook is not the only social media platform abused for such purposes, notes the BBC. "On Friday 18 July," it reported, "security firm TrendMicro reported that it had detected tweets pretending to be about MH17, but which also bore spam links. "Rik Ferguson," it continued, "the firm's vice president of security research, said that its research suggested that the pages were most likely being used to gather clicks to generate advertising revenue. He said the tactic could also be used to force pages higher up search engine rankings." The firm added that it expects to see even more attempts to exploit the MH17 crash.