ASIC to monitor web sites
Australia's Securities watchdog plans to use automated document scanning to look for scam web sites. Scammers will of course apply countermeasures: block the ASIC spider, sacrifice decoy web sites to discover the kinds of language detected by the system.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) today unveiled a joint research project with the Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre, the University of Sydney and Macquarie University to develop an automatic Internet document classification system called 'Scamseek'. The system is expected to use linguistic techniques developed by Macquarie University researchers to uncover Web sites promoting scams, even those which attempt to use forms of language disguising their true intentions. The AU$1 million-plus project would, if successful, build an "eye that never sleeps, constantly seeking out sites that we can take action against," ASIC director of electronic enforcement, Keith Inman, said in a statement. [...] "Scams that are run through websites tend to use certain words, in certain ways, with certain characteristics – but they can be cleverly disguised as well", Patrick said. He said he and colleagues specialising in linguistics were using new theories designed to expose even those sites that heavily disguised their intentions. The project will also apply a specialist ‘web spider’ to search out potential websites, using technology developed by one of the CMCRC industry members SMARTS (Security Markets Automated Research Training and Surveillance). - ZDNet, Aust Web scammers targeted by tech.