[Air-l] Re: Dirty E-Politics: When will virus writers get righteous?

[Allan A Friedman]

>Targeted viral mail that selectively wipes out Democratic
>harddrives, or that critically impairs the PCs of Republican
>activists? The day before an election, or the day before the
>other "side" has something *real* that will happen or be
>deployed or be announced?

Byond specific, highly malicious attacks that capitalize on social
networks, it's interesting to note that email is highly under-utilized as
a political tool: where is the political spam?

I'm not talking about the DNC spamming me, but I wonder why there aren't
more fringe groups filling inboxes.

The political economy of non-commercial spam seems similar to commercial
spam--i.e. low hit rate, bad PR images, high payoff for each successful
hit--and there is also an "allies externality". If my group spams, the PR
cost  is not just borne by my group advertising, but probably my
(potentially more mainstream) political allies. Moreover, just as you
don't win customers by pissing them off, you don't gain adherents to your
cause by flooding their inboxes.

But most of us know political groups that clearly don't care what the
mainstream thinks of them. Hate groups, prostletizing religious zealots,
fringe political parties--these groups all have acknowledged that they are
not going to win the PR battle. The reason LaRouchians stand on corners
with large signs and Jehovah's Witnesses go door-to-door is that they want
to catch the few people who might be interested, and public, annoying
displays are the easiest way to catch them.

I am curious as to why these groups are not filling our inboxes. There are
enough web-savvy conspiracy theorists out there, and some of them must be
desperate to wake us sheeplike masses from our ignorant slumber. They call
in to AM talk shows. Sometimes they leaflet a neighborhood. Where is the
spam?

A few hypotheses:

1) They haven't discovered spam yet, or haven't thought of it yet.

2) Even extremist nuts aren't sick enough to spam people.

3) The cost of starting a spam operation is too high.

4) There is enough of it now and the above model is wrong, or there are
fewer extremist groups than I think.

I'm not terribly satisfied with any of these. Any ideas?


/\llan