[liberationtech] [SPAM:####] Re: [SPAM:####] CfP: Society, Informatics and Cybernetics (March 19)

[Rich Kulawiec]

On Tue, Mar 05, 2013 at 06:13:42AM +0000, scarp wrote:
> I'm kind of shocked that the advertisements posted by
> companys at stanford.edu aren't somewhat verified.

I wouldn't be too critical: the people behind these fake conferences have
been at it for a long time and they're quite good at blending in.  These
conference announcements have shown up on all kinds of mailing lists --
that is, they've gotten by a lot of clueful eyeballs.

The spammers/scammers behind these use a constantly-shifting collection
of domains and email addresses, as well as various fictional organizations.
If I ever manage to find the time to finish collating all the data I've
amassed on them and write it up more formally, I'll post it here...but
the short short version is: if you see a conference announcement and it
covers an impossibly-broad range of topics -- then you should check.
If you see it on multiple mailing lists and newsgroups, many of which
are unrelated -- then you should check.  If it claims to be sponsored
by an organization which exists mostly as a PO box -- then you should check.

For example, natty2006 at gmail.com, one of the addresses used by the
scumbags behind this, has been posting for years.  Here's a tiny sample:

	2nd call - WAC 2010: submissions until 31 May 2010
	CFP Applied Computing 2010: submissions until 28 May 2010
	2nd CFP WWW/Internet 2009 - submissions until 21 September
	2nd CFP: e-Society 2013 submissions until 28 December 2012
	CFP E-HEALTH 2010: submissions until 19 February 2010
	2nd call - Collaborative Technologies 2010: submissions until 31 May 
	CFP CGVCVIP 2010: submissions until 19 February 2010
	AC 2011 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) - 1st call extension: 24 June 2011
	AC 2012 (Madrid, Spain): 2nd call: until 27 July 2012
	CFP Extension - Information Systems 2010: submissions until 4 
	CELDA 2009 deadline extension: submissions until 7 September
	APPLIED COMPUTING 2008 - Last Call for Papers
	CELDA 2008 submissions until 31 July 2008 (second call)
	2nd call - ISA 2010: submissions until 31 May 2010
	2nd call - Applied Computing 2010: until 26 July 2010
	2nd call - TNS 2010: submissions until 31 May 2010
	1st call extension: ITS2012 (Perth, Australia) submissions until 27
	1st call ICWI 2012 (Fort Worth, Texas, USA ): submissions until 28
	Applied Computing 2009: 2nd CFP until 21 September
	AC 2007 - Submission Deadline (2nd call): 18 December 2006
	CFP DATA MINING 2010: new date - until 29 March 2010
	CELDA 2007: Deadline for submissions extended - 31 August 2007
	CFP Extension - e-Society 2010: submissions until 4 December 2009
	2nd call - International Conference WWW/Internet 2010: until 26 July 
	CFP Extension - International Conference WWW/Internet 2009: 
	2nd call - WBC 2010: submissions until 31 May 2010
	2nd call - INFORMATICS 2010: submissions until 31 May 2010
	1st call extension: Information Systems 2013 (Lisbon, Portugal):
	2nd Cal - ITS2010 (Perth, Australia): 6 September
	CELDA 2012 (Madrid, Spain): last call extension: until 31 August 2012

All fakes.  All scams.

---rsk