Something interesting

Hi folks,

hat-tip to Ståle Fagerland of Norman for noticing this article...

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2886846

To save you _having_ to read it, the story is about a CEO of a Korean software company being arrested for foisting fake anti-spy software on unsuspecting victims. (entering sarcasm mode) Gosh, who`d have thought it? (leaving sarcasm mode) Apparently, not only would the software lie about detecting problems on the system, and try really hard to get victims to pony up a payment to register the software, sometimes it made the victims re-buy the software every month!

Now, arresting theses guys is not a bad idea in itself, but that`s not the most interesting aspect of the story. In fact,if the article is correct, there are two stunning revelations.

The first is that they made $10m doing this over two or three years!!! Another couple of years at that rate, and before you know it, you`re talking real money. No wonder we see so much of this stuff!

The second astonishing thing is that, according to the article, there are over 200 anti virus companies in Korea! If that is correct, that is simply amazing for an industry that`s 20 years old!

That would seem to indicate...

(1) that the US and European companies have not dominated and rationalized the market there, and
(2) none of the local companies have managed to dominate either.

It must also mean that there`s an awful lot of av guys not making much money, so it`s not entirely surprising that people are tempted to initiate frauds like this.

And if there are that many in Korea, how many must there be in China!?

Cheers

Roger