I’m often asked: Distant Music? What kind of a name is that for a fraud-fighting startup? Why not, you know, FraudStop?

The answer:

ProtectPoint, RadialPoint, ChoicePoint, CheckPoint, BearingPoint, BreakingPoint, IronPort, IronKey, InversePath, ReturnPath, NetIntelligence, NetIQ, Netegrity, NetMaster, WatchGuard, BullGuard, ControlGuard, InfoGuard, CyberGuard…Distant Music.

We’re different. Intentionally.

If I say “prevent spam”, you might think “filtering”. If I say “prevent identity theft”, you might think “encryption”. And if I say “prevent malware”, you probably think “antivirus”.

But why?

All of those solutions have one thing in common: They’re technical. We’re enthralled by technology, and we’ve all been treating fraud as a technical problem.

It’s not. Fraud is a behavioral problem, a game theory problem, an economic problem. Fraud doesn’t just pop into existence; fraud is committed by people. It’s inevitable. If the rewards from fraud outweigh the risk of being caught, people will commit fraud.

Risk/reward

Pop quiz: It’s been 15 years since the first spam. How much riskier has spamming become?

Answer: Not at all. There is essentially no risk to someone who tries to send spam. The risks are nearly as low for phishers, carders, and other thieves. Occasionally, you’ll see a high-profile prosecution; other than that, the worst that can happen is “it doesn’t work”. The spam gets caught by filters, or the stolen identity is useless without some encryption key. But nothing happens to the bad actors themselves.

Let’s say you had a method to make millions of dollars, with low costs and no risk—but your method only succeeded 0.0000081% of the time. What would you do? You’d try over and over; you’d make it up in volume. The bad actors agree with you.

At Distant Music, we help businesses crack down on Internet fraud—spam, phishing, botnets—by making it risky.

Next time: Why filters and firewalls can’t work