Image Spam Analysis

Image spam is unsolicited bulk email, where the message is embedded in an image. This technique is used to evade text-based spam lters. In this research, we analyze and compare two novel approaches for detecting spam images. Our rst approach focuses on the extraction of a broad set of image features and selection of an optimal subset using a Support Vector Machine (SVM). Our second approach is based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA), where we determine eigenvectors for a set of spam images and compute scores by projecting images onto the resulting eigenspace. Both approaches provide high accuracy with low computational complexity. Further, we develop a new spam image dataset that should prove valuable for improving image spam detection capabilities

Comparative Study of Gaussian and Nearest Mean Classifiers for Filtering Spam E-mails

The development of data-mining applications such as classification and clustering has shown the need for machine learning algorithms to be applied to large scale data. The article gives an overview of some of the most popular machine learning methods (Gaussian and Nearest Mean) and of their applicability to the problem of spam e-mail filtering. The aim of this paper is to compare and investigate the effectiveness of classifiers for filtering spam e-mails using different matrices. Since spam is increasingly becoming difficult to detect, so these automated techniques will help in saving lot of time and resources required to handle e-mail messages

Antyscam – practical web spam classifier

To avoid of manipulating search engines results by web spam, anti spam system use machine learning techniques to detect spam. However, if the learning set for the system is out of date the quality of classification falls rapidly. We present the web spam recognition system that periodically refreshes the learning set to create an adequate classifier. A new classifier is trained exclusively on data collected during the last period. We have proved that such strategy is better than an incrementation of the learning set. The system solves the starting–up issues of lacks in learning set by minimisation of learning examples and utilization of external data sets. The system was tested on real data from the spam traps and common known web services: Quora, Reddit, and Stack Overflow. The test performed among ten months shows stability of the system and improvement of the results up to 60 percent at the end of the examined period.

Stock market prediction using machine learning classifiers and social media, news

Accurate stock market prediction is of great interest to investors; however, stock markets are driven by volatile factors such as microblogs and news that make it hard to predict stock market index based on merely the historical data. The enormous stock market volatility emphasizes the need to effectively assess the role of external factors in stock prediction. Stock markets can be predicted using machine learning algorithms on information contained in social media and financial news, as this data can change investors’ behavior. In this paper, we use algorithms on social media and financial news data to discover the impact of this data on stock market prediction accuracy for ten subsequent days. For improving performance and quality of predictions, feature selection and spam tweets reduction are performed on the data sets. Moreover, we perform experiments to find such stock markets that are difficult to predict and those that are more influenced by social media and financial news. We compare results of different algorithms to find a consistent classifier. Finally, for achieving maximum prediction accuracy, deep learning is used and some classifiers are ensembled. Our experimental results show that highest prediction accuracies of 80.53% and 75.16% are achieved using social media and financial news, respectively. We also show that New York and Red Hat stock markets are hard to predict, New York and IBM stocks are more influenced by social media, while London and Microsoft stocks by financial news. Random forest classifier is found to be consistent and highest accuracy of 83.22% is achieved by its ensemble

Classification of instagram fake users using supervised machine learning algorithms

On Instagram, the number of followers is a common success indicator. Hence, followers selling services become a huge part of the market. Influencers become bombarded with fake followers and this causes a business owner to pay more than they should for a brand endorsement. Identifying fake followers becomes important to determine the authenticity of an influencer. This research aims to identify fake users' behavior, and proposes supervised machine learning models to classify authentic and fake users. The dataset contains fake users bought from various sources, and authentic users. There are 17 features used, based on these sources: 6 metadata, 3 media info, 2 engagement, 2 media tags, 4 media similarity. Five machine learning algorithms will be tested. Three different approaches of classification are proposed, i.e. classification to 2-classes and 4-classes, and classification with metadata. Random forest algorithm produces the highest accuracy for the 2-classes (authentic, fake) and 4-classes (authentic, active fake user, inactive fake user, spammer) classification, with accuracy up to 91.76%. The result also shows that the five metadata variables, i.e. number of posts, followers, biography length, following, and link availability are the biggest predictors for the users class. Additionally, descriptive statistics results reveal noticeable differences between fake and authentic users

Consumer-facing technology fraud : economics, attack methods and potential solutions

The emerging use of modern technologies has not only benefited society but also attracted fraudsters and criminals to misuse the technology for financial benefits. Fraud over the Internet has increased dramatically, resulting in an annual loss of billions of dollars to customers and service providers worldwide. Much of such fraud directly impacts individuals, both in the case of browser-based and mobile-based Internet services, as well as when using traditional telephony services, either through landline phones or mobiles. It is important that users of the technology should be both informed of fraud, as well as protected from frauds through fraud detection and prevention systems. In this paper, we present the anatomy of frauds for different consumer-facing technologies from three broad perspectives - we discuss Internet, mobile and traditional telecommunication, from the perspectives of losses through frauds over the technology, fraud attack mechanisms and systems used for detecting and preventing frauds. The paper also provides recommendations for securing emerging technologies from fraud and attacks