Which Scam Is It?

I got an email which smelt like a circular, and began as follows:

On behalf of the WMSCI 2006 Organizing Committee, I would like to invite you to participate in the 10th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (http://www.iiisci.org/wmsci2006) , which will take place in Orlando, Florida, USA, from July 16-19, 2006.

The best 10%-20% of the papers will be published in Volume 4 of JSCI Journal (http://www.iiisci.org/Journal/SCI/Home.asp). 12 issues of the volumes 1 and 2 of the Journal have been sent to about 200 university and research libraries, and 6 issues of Volume 3 (2005) will be sent to a larger number of library. Promotional, free subscriptions, for 2 years, are being considered for the organizations of the Journal’s authors.

We are emphasizing the area of Information Systems Development which is related to your specific area…

The question is less “is this a scam?”, and more “which scam is it?” Is the idea to get money out of you for presenting a paper to an empty room? Or is it so people can sign up for it and use the bogus kudos (“I presented my work at the WMSCI 2006 conference, and was published in the JSCI Journal”) to try and gain credibility? Or does it exist so that people can tell their bosses they are going to a conference, then take a week’s trip to Florida? Or all of the above?

8 thoughts on “Which Scam Is It?

  1. I find it interesting that the Register article frames the story in terms of a “hoax” targeted at a “technology conference”, rather than a group of students trying to bring down a scam. The BBC article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4449651.stm) is similar, but doesn’t go as far as the Register article in making it sound like academic conferences are broken in general.

    I got the link to the BBC article from http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/blog/.

  2. Here is their information

    Registrant: Make this info private
    International Institute of Informatics
    14269 LORD BARCLAY DR
    ORLANDO, FL 32837-5408
    US

    Domain Name: IIISCI.ORG

    Administrative Contact :
    International Institute of Informatics
    jorgefr@hotmail.com
    14269 LORD BARCLAY DR
    ORLANDO, FL 32837-5408
    US
    Phone: (407)856-4265
    Fax: (407)856-6274

  3. It is to do with the academic world of publish-or-perish. You have to get lots of papers published, and often, conferences and journals are a bear to get something presented through. So some organisations run conferences where anything you submit is likely to be published.

    Whether it is a scam or a service is a matter of opinion and which side of the vested interests you fall on, more than anything.