Unscrupulous Internet service providers will have no place to hide because of a ranking system conceived by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Indiana University.

"Criminal enterprises have created entire Internet service providers dedicated to sending spam, phishing messages or spreading viruses," said Craig Shue of ORNL's Computational Sciences and Engineering Division. While some have been caught by the Federal Trade Commission or other Internet service providers unwilling to do business with them, many are able to escape detection. "These other Internet service providers have customers whose machines become infected and can be used to launch attacks or steal the customer's data," Shue said.

This work, which creates a ranking system Shue likened to grading systems for comparing school districts, is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and Indiana University.