Briefs

Dec 27, 2007. AMES, Iowa -- Yong Guan had scribbled 12 arrows across his office whiteboard, each black line going from one little box he had drawn to another little box. He had written five long formulas up there, too.

And that was bad news for cyber criminals.

Guan, the Litton Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University, and his students are developing technologies to fight cyber crime and make online activities such as shopping more secure for everyone.

Guan and the Iowa State University Research Foundation have filed a patent on one technology that detects "click fraud" -- falsely driving up hits to ads posted on Web sites. Those false hits result in higher costs for pay-per-click advertising. Guan said the invention will help online advertising companies such as Google and Yahoo reduce click fraud.

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