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 Category :: Malware |
Author :: Richard Warlow  |
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| Article Title :: Green Eggs And Spam |
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To clarify, I am not talking about rotten eggs or that horrible
stuff the poor depression dwellers had to eat, I am talking
about computer e-mail spam.
What is this spam I speak of?
Spam is best defined as unsolicited and unwanted commercial
electronic messages or e-mails that are sent to large numbers of
people.
Ask any computer user and the most annoying thing about having
and using e-mail is the annoying amount of spam you get. It is
predicted that spam could eventually kill the usability of
e-mail unless effective barriers and law changes are introduced.
In 2003 it was reported that 40% of all e-mail traffic in the US
was spam up from just 8% in 2001. Over the past 6 months this
figure has doubled. Hotmail a popular e-mail service, says that
80% of e-mail coming to their servers is spam.
You might say that I don't get as much spam as I used to. Well
this is thanks to internet providers and businesses filtering
this out before you see it. One problem with spam filters is
that occasionally users encounter false positives in which
important and legitimate e-mail gets blocked. Due to these
necessary anti-spam measures, the costs involved are huge. Not
only does all this excessive internet traffic clog up the
internet freeway, but all these e-mails are downloaded to
servers before the anti-spam software deletes it. Businesses
worldwide report that 20% of all e-mail received is spam. It is
estimated that the true cost of spam for businesses in the
United States alone is $8-9 billion US dollars per year.
Why is there so much spam?
The simple answer is that there is a market for spam. If people
didn't buy from spam e-mail there wouldnt be any spam. All the
spammer needs is for one person, out of a few hundred thousand
e-mails, to buy something and it makes the whole process worth
while. Sending the spam requires little effort on the spammers
part as the computer automates the process meaning that it is
very easy to send out over a million e-mails an hour.
What is the world and in particular New Zealand doing about all
this spam?
On the 23rd of February '05 the Information Technology minister,
Paul Swann, released a proposed law will that make it illegal to
send spam that originates from NZ. Only problem is that only 1%
of spam originates from Australia and NZ, and to actually catch
and prosecute a spammer is very difficult due to spammers being
good at hiding there identity.
In April '05, a 30 year old spammer in the United States became
the first person to be prosecuted for spamming. He was sentenced
to a nine year prison term. He is described as a modern day
snake oil salesman being the eighth most prolific spammer in the
world, sending up to 10 million e-mails a day from his house.
His income was $750,000 US per month, with one in every 30,000
e-mails sent generating money. He sent out so much e-mail that
he received, on average, 15,000 credit card orders a month, each
order worth an average of $US40. His total worth is $24 million
US dollars, he advertised pornography, fake products and
services. During the court case the assistant attorney general
said and I quote "When your marketing to the world, there are
enough idiots out there who will be suckered in."
Remember that spam is only a problem due to people purchasing
from spam e-mail, if there was no demand there would be no spam,
security firm Mirapoint, reports that 1 in 10 people buy
something from spam e-mail.
So how do I protect myself from spam?
There are a three main ways to stop being spammed.
The first and the best form of defence is not to give out your
personal e-mail address. Don't publicise your address in chat
rooms or fill in forms on a website. For this purpose, you are
best to use a public e-mail address such as a hotmail account,
as some web site owners are more than happy to sell your e-mail
address to a spammer.
Secondly use an internet provider that controls and monitors
spam.
Thirdly install anti-spam software on your PC.
Therefore in this day and age there really is no need to eat
green eggs and spam!
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