Crap, Spam is Back!
I thought it was just me receiving hundreds of e-mail messages over the past few weeks featuring the subject line “It's me, xxxx” that featured information about some yet-to-be-discovered stock but it turns out I'm just being caught up in the new spam onslaught hitting inboxes around the world. According to spam-filtering firm Ironport, the amount of spam has doubled over the past year, and it now accounts for more than 90% of e-mail messages.
Clearly, something needs to be done because all the efforts to filter out spam and shut down spammers isn't doing the job any more - if it was doing the job at all. So what needs to be done? Is there an effective way to pursue spammers other than convincing different governments around the world to make it illegal? One of the many challenges in shutting down spammers is the tools they're using to deliver their payloads, which include using other people's computers through downloaded viruses, malware or spyware.
If spam (including splogs and comment spam) continues to proliferate, it could choke the Internet and threaten innovation. After all, it's difficult to drive a Porsche down the super-highway if most of the lanes are bogged down by slow-moving jalopies, right?
December 6th, 2006 at 11:36 am
For spam (emails, not splogs), I think the day is not so far where major email reader (like Outlook) will start to accept only plain text emails. It will make it easier to detect spam and it would completely remove those “tracking .gifs” that can validate that your address exists.
That would be sad however, as Rich-text emails can really be usefuls.
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On the other hand, concerning these spams about stocks, I think this is illegal to try to push stock values like that. Probably that complaints to regulatory bodies of financial markets could help find the source of this spam. (i.e. who's buying a lot of these stock before the spam get sent and sell it soon after…)
December 6th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
What really needs to happen is for people to quickly recognize it as spam and not buy/invest/send money to the people sending these spam emails. If there is no more money in it then they would quit sending them. Someone in the world, whoever the idiot might be, has to be sending them money because they continue to do it to generate sales.
December 6th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Spam is fraud
When you consider the number of spams sent, the fact that the spammers intentionally use techniques to avoid spam filters, the fact that they push porn to all accounts (of course kids also) the fact that they push shady or less than shady financial dealings there is no question in our mind that Spammers are committing fraud, and racketeering. We have laws about this kind of behavior. And certainly our governments can determine where these are coming from.
Our governments are hand in hand with the Spammers by their lack of response to this situation. Don't give me any of those poor excuses of why they are inept. Laws apply that are being broken. If I pulled a dump truck up to their front door and dumped the amount of trash the Spammers did on the capital steps they would lock me up. If I distributed porn to the school kid accounts they do would track my whereabouts for the rest of my life.
All government bodies - wake up and stop being part of this ongoing fraud - People of these nations - start making noise - If this government of the people, by the people, and for the people can't even figure out you are supposed to be FOR THE PEOPLE then YOU need to be replaced.
Please everyone - This is far more than insulting to our good senses. NO MORE EXCUSES from the criminal / court system. We need our prosecutors to indite, we need our weak kneed judges to enforce, and we need the illegal spammers to be put behind bars before they do cause more financial and social damage to our countries
December 6th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
I think spam will always be there, because it is an advertisement opportunity too easy to refuse. Asking people not to click on spam doesn't make any sense: think about it, even if they only have a 0.001% click rate, that means a spammer gets 1,000 hits from every million users - and it doesn't cost them anything!
I believe the solution lies in personalized spam filtering and server side black lists. I get hundreds of spam messages every day, but I don't even see any of them. SpamSieve is a great app for Mac users, and I am sure there are similar solutions for Windows and Linux.
December 6th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Mark - there's a piece in the NYT today too - and it correctly identifies this as part of the new image spam (the spam message evades filters by being buried in a graphic).
Anyway - Ironport has a live webinar with a live Q&A specifically about spam along with an email security expert coming up on Thursday, 1PST for anyone who wants to get a chance to dig into this issue. (fair notice - I am editorial director for the parent company that owns ITSecurity.com, the site running the webinar)
December 9th, 2006 at 2:31 am
I think the future lies in whitelisting, where only the messages from allowed senders reaches your inbox, and messages from unknown senders sits in a pending box until either you add it to your whitelist, or the sender responds to a “verification request” to prove they are in fact human. Since I started using Bluebottle months ago, I have yet to see a single spam letter. The solution is already out; most people just don't know about it yet!