24 April 2003 | Author: John Hughes
Email spam is a growing problem that affects almost everyone online, with an estimated 45% of all emails sent worldwide now considered spam. The effect of spam emails costs businesses millions of pounds in lost productivity.
A recent study by the US Center for Democracy and Technology set out to find out how email spammers get hold of email addresses.
Not surprisingly, email addresses posted on websites, and in newsgroups, attracted the most spam, as serial spammers used email harvesting "robot" software to collect email addresses for them. Results from the study showed that 97% of the spam received during the research used email addresses harvested from websites and newsgroups.
But what can be done to combat this menace? AOL is currently undertaking over a dozen lawsuits against individuals and companies it accuses of sending unsolicited spam email. In fact, the Spamhaus project ( www.spamhaus.org / rokso / index.lasso ) suggests that 90% of all email spam in North America and Europe originates from just 180 individuals. Many are based in Florida, a state that has weak direct marketing legislation. One such individual, Eddy Marin, who is reputed to be responsible for a large portion of the world's spam problem, has been the victim of revenge action as disgruntled US citizens have signed his name and address up to a wide range of direct-mail organisations, and he now reportedly receives thousands of ISP CD-Roms, leaflets, credit cards offers and other postal mail every day.
Microsoft have issued a statement urging the whole internet community to work together to combat the problem of spam by use of complex filtering techniques, such as those employed by its own MSN and Hotmail technologies.
Filtering technology is not without its downside, however. Last week, the US city of St Petersberg's local government found its email services through AOL to be the victims of one such email filtration technology, although their use of email was both innocent and legitimate. The filter had flagged them as a potential source of spam due to the sheer volume of email that they regularly sent in response to citizens' email enquiries.
Additionally, the spammers are fighting back. A group calling themselves EmarketersAmerica.org has launched a lawsuit seeking to force anti-spam organisations to stop blocking their spam.
However, courts have previously ruled in favour of the anti-spam organisations. In Chicago, Brian Westby, a notorious spammer, was ordered not to send emails with deceptive subject lines. He had sent millions of emails with innocuous titles, in order to fool consumers into opening graphically sexually explicit emails. The Federal Trade Commission was forced to admit that currently in the US, sending spam emails is not in itself an offence. However, Westby lost the case on the grounds of deceptive practises as his emails had used these deceptive titles.
In the UK and the EU, however, much stricter laws are in place. There is talk of making domain names the legal intellectual property of the registered owner, meaning that the sending of spam from other people's domains, such as yahoo and hotmail, without permission is automatically illegal. The EU directive on Privacy, due into force across Europe later this year, will tackle this and other issues, and will provide European and UK authorities much tougher ammunition to combat spamming activity.
The term spam has been adopted due to the infamous Monty Python "Spam" sketch, in which a group of Vikings repeatedly sing the word "spam" while a waitress reads out a menu on which three quarters of the meal constituents are spam.
If the number of spam emails sent each day were in fact cans of "Spam", and they were laid end to end, they would stretch around the World over a dozen times! That obscure fact, courtesy of researchers at Berkeley, is possibly the most graphic illustration of the size of the problem!
More reading...
http://www.wqad.com / Global / story.asp?S=1245368
http://www.spamhaus.org / rokso / index.lasso
http://www.theregister.co.uk / content / 6 / 30368.html
http://microsoft.com / issues / essays / 2003 / 02-12spam.asp
http://news.bbc.co.uk / 1 / hi / technology / 2969783.stm
http://www.vortexcentrum.com / members / wmlro / wmlro1299.htm
The other kind of spam...
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu / ~ddgarcia / spam.html
http://www.spamhaiku.com / spamhaiku / site /
Spam to the Slaughter?
A recent study by the US Center for Democracy and Technology set out to find out how email spammers get hold of email addresses.
Not surprisingly, email addresses posted on websites, and in newsgroups, attracted the most spam, as serial spammers used email harvesting "robot" software to collect email addresses for them. Results from the study showed that 97% of the spam received during the research used email addresses harvested from websites and newsgroups.
But what can be done to combat this menace? AOL is currently undertaking over a dozen lawsuits against individuals and companies it accuses of sending unsolicited spam email. In fact, the Spamhaus project ( www.spamhaus.org / rokso / index.lasso ) suggests that 90% of all email spam in North America and Europe originates from just 180 individuals. Many are based in Florida, a state that has weak direct marketing legislation. One such individual, Eddy Marin, who is reputed to be responsible for a large portion of the world's spam problem, has been the victim of revenge action as disgruntled US citizens have signed his name and address up to a wide range of direct-mail organisations, and he now reportedly receives thousands of ISP CD-Roms, leaflets, credit cards offers and other postal mail every day.
Microsoft have issued a statement urging the whole internet community to work together to combat the problem of spam by use of complex filtering techniques, such as those employed by its own MSN and Hotmail technologies.
Filtering technology is not without its downside, however. Last week, the US city of St Petersberg's local government found its email services through AOL to be the victims of one such email filtration technology, although their use of email was both innocent and legitimate. The filter had flagged them as a potential source of spam due to the sheer volume of email that they regularly sent in response to citizens' email enquiries.
Additionally, the spammers are fighting back. A group calling themselves EmarketersAmerica.org has launched a lawsuit seeking to force anti-spam organisations to stop blocking their spam.
However, courts have previously ruled in favour of the anti-spam organisations. In Chicago, Brian Westby, a notorious spammer, was ordered not to send emails with deceptive subject lines. He had sent millions of emails with innocuous titles, in order to fool consumers into opening graphically sexually explicit emails. The Federal Trade Commission was forced to admit that currently in the US, sending spam emails is not in itself an offence. However, Westby lost the case on the grounds of deceptive practises as his emails had used these deceptive titles.
In the UK and the EU, however, much stricter laws are in place. There is talk of making domain names the legal intellectual property of the registered owner, meaning that the sending of spam from other people's domains, such as yahoo and hotmail, without permission is automatically illegal. The EU directive on Privacy, due into force across Europe later this year, will tackle this and other issues, and will provide European and UK authorities much tougher ammunition to combat spamming activity.
The term spam has been adopted due to the infamous Monty Python "Spam" sketch, in which a group of Vikings repeatedly sing the word "spam" while a waitress reads out a menu on which three quarters of the meal constituents are spam.
If the number of spam emails sent each day were in fact cans of "Spam", and they were laid end to end, they would stretch around the World over a dozen times! That obscure fact, courtesy of researchers at Berkeley, is possibly the most graphic illustration of the size of the problem!
More reading...
http://www.wqad.com / Global / story.asp?S=1245368
http://www.spamhaus.org / rokso / index.lasso
http://www.theregister.co.uk / content / 6 / 30368.html
http://microsoft.com / issues / essays / 2003 / 02-12spam.asp
http://news.bbc.co.uk / 1 / hi / technology / 2969783.stm
http://www.vortexcentrum.com / members / wmlro / wmlro1299.htm
The other kind of spam...
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu / ~ddgarcia / spam.html
http://www.spamhaiku.com / spamhaiku / site /
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