U.S. World's Foremost Spam Nation In 2004

der Kopf writes "As reported by ZDNet, '42 percent of all spam sent this year came from the United States,' which makes the U.S. the unthreatened king of the 2004 spam hill. Number two on the list is South Korea (with 13.43%), while China can be found in third place (with 8.44%). The U.S. put out more spam this year than all the other countries in the top 12 combined." All depends who's counting, I guess.

Comments

Educate the users

[space_man51]

Zombie computers -- PCs that have been compromised by hackers or virus writers -- are sending out over 40 percent of the world's spam, and many users who fall victim are unaware."

So the real solution is to educate users about security... nothing new here. Now if only people actually cared about things like security, maybe the ISPs could educate their users rather than just blocking ports (much good that does).

A more realistic solution would be to require licenses for internet access. Yes, I know all the privacy advocates are going to attack me for saying this, but there are way too many irresponsible people out there. A simple written test about security should be enough to make the average Joe aware of some of the issues out there. Then we can hold them at least partially responsible when someone hacks their computer and uses it to send spam, and getting them to use an alternate OS would be easier.

I know such a plan would carry risks, but if the licenses are distributed by a non-profit organization (in the form of a digital certificate / PGP key) and enforced by the ISPs, then it may just work. It's not like the ISPs can't track you already, so there isn't much of a privacy concern there. Besides the ISPs would be required to sign a privacy agreement. What I mean, is that the license would only be used for loging into the ISP, and would not be transmitted any further (but read more below).

Optionally these keys could also be used for online authentication. I for one would find it more convenient than standard passwords. Combined with a fingerprint reader, this technology can be useful (all based on open standards of course).

Oh, and back on the topic of spam: if these licenses become a standard (and I think ISPs would love the idea if it means less problem with spam, viruses, and other uneducated user problems), then the next step would be making digital signatures in e-mails a requirement. If making it a requirement it too much, then at least spam filters could mark unsigned messages as junk as long as signing becomes more common.

This is probably not the most sound plan, but it's a thought. Comments are welcome