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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.

19 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. Woohoo! by Primotech · · Score: 5, Funny

    We're good where it counts.

    1. Re:Woohoo! by seanadams.com · · Score: 4, Funny

      We're good where it counts.

      Where's that? The enl@rjd p3njs?

    2. Re:Woohoo! by bsharitt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This would be a good thing if it's accurate, that would mean that close to half of all spam would be under US jurisdiction, which means they can be sued and shut down in the US.

  2. Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally, something to be proud of.

  3. And it's mostly coming from fucking idiots... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...with owned, unpatched Windows machines sitting directly on cable or DSL connections.

    If Comcast and Verizon spent half as much on cracking down on their moron customers as they do on mailers begging me to use their Internet services, they'd have this problem under control in no time.

  4. Good news in disguise? by Magus424 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If most of the spam comes from the US, that means that any anti-spam legislation passed here could have a huge effect.

    Of course, now we have to wait for Congress to actually do something about it. ;-)

    --
    -- Gone Crazy, Back Later
  5. It's funny cuz by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Funny

    The US is supposed to have a legal tool against spam, and yet it's the worst offender in the world.

    I guess we CAN-SPAM and we're mighty proud of it...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  6. Wonderful news... by Faust7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    So we hold the majority on manhood enhancement, hot free teens, and low low mortgage rates.

    *sniff* I've never been so proud of my country.

  7. Inspiration by CaptainZapp · · Score: 4, Funny
    The U.S. put out more spam this year than all the other countries in the top 12 combined.

    They must have gotten their inspiration from military spending.

    Fucking spammers!

    --
    ich bin der musikant

    mit taschenrechner in der hand

    kraftwerk

  8. Spamvertised web sites in China by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I report all my spam via Spamcop.net, and while I don't have any numbers, it seems like almost all of the spamvertised web sites reside in China.

    My understanding is that if you could close down the spamvertised sites, spam would largely be restricted to phishing attacks. If I didn't believe this, I probably wouldn't bother using spamcop!

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  9. Re:Who's counting? by 1u3hr · · Score: 5, Insightful
    All depends who's counting, I guess.

    What the fuck was that editorialil comment supposed to mean anyway?

    Every time spam comes up as a topic here we get dozens of xenophobic rednecks proudly explaining that since they've "blocked all APNIC" they "don't get any spam, and who cares about communicating with them anyway". Even in the face of data like this, I'm sure they'll continue to lecture the rest of the world on how thay have to shut down "their" spammers or be cut off.

    Personally, living in Hong Kong, about 1% of my spam is local, 2-5% Nigerian, the rest American.

  10. Right! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I live in Austria (Europe) and all the spams I get at home and at work (over a hundred a day) are in English and address subjects relating to the US. All the mortgage spams refer to US mortgages, all the Viagra Spams refer to pharmacies that deliver to the USA, all prices are in dollars, and so on.

    Most European countries have tough anti-spam laws. I get practically no spams that come from Europe or specifically target Europeans. The last Spam I got in German was from some dumbass dot-com newbie who had bought a CD-ROM full of "guaranteed legal e-mail addresses" from some US scammer.

    The problem with spam is a problem with the USA.
    Fix it.
    Now.

  11. Makes sense... by }InFuZeD{ · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hormel is located in the United States.

  12. Ahh the Irony of Slashdot by Khuffie · · Score: 5, Insightful
    When an article came out sometime last month about how a lot of spam is coming from China, people here were complaining about the damned Chinese, how they should just block the whole country and be done with it, that they do nothing at all and that China just blame sucks.

    Now an article with research backing it shows the US as the major culprit, and what does everyone do? Make excuses or jokes. What makes you think the Chinese don't have zombie machines? Or is it ok for the US to spam, but no one else?

    And the fact of the matter is, aside from a few random Russian/Chinese emails (1 in 100), most of the spam I receive is offering goods and services in English, directed at the North American market. 'Where' the spam comes from doesn't really matter, what the spam is selling and where that thing is should.

  13. Re:The undisputed kings of bullshit by interstellar_donkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You've managed to put your finger on the biggest problem in the Western social and economic system, that corps have the same rights than humans but none of the responsibility .

    Though I don't think hitting the corporations financially as punishment really works. Large corporations will typically build in potential losses from economic punishments for misdeeds into their business model. A company may knowingly release a product they know to be unsafe, and simply put a portion of their profits aside for paying out of court settlements to victims.

    In essense, this is akin to saying that it's alright for me to go around killing people without fear of jail if I can afford to pay the victim's families a large portion of money.

    What I'd like to see is criminal charges brought on descision makers in corporations who knowingly use unsafe methods to produce a product that they know to be dangerous. In other words, a manager who makes the decision to save $0.02 on each product produced by using a less safe part won't be hedging those cost savings against the potential court costs from the families his company's product kills, he'll be hedging it against the very real possibility that he himself may face prison time for multiple murder charges.

    We cannot give large corporations exemption from responsibility on a human level. We see corporations as faceless entities, but there are always human beings behind the scenes making decisions on how that corporation acts. If we start making those humans accountable for the actions of the company for whom they make decisions, I think we'd start seeing quite a bit more safety, envrionmental and social responsibility in the corporate world.

    --
    The Internet is generally stupid
  14. Who is the real badguy? by mahesh_gharat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeah, most of the spam is also US centric. It mainly contains either Via9ra or P3ni5 enlargement programs. Most of the people out side US receive these mails and some stupid amongst those who really want to purchase those products by reading the mails can not buy since most of these products even don't have distribution network outside US.

    One of my friends, who work for a US based company, which sells cigarretes online. All this guy has to do is get some working email ids and send the mail drafted by the US based company. He does this from location outside US though. This guy has written a UserAgent (Robot) which goes to Yahoo and grabs the email ids at random and mails them. Untill this it looks very bad but if you see inside they do get enough business through this channel for their survival at least. They do not have any other business channel other than this and they are doing fine.

    Even if this guy is generating the SPAM from the location outside US, he is doing it for his master sitting there in US.
    Now, who is the real badguy?

  15. Re:Wrong: China is Still # by TFGeditor · · Score: 4, Informative

    Lame reply to my own comment, but forgot something.

    The majority of U.S.-sourced SPAM I receive comes from the following ISPs:

    Comcast
    Road Runner
    EarthLink
    Pacbell
    Ameritech

    In that order.

    --
    Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
  16. U.S. head start on 2005 begins today by phillymjs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just after Christmas last year I noticed quite an uptick in spam attempts on my mailserver from U.S. residential broadband IPs. Clearly this was from new computers received as Christmas gifts getting quickly zombied.

    All the people who came downstairs this year to find a shiny new Dell or Gateway under the tree should be getting their machines owned by spammers right about..... now. So prepare for another post-Christmas onslaught as the spammers play with all their newly-acquired toys.

    ~Philly

  17. Listen, asshole... by PontifexPrimus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just because you're a mentally challenged, nazi-voting, mouth-breathing American doesn't give you the right to condescend to other countries. Apart from that, most of the spam I get advertises American websites, American fake Rolex watches and American drugs - in fact, I can use that as a pretty good spamfilter, since I'm a German living in Germany; I need only check for American English as the language and can dump it in my spam folder.

    --
    -- Language is a virus from outer space.