Slashdot Mirror
India Tops Target List For Spam
Ant wrote to mention a ZDNet news report on the realities of spam traffic. The U.S. is still the number one producer/distributor of spam in the world. However, with their quick adoption of technology over the last few years, Indian users are now top targets for spam. From the article: "India's rapid adoption of new technology has left its PC users struggling to cope with very high levels of spam, according to a report released Wednesday. Ninety-one percent of email traffic sent to Indian PC users is spam, according to email security company MessageLabs, which warned that the rate of technological advancement has outstripped growth in security awareness. 'There is booming technology in India, but it has been suggested there is little thought for security, which creates a market to exploit that,' said Paul Wood, security analyst at MessageLabs."
Appropriate, considering that a large proportion of the spam I receive is about "offshoring oppportunities" in India.
the rate of technological advancement has outstripped growth in security awareness
That happened the first time one of our grandmothers got a computer "to look at the online." The day computers outgrew the subset of the population who knew everything about how to use them safely is long past.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Hehe. Come on, let's get started! How do you say "penis pills" in Hindi?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
From this A: some stats on weapons sales to our "friends" including the UAE: * $2 billion of AMRAAMs, ammunition and bombs to complement a previous $6-8 billion F- 16 fighter jet sale to the United Arab Emirates. The U.A.E. has also demanded the computer coding for the F- 1 6s which would enable it to modify or replicate the jet's intelligence. If the U.A.E. gets the source code, other buyers will be sure to want it too.
what's sad is that I can't find a list from OUR government.
Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I guess the truth is out there software, or should I say somewhere...
It somehow claims to be outdated open-relay-sendmail and could be easily replaced by other software - like some of the rest of the world you have to change and adapt to common evolutions, or could it be that this is a commercial stunt on selling Anti-Spam software...
Hello! I've got a wonderful business opportunity for you. I have a large sum of money stuck in a bank account. If you can send me $$$ I can compensate you 4x time that when I get my funds released....
or something to that affect. I wonder if the address to mail the money to is now in the US rather than somewhere in India?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Not only that. Since porn and strip bars are illegal in India (moral police!) even nude Britney Spears emails will be opened, because a lot of Indians are sexually desperate (too many engineers in the country eh?). I have been in India for 5 years and that is the hard truth.
First they take our tech jobs, and now they are taking our spam! Is there no end to this madness?!
How ironic that 'India Tops Target List For Spam' when 70% of India's population are vegetarians.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Hello Mr.Middlemen!! I agree with you that there r too many Software engineers..I also admit that they r sexually desperate. Now let me explain you the reason behind this. Actually they never get chance easily to mate someone...do u know why?? because cultural values are still alive in their hearts... And this is not the fact in other countries..Like may be in your case..I can bet that even you wont know the name of your father??? Am I rite????? Also I can bet that you still dont know where is your father and Mother living...and its the fact in Western countries....Because no Guardian takes care of themselves thats why they used to have sex and alcohal all the time and nothing is more important then money for them....Got it!!! Also the literacy rate in Western countries is so poor that I can laugh on that...:)) all are doing shit jobs..like cleaning and labour jobs.. So next time when you comment any asian community. remember my words.. Cheers and think wat I said Anshu Bansal
In response, Microsoft India is trying to sell their stuff to illiterate people. Smart move. Customers who can't read spam aren't bothered by it.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Wow. I did not realize there were so incredibly wrong stereotypes of Westerners. I really hope that jumbled mess is supposed to be sarcastic or it is a failed joke.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
You wish. This is a really common Indian view. I know, I grew up in India.
Empires grow and crumble, and the Turtle Moves. Gods come and go, and still the Turtle Moves. The Turtle Moves.
There is booming technology in India, but it has been suggested there is little thought for security, which creates a market to exploit that.
I wonder if the "little thought for security" also applies to the call centers there, who have access to at least some customer information, certainly including email addresses, and likely including home addresses.
Note that I am not bashing the quality of phone support sourced from the subcontinent. I have had good and bad support experiences with people from all over the place. But they better not be settin' up no call center in Dubai, or I'm gonna make a big stink about it.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Actually your email explains it all. The lack of sex education in India and the fact that Indians have a very "holier than thou" attitude towards the Westerners is the major cause of the anger expressed in your email. Sex is a good thing, it is a natural thing. Why you have to explicitly associate it with Westerners I am never able to comprehend, considering the fact that India has an over-burgeoning population of 1 billion and still growing. You talk about literacy rate but how many of Indians actually go to school ? Do you have statistics ? No! You can only rant against a truthful observation that I made because it is the truth. There is no difference between you and the politicians of India because all you are doing is running away from the truth and preventing people from fixing the problem. Get off your ass reading slashdot and do something about it. It is not that Western countries don't have their flaws. You come and live in a western country, the flaws will be visible to you. But if you cannot see the flaws in your own country, that is a shame. No one is perfect, but perfection can be strived for.
I mean really......... who says stuff like that.
oh, let me guess, only people with serious issues with
getting it up, if by chance up, geting in to do the job guy!!!
On a serious note, do u really believe that people are living
on road along side elephants!! wake up buddy before you
loose the new job you got!!
Rock Steady.
Yes, you are right. English grammar is going to the dogs everywhere. I have seen it in India and I have seen it in USA. Slangs are used more than often especially in written English. Oh what happened to the good old days of written English ? I have not encountered any British written emails with bad grammar yet.
Its interesting to see how so many direct insults to India are being modded as "Funny" etc while a slight indirect negative comment on Microsoft can get one labelled "Flaimbait"..
Following this observation, I wouldn't be suprised if this post gets labelled Flaimbait either..
Wow ... ridiculously ignorant cultural stereotypes - not just for whites anymore!
Mr.Middleman...I think ur slashdot id suggested that in fact u r a middleman...... :)) I hope if you will deeply analyse the meanin of Middleman..u'll b embarrased.... Middleman suggests that A_MAN_HAS_NO_END...(neither F nor M)...By the way, I m really disappointed bout ur comments on Indians... you gotta some kind of problem with Indian..may be when u been in India, u hav been humilized..I dont know..
Also I wud like to state that here we r not gathered for spelling and sentences....everybody is using slangs these days..especially in Britain...I can imagine tat u never been there tats why u r saying that...
First, be in England for a while then u gonna see where the English language goin on????
fellow /. rs,
i am shocked to see how much hatred brews under the hood of all these free spirted guys. Me included, my first reaction when somebody pulls a bad one me is to get right back. But given the facts, we didnt go to US or whatever other country to oursource jobs, it was in US citizen's hand to do it and they did it, and if by any chance, you can take a fact from an Asian, do understand that its all money games. You start bad mouthing me, I start wid my own things, but do understand how did we reach here; it was all because of one MNC corporate who just wanted to make more money. I may be little early on my prediction, but i can tell you for sure that by the end of this century, there wont be an American or Asian left to fight. You may not like the fact but all of the world gonna be pretty much the same; hungry for more and ready to beat each other up for nothing.
howz that for a input about how other races are better or worse than urs!
Rock Steady.
A middleman is someone who does not produce, not consume, but routes a product or service from a producer to a consumer. Someone like a shopkeeper, or a broker.
And no, not all Indians are bad at English. And your comments about the western world were stupid and ignorant. Perhaps you need to learn more about how the world really is.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Hey, as long as we're not giving them control of port 25...
And your point is?
Somebdy plz hlp me undrstnd how dis is relevant (cudnt find shorter version of this) to d topic!!!!!!!!!!!!
Talk about being off.
Rock Steady.
Going to School != Literate. In the great US of A most students spend their time at school putting on mini fashion shows and playing sports. They get promoted from grade to grade even if they have not learnt anything so as to not hurt their sense of self worth. In the end they end up working retail, fast food or if their parents have contacts Management. All 3 of these pretty much need no more skills than looking pretty and being able to talk the good talk. The really hard jobs whether they need hard physical labour like gardening or hard mental labour like Engineering is done by cheap immigrants.
The US is good at one thing and that is marketing the US as the best place in the world. Once that is done the rest takes care of it itslef. The best people from all over the world make a desperate beeline for the US and once they are here they work hard and cheap and keep this country running. Its a different matter that their children who are US born citizens are again more interested in having a good time than actually studying which is why this country needs immigration in every generation to keep it running.
It is like the biggest Ponzi scheme ever but as long as theri are new suckers (immigrants) falling for the scheme this country will stay on top. And oh when we have too many of these useless youth to be absorbed by Walmart or Middle Management we start a war from time to time to send these extra youth off to get rid of them.
Its actually a pretty good system for the American born. It is like a world wide colony the only difference being instead of sending raw goods the colonies educate, train and send their best people to the colonial master the US.
The funny thing is this only works because the US makes it so hard for immigrants to come in that only the best get in. If the US was actually welcoming to immigrants the days of living off the backs of immigrant labor would be over
**Life is too short to be serious**
Hiya! Yes! u r rite...Mr.Middleman..seems 2 me tat u hav done lots of research on India..Nice!! but will suggest that if u hav done this on your home country then u wud be more surprised then I.. the growing population of Old People and decreasing population of youngsters. Their own children show then their ass and and say the old people that you said to me before.. and government had to take care of them..m i rite?? Also I admit that there is lots of illetracy in India but I can say that still there r more Graduates then any other country in world.. Am I rite..?? Also I would like to say that if in a city there will be only 4 person and 5th one will take care then the system itself will be strong and there will be more resources..which is not the case in India that why the system is bad and people like me r workin for that... So mind your words next time.. Cheers
I think that nothing has really changed, since spammers don't actually target anyone. They just carpet-nuke everyone on the planet with impunity.
And 90% spam isn't unusual. Only if it's getting *past* your filters, although the article seems to suggest that there aren't any.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Hey come on man Anshu, have a perspective. I have been born and brought up In India, and I know that there is a BIG difference between India and the Western countries. Our culture is much more conservative than their's, but you have a very stereo-typical view of the western society, perhaps because of too many hollywood movies. Now while I am not saying that middlemen is absolutely right, (he also has a slightly stereotypical view - but who doesn't these days), you are way off the point. Ours is a very conservative society, and it has both positives and negatives.The positive side means that we have more respect for our parents, elders and all, the negative that I am still a virgin at age 22. But this does not mean that western society is totally iresponsible and non-caring. And also, do not abuse someone so vocally, I am surprised how your comment has a positive score. PS. @ middlemen Too many engineers... yeah moral policing.. yeah sexual desperation... yeah but still, not all "nude britney spears" mails are opened ;)
And as far as the Spam target No. 1 India is concerned, faster than light expansion of IT with the freedom of www. what else will happen???
If you wake up feeling no pain, you know that you're dead.
Okay who is this person. Shes not Indian coz I have never met an Indian with such bad English. Either must be a Pakistani or a product of the American education system where reading means listening to audio books and writing is copying articles of the internet.
Okay there are a lot of Indian Engineers desperate to get some pussy but the reason is life in India is tough and guys who make it to Engineering college give more priority to making a career than getting pussy.
See Indian guys know once they have their careers made they can pick the best pussy they want in the arranged marriage scene. Frankly on this particular front the Americans have it harder as they have to compete hard from an early age to have any chance of ending up with some acceptable pussy and this does take their concentration away from studies. No wonder they are falling behind in Science and Engineering.
If the US wants to blame anything for the fall in Science and Engineering levels they can blame Womens lib not Outsourcing. Outsourcing is a result not a cause.
Sure Womens lib gave us a few extra women Engineers and Scientists but it also bloated the heads of all the other girls who were never really qualified to be anything but housewives and as a result they have become so high maintenance a lot of men opt out of time consuming careers in Science and Engineering and opt for Management and Marketing where taking the wife out to a cocktail dinner counts as working and networking.
Sure go ahead and call me a Male Chauvinist Pig but remember before Women's lib the US was on the top in science and Engineering.
**Life is too short to be serious**
I would much rather have a society where the kiddies are desperate for sex and porn than one where 13 year old girls turn up pregnant all the time. Maybe a little conservatism is not such a bad thing.
**Life is too short to be serious**
"Spammers have now discovered India it appears. The anti spam community around the world has noticed a steady increase in the amount of spam originating from Indian open relay SMTP servers. "The problem is compounded by the fact that several of these servers are running old Mail Transport Agents (mostly outdated versions of Sendmail) which are anonymous open relays. That is, they allow spammers to relay mails without the sender's IP address being stamped in the headers, as is the case with most modern MTAs. "Worse, such old MTAs have gaping security holes. Because sendmail runs as UID 0 (the same as root) a spammer can easily gain root access on a unix system running such an outdated MTA. This (or something quite similar) happened just after the Pokhran blasts, when BARC's servers were hacked by MilW0rm." -cauce india
> Ninety-one percent of email traffic sent to Indian PC users is spam
...
.. find email usless .. don't bother with email ...
That's about the same for me on my oldest (10+ years) email that sits on mailing lists and the like.
But
Go online
The asymptote of ham to spam for that cycle is 100% spam.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
India is my home country. I have lived for 22 years there. I think I made a mistake in one of my earlier emails when I wrote 5 years. I was born and brought up in India, I did my schooling and college education there and now I work in a different country.
MessageLabs' study is limited to their customers -- corporate mailservers that run MessageLabs' spam and virus filtering solutions.
/sarcasm
So much hulla-boo when the study itself is not credible.
90% of the statistic is made up. Or in the MessageLabs' case -- made up of 10% of the information.
Maybe the reason that they have a high proportion of spam to ham is that there's not much ham? Maybe no-one wants to send them real email, so all they get is spam. Maybe if spam was made from cows, it would be different in India. Is it different in Israel? Maybe it's Spanna (spiced manna)?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
But I bet you'd never be one of those millions of graduates, with such language skills.
cool
Do you how to write in hindi? And just for you... one more time.....?????
> I have to deal with two incompetent Indians on a daily basis ... if India is anything like the people I am forced to suffer through on a daily basis you should get tons of suckers
Wow. You extrapolated that from a sample size of 2 (out of an Indian population of 1 billion?) ? Can we nominate you for the Slashdot's Stupidity Hall of Fame?
Go somewhere random
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
That, sir, was fantastic. Badiya!
As an Indian in the west, I actually quite like the west and it's values. It is just too hard for the bright to do their work in India. The bureaucracy and corruption slows everything down. I was just blown away at the intellectual freedom and opportunity in my first year here.
I do however think that life in US is too easy. I can work in Walmart or McDonald's with no skills at all and expect to get all my basic needs answered and even be respected. Not enough motivation to push the limits. Of course, I am not implying that it is a bad thing.
The 'holier than thou' attitute is usually restricted to Indians who have never seen the west first hand. Remember that Indians were subjected to anti-west propaganda and nationalism in the cold war era. The effect is waning but the shadow still exists.
Oh, so are those strong cultural values the reason that India has one of the fastest growing AIDS infection rates in the world, and the largest population infected with AIDS? Are strong values the reason that an ever growing number of monogamous and loyal wives are becoming infected with AIDS by their husbuands? Are strong values the reason for the ever increasing use of drugs in India?
You know what India is? It's a nation of denial and cultural repression. You all can foam about the mouths because of what I said, but I don't give a shit. You might think we "Westeners" are fucked up, but you've got some pretty good problems also.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
While apologizing for all the other knee-jerk (jerk being the operative word) reactions of fellow Indians ranting about Musharraf and the like, I'd like to formally say :
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! ROTFLMAO on the best pun on a country's name I've seen in ages! sniff... sniff.... [wipes eyes].... HAHAHAHAHA !
The Dirty Work Group
Thats definitely Dhoni style bashing.
ROFL.
Rock Steady.
Where do you get this crap? India has a pretty low HIV rate, and per capita is actually very close the HIV rate in the US.
Dear Wingthing....I am glad to say tat I am above then these millions of Grads..The language u talkin about is the lang of internet.. I hop u never get ny chance to chat.... Seeya!
Where do I get my crap? Hmmm...
R /199708.htm/d s-india-cover_x.htm?csp=34% 20Glance/India/index.aspe s/main610961.shtml
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/1997/DECEMBE
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-02-23-ai
http://qa.aidsmatters.org/answer/13479/
http://indiatogether.org/2005/jun/ksh-blaming.htm
http://www.youandaids.org/Asia%20Pacific%20at%20a
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3886883.stm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/08/60minut
Maybe they do have a very low per capita incidince of HIV, but it's been shown that the rate of infection is increasing at a rate more than any other country. Combined with the sheer number of people, infected and not, the virus is set to explode. Sorry, I can't find the particular article in which I read this at this moment, but when I do find it, I'll be happy to share. Everywhere I've read, it's extremely taboo for Indians to discuss sex and AIDS.
I don't think the numbers you link to tell the story very well. It's like trying to say that Luxemborg has a larger economy than the US because thier GDP per capita is 60% higher than ours, which is obviously not the case. Compare China and India. They're the only two countries that are close enough to be comparable in popluation and economic status. The CIA world factbook (the source of information that Nationmaster uses) says that 0.9% of Indians are infected, that 0.6% of US citizens are infected, and that 0.1% of Chinese are infected, and that there are about six times the number of Indians infected as there are Chinese, despite China having a third of a million more people (i.e. approximately one United States more people than India).
My point to the poster I replied to was that Indians get it on like nobody's business. I stand by it.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
That BBC article confuses the notion of "rate" with "absolute number":
The world's second most populous country has one of the highest infection rates - and more than five million HIV/Aids cases.
I think you are making the same mistake; having a large number of HIV cases is only to be expected when you have such an incredibly huge population. The rest of the articles make the same mistake ... looking at a large absolute figure and concluding that it's all "really really terrible". But five million, although a lot of people and a horrible tragedy, is tiny when taking the population size into consideration. If you want to say that Indians are "worse" with HIV (in terms of being supposedly hypocritical about their values, as you suggest) then you have to use the per capita rates, not the absolute number (unlike your economics article). I live in a country with around a 25% HIV infection rate and the largest absolute number of infected people (over 10 million in a population of only 44 million compared to India's 1.something billion) ... so sorry to say but 0.9% sounds miniscule to me, if you think India has a problem with its values you should come here.
See, now we're just arguing over semantics. I agree, India's AIDS per capita rate is low for a country so big. I also expect that their numbers would be very large. I don't think India is a bad place, with deprived values or anything like that. I've never disagreed with these things. I was simply using HIV, and that bit of information that the % growth of HIV in India was increasing substantially in the last few year as a tool to illustrate to the GGGGP that just maybe their average social values aren't what they appear to be on the surface (because of social taboos, or whatever), and that India isn't a some kind of panacea. Nothing more. He/she was cocking about with the whole westerners are rich white devil monkeys, and our values are clearly better than theirs because we know who our parents are, because we don't fuck around routine...
Anyway, it sucks that whatever country you're in (South Africa, I'm guessing?) has been hit so hard by this stupid virus. It's a travesty wherever it hits, there can be no doubt. I guess I'll go stfu now.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.