Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Spam Site Found Every Three Seconds

Posted by samzenpus on from the spam-sausage-spam-spam-spam-mail-and-spam dept.

Stony Stevenson writes "New figures suggest that 92.3 percent of all email sent globally during the first three months of 2008 was spam. The data from Sophos also indicated that 23,300 new spam-related web pages were created every day during the period, or one about every three seconds. For the first time Turkey's contribution to the global spam problem puts it in the top three offending countries. Compromised computers in Turkey are now responsible for relaying 5.9 percent of the world's junk email, compared to 3.8 percent in the final quarter of 2007."

8 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. I dont get it... by repapetilto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I never get spam, I have my school email address I use for trusted sites and people while everything else goes to a yahoo account. The yahoo account is filled with spam, but since I only have to check the newest mail whenever I use it its not a big deal. Am I missing something here?

    1. Re:I dont get it... by jimicus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      i think all these anti-spam ideas miss the big picture: if no one bought products from spam, they wouldnt do it. we should be going after the idiots who reply to spam.

      IIRC there was someone who tried an experiment some time ago. They tried to buy some of the v1|4|g|r|4 that they'd seen advertised in spam.

      They couldn't find a single spam which actually led to someone genuinely trying to sell something. I think they concluded that spam had mostly become a pyramid scheme, with a handful of people at the top trying (with some success) to persuade everyone below that they could make lots of money from spam - all they needed to do was buy this mailing list software and that list of email addresses...

    2. Re:I dont get it... by niktemadur · · Score: 3, Interesting

      * Included you on a To: or CC: list of recipients,
      * Used your email address to search for you on social sites,
      * Sent you e-cards/e-invites

      There is an astonishing number of people who've had email accounts for years now, and still do the very first and worst thing you mention in your no-no list. I guess it's the most convenient (read: lazy) way to re-send the same lame joke to fifty people. The CEO of the company I work for keeps doing this in my business account!
      Or those blasted chain emails. I can imagine that many of those were created by spammers harvesting addresses, exploiting peoples' superstitions in machiavellian fashion.

      Back in the days of dialup, when the "Dalai Lama wisdom tidbits, send this to twenty people you know" type pps files were already bugging me beyond belief, some bitch that somebody knew that somebody knew that I knew had the nerve to send out a gigantic list of CC: recipients to hundreds of people, with no message whatsoever, just the headline "Let's see what happens". Needless to say, she was bombarded with hate mail, but it was too late. In a few months' time, I was getting about a hundred and fifty spam mails a day, so I created a new address, notified my inbox contacts and asked them to never, ever put me on a CC: list.

      It worked for a while, then I started getting spam again, and I couldn't figure out why. Then it hit me: "Damn, I used my address to register in Amazon (also buying stuff through its' independent affiliate sellers), Paypal, eBay and the like". Could that be an additional reason?

      --
      Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
  2. summary is misleading by martin-boundary · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Phrases such as "Turkey's contribution to spam" are highly misleading. Turkey doesn't actually contribute significantly to spam. How many Turkish language spam messages have you got recently in your mailbox? How many spam messages advertizing a Turkish company's products? None? Then Turkey's contribution to spam is negligible.

    What everyone gets in their mailbox are mainly American spam messages intended mainly for Americans, sent via hijacked Windows computers around the world. There's also a significant fraction of messages intended for a handful of other rich countries, but the only third world country seriously contributing their own spam is probably Nigeria.

  3. Re:Wait a minute by EdIII · · Score: 5, Interesting

    isn't spam some sort of shoulder meat ?


    I think you may have answered your own question there :) LOL

    Officially, S.P.A.M originally stood for "Shoulder of Pork And haM". However, it most often referred to as "Something Posing As Meat" and "Spare Parts Animal Meat."

    There are also, completely unsubstantiated of course, rumors that old man Hormel himself thought he was going to hell for his part in creating it...

  4. The ratio is completely wrong for that. by khasim · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This just tells us what many of us already knew. The spam problem will continue to get worse until we actually apply a economic solution to this economic problem.
    Yes, in theory.

    The reality is that a single sale of "herbal \/1agr4" can mean a profit for the spammer. The cost of spamming is that low for them.

    In order to make it economically unsound for the spammers, you'd have to make it economically annoying for the rest of humanity. More annoying than simply putting up with the spam.

    UNLESS we get rid of the stupid CAN-SPAM law and allow each state to institute its own anti-spam laws and allow citizens in those states to sue the spammers for violating those laws.

    Yeah, this will hurt "legitimate" fucking "email marketing" companies ... but in my experience those do not exist. Any legitimate company would view the 50 different legal requirements as a cost of doing business. The same as it is with insurance companies.
  5. Re:Won't sombody think of the children? by 1u3hr · · Score: 4, Interesting
    My idea is that if x% of the traffic coming out of a country is abusive then those controlling..., then 100% of that traffic will just be bit-bucketted at the gateways

    If you block a country because it is relaying spam, it will be switched to go via another country before the week is out. Meanwhile millions of innocent people will find themselves cut off.

    Specifically, if required, then the U.S. of A. should be subject to these same rules.

    You bet. Clean up your own act first. I'm not holding my breath. Easier to blame nasty foreigners.

    Did you RTFA:

    The US continues to relay far more spam than any other country,
    And see the ROKSO list, note the nationalities.

    I live in Hong Kong. About 80% of the spam I get is from the US. And yet I find my emails often bounced from US addresses because of similar enlightened attitudes.

    Most of the world's spam ORIGINATES in the USA, is PAID FOR by USA companies. Your government does nothing to stop it. (What is it, two or three prosecutions in the last 5 years?) American companies lobby to prevent any effective measures to stop spam. Bit bucket Florida and you might make a dent in it for a while. But attack the source, not the routing.

  6. Re:ASSP is the answer by gujo-odori · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You're proud of 95% efficacy? I work for one of the well-known anti-spam companies, and if our efficacy *fell* to 95% that would be considered an emergency. Our overall efficacy is >99% and the spam categories I manage are closing in on five nines.