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Idaho Tops America's Most-Spammed States
An anonymous reader writes "MessageLabs unveiled a list of the top US spammed states, with surprising results — the spam capital of the US is Idaho, with 93.8 percent of spam, far exceeding the global spam rate for September 2009 of 86.4 percent. Idaho has jumped 43 spots since 2008 when it was ranked the 44th most spammed state. The difference can be attributed to the resilient and aggressive botnet market as well as a higher volume of global spam that has ensued since the beginning of the credit crisis toward the end of 2008."
Idaho is famous for it's potatoes.
From: Mr. Dave Fu Wong
Seoul, South Korea.
I will introduce myself I am Mr. Dave Fu Wong, a potato farmer working in a field in South Korea Until now I am the master potato grower of three million hectres to most of the South Korea government kitchens and I have since discovered that most of the potatoes lay dormant in silos with a lot of starch in the silo on further investigation I found out that one particular silo belong to the former president of South Korean MR PARK CHUNG HEE, who ruled south Korean from 1963-1979 and this particular silo has a deposit of grade A lucky golden variety potato with no next of kin. As you know, lucky goldens do not only taste like food from the gods but can be consumed raw like an apple as well as grown anywhere even during the winter.
My proposal is that since I am the master potato growing officer and the potatoes or the silo is dormant and there is no next of kin obviously the potato owner the former president of South Korea has died long time ago, that you should provide an account for the potatoes to be transferred.
The potatoes that are floating in the silo right now are some fifty kilotonnes and this is what I want to transfer to your farm in Idoho for our mutual benefit South Korean post office is so super efficient that a single postage stamp will get these potatoes to you post haste! Unfortunately postage stamp cost fifty Korean currencies or $10,000 American Dollars (apologies for your economy) please send bank account information or cash money order for immediate shipping.
Please if this is okay by you I will advice that you contact me through my direct email address.
Please this transaction should be kept confidential. For your assistance as the account owner we shall share the potatoes on equal basis.
Your reply will be appreciated,
Thank you.
Dave Fu Wong
My work here is dung.
The interesting question is NOT why Idaho state spams the most, but WHY usa spams so much. It's not even the largest country in the world; china, india, russia and others go beyound. Still their spam levels are a lot lower.
Noting about "US connectivity" doesn't work either. There's a lot more people with internet connections around the world, but only USA seems to have the problem with so much malware and spam.
Please educate your people, because it affects rest of the world too.
Now all that's missing for a nutritious lunch is ham and eggs
None of the spammers have been to Idaho.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Maybe they get lonely out there and spam almost seems like someone cares to send them a message.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
When you think high tech, well networked states, you don't tend to think of there.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Hey guys, hott tip, Quantum Tubers stock at five cents, tomorrow at five dollars! Can't lose, like printing money. Buy Buy Buy!
My work here is dung.
MessageLabs unveiled a list of the top U.S. spammed states, with surprising results - the spam capital of the US is Idaho with 93.8 percent of spam, far exceeding the global spam rate for September 2009 of 86.4 percent.
...what sort of poorly-stated metric is "percent of spam"
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Idaho has 93% of spam. No.
Spam comprises 93% of emails in Idaho. Very big difference.
And as for the reasons given? Ridiculous, unless you can also explain why Idaho was disproportionately affected by those factors.
You want to know the real reasons Idaho is one of the most spammed states?
Higher percentage of "noob" users. Idaho came to the table pretty late, and a disproportionate number of people in Idaho don't yet know basic ways of reducing spam.
Or possibly, people in Idaho are more likely to fall for spam advertising.
But in no way do the reasons given (which relate to the total increase in spam) explain Idaho's predicament.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
On second thought, the real reason Idaho has a disproportionate amount of spam is because they grow so many potatoes there.
Potatoes, spam, eggs, spam and spam has a lot more spam in it than spam, eggs, sausage and spam.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Whenever someone asks me about a spam email and whether the email is true, I respond with "No legitimate business uses spam, unsolicited email, or whatever you want to call it. They are all scams - no exceptions."
Start educating people that that email in their inbox is a scam. Period. And maybe, just maybe, one day those crooks will stop this shit.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
I don't think whoever wrote the article understands what they're trying to explain. First, the author repeatedly says "percent of spam" (e.g. "the spam capital of the US is Idaho with 93.8 percent of spam," and "...Puerto Rico, with 83.1 percent of spam") when apparently the data is actually the percent of email received in the state which is spam. Second, the explanations given for Idaho topping this list have no relevance to the question whatever. Claiming botnets and the recession are to blame with no attempt to explain how these factors impact Idaho different than other states is nonsense! Finally, even if the author understood the data, the data is uninteresting without some test of statistical significance. The difference between states with highest and lowest spam rates is only 10%, is that significant? Is it repeatable if you sampled during a different interval? Who knows.
Their state of the art weaponry can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHUyKrJeNv0
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
...playing just for those bored enough to make a list like this.
Seriously though - who cares what state gets the most spam? Its not like spam is more prevalanent in low income areas or in areas with high instances of drug usage - and its not like I am going to NOT move somewhere because they have a lot of spam (unless you are talking about the "food" variety).
1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
I don't get why a cooking article is on /. but I mean, who hasn't had some Mashed potatoes and SPAMburgers at some point in their life?
The difference can be attributed to the resilient and aggressive botnet market as well as a higher volume of global spam that has ensued since the beginning of the credit crisis toward the end of 2008.
Um... no, those two facts can perhaps help to explain the overall increase in spam, globally. They do absolutely nothing to explain why Idaho, specifically, has jumped up the list of being spammed more often per capita.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
This is the same website with a bogus security story (straight from PR press I think) just a while back. Maybe slashdot should filter that site?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
OK, I live in Idaho. My email addresses are Gmail and me.com accounts. How would they know that those email addresses belong to someone in Idaho? I assume the email servers where the email is delivered probably aren't even in this state. Furthermore, Google's spam filtering is pretty darn good and I rarely see any spam. Not sure what difference it makes where you live.
I am Nigerian Prince (not of the 'Purple Rain' kind!) Your grandmother was recently deceased in great Nigerian potato famine and left you USD$1.000.000,00 in savings. Please kindly to be responding to me at your convenience, and I will be forwarding the proceeds to you immediately.
Sincerely,
Prince Sunny Mbabe Lesotho Aki Harare Botswanawana
I couldn't help myself.
I thought Hawaii was the SPAM state?
I wanted to gauge computer usage in Idaho to my area so I compared the Craigslist Rants and Raves in East Idaho to my area...yeah next to Buffalo NY either East Idaho is Heaven on Earth or NOBODY owns\ knows what a computer is.
I'm pretty sure that Hawaii is the national span capitol.
No, you da ho!
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
I see a lot of stories on this today, but the MessageLabs site doesn't have it and only one story I've read has a link to the actual report -- which doesn't appear to be correct. Anybody have a link to the actual report?
>The difference can be attributed to the resilient and aggressive botnet market as well as a higher volume of global spam that has >ensued since the beginning of the credit crisis toward the end of 2008
Translation...
In the mid USA where most hicks live and breed, is where you will find the most success spreading the Nigerian scams
where most people living on the coast (east or west) would have seen this scam coming a mile away.
Seriously though, you WILL find more success where there is less tech presence or more NEWLY introduced tech presence,
where such thing as a computer might still not quite be yet a full daily household item. If you go into a very technologically advanced country or state, where everybody is texting, chances are, everybody has heard of most scams and can avoid them no problem.
where bob [at] aol [dot] com lives.