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Millions Continue To Click On Spam
An anonymous reader writes "Even though over 80% of email users are aware of the existence of bots, tens of millions respond to spam in ways that could leave them vulnerable to a malware infection, according to a Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) survey. In the survey, half of users said they had opened spam, clicked on a link in spam, opened a spam attachment, replied or forwarded it — activities that leave consumers susceptible to fraud, phishing, identity theft, and infection. While most consumers said they were aware of the existence of bots, only one-third believed they were vulnerable to an infection."
FIRST POST!!
which is totally what she said
Humans will always be the weak link in security.
And then they call the IT Dept. claiming that they did nothing..It's just started acting weird..all by itself.. I was just reading this cute mail I got about penises and viagra!
there will be no end of this, not until we let morons use computers
I'm really not sure what to say to this...
Users are ignorant to computers. Users have always been ignorant. We can do whatever we can to protect them, either through education, security, antivirus, and anti-malware, but the problem is they aren't geeky tech-people that keep us and like this stuff enough to learn it.
How about we just have a TV show or a movie they want to watch, but teaches them? We could make it a romantic comedy for the ladies or a war movie for the guys, but insert in proper computer use and warnings about spam, viruses, phishing, fraud, etc. We need some kind of mass media to actually teach the masses, and it needs to be a regular interval to keep up with the problems.
Millions of computer users are idiots.
is this why my mom keeps sending me letters from an African Prince with millions?
~Mekkah
I propose we link spam filters into some kind of device which shocks the user if a link is clicked or attachment opened in a spam message. Maybe it'll make them finally learn not to open those things, much like how one teaches stubborn dogs not to pee against the couch.
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
I'm sure they're only clicking because the link sounds interesting, completely ignoring their safety because they're not paranoid like us /.'ers.
Congratulations!!!
Your name has been picked. You have just won millions of dollars worth of software. You are also granted the permission to give this software to all of your friends and family.
Click on this link to claim your prize...
CLICK HERE TO GET FREE SOFTWARE!
They're probably the users who believe that computers run off magic. For any above-absolute-beginner, common sense should kick in naturally.
This goes to show the level of incompetence, and talking from experience too:
Me: "Okay you're logged into the system?" ...(proceed a barrage of troubleshooting)...
Cust: "Uh-yes"
Me: Click on the Reports menu item"
Cust: (silence) I don't see it.
Me: "Any errors pop up recently?"
Me: "What DO you see?"
Cust: "Just a white page with an image, that says 'Google'"
date: Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 6:22 PM
subject: Huge old mommy
However, I run Linux so I don't worry about viruses, trojans, pedophiles and other malware.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
You can, but all cures are lethal.
From TF pdf, under methodology
"Survey participants are all members of Ipsos' opt-in consumer panels in each of the six markets and were invited to participate via email".
So, people who respond to spam also respond to bullshit surveys via email.
Who'd a thunk it ?
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
How about some crusaders who mount spam campaigns that, when clicked, scare the holy living hell out of the recipient? Display your geo-location info and a big flashing progress meter that says, "withdrawing funds from your bank account...55%...100%...done" and then a dialog box pops up and says, "Why'd you click on a spam link, sucker? I'll be enjoying your money while I vacation in the Cayman Islands!" Of course no money would be stolen but it would at least give a few idiots the scare of their lives and get them to stop clicking on spam.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The other day I was walking my mother through launching Windows Live Messenger, so we could video-chat and she could see the kids.
Here was the conversation:
Me: "Click on the icon on your start bar that looks like a little man."
Her: "I don't see it."
Me: "It's on your start bar."
Her: "Ok, I see All Programs..."
Me: "No. Not under Start, it's on your START BAR."
Her: "I don't know what that is".
Me: "Where is your clock."
Her: "Uh....I don't know..."
Me: "It's either at the top right or bottom right of your screen."
Her: "OHHH! There it is! It's at the bottom right!"
Me: "Congratulations, now you know what a clock looks like. OK, next to the clock are a bunch of icons. Double-click on the one that looks like a little man."
This was literally the conversation I had not two nights ago.
With people of this level of computer competence, they are going to fall for anything and everything. There's just nothing you can do for them.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
The best way to keep users from clicking on spam links to to keep that spam out of the user's mailbox in the first place. In our shops we run a mix of Exchange (with McAfee's spam product), old school POP3 (not sure what is running there), and Gmail premier. By far Google's spam filter (Postini) wins out over the other two.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
Foxnews? That's one of the worst online parasites!! They won't suck your bank account dry - instead, they hoover up your BRAINZ!!!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I religiously click on spam, esp if it looks like malware or phishing... just to see where it takes me. It's even more fun if you find some funky scripts on the site! :D
I, for one, welcome our stupid-people killing overlo... hey, who are you guys? Where in the hell did you come from? What's the gun for? NO! STOP! NNOOOOO[BANG]
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
apparently they allready are
It’s called “natural selection”. It’s a good thing. It gives the more intelligent an advantage that they deserve, while making it harder for the not so wise to live.
If we’d remove it, we’d only allow more idiots to live. And you know where that would lead to.
To the exact same thing that it lead, that you now don’t even have to get up all day long, or face any challenge at all in your padded XXXXXXL suit, and demand that lifestyle as a “right”, while being able to watch the stupid shit that runs on TV, without making any single thought for yourself.
If any, if we want us to advance, we should make it harder.
Ok, that sounds like a misunderstanding hazard. Let me rephrase it:
There is a mechanism in life, where the amount of motivation is based on how close the abilities and the difficulty of the challenges are. If they match up nearly perfect, you get a genius. (Ok, it’s one factor. The main factor.)
And more motivation leads to more challenges which leads to more learning.
Now you can fall off that fine line on both sides. On the “too hard” side, you get frustrated. And on the “too easy” side, you get bored. (This is a the basic mechanism used to make any game fun.)
But this is not just one global value. But one for every aspect of your life.
So you can obviously have a too hard life in some aspects, and a too easy one in others.
E.g. in a slum in some poor African country’s main capital, it will be frustratingly hard, and that slows down advancement.
But in our “western” world, most of our life is so easy, that we are bored all the time. Which, by the laws of efficiency, means that we can scale down our abilities, and go backwards, until it becomes hard enough to be motivating again. But since we constantly make our lives easier, we counteract the natural force of advancement, and just bop a bit up and down around that sweet spot.
And this is what I meant up there with “harder”.
It would make more sense, to make our life more efficient, instead of just easier. :)
Because we should get better and better, at keeping the difficulty of our challenges closer and closer to the sweet spot of perfect motivation.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Modern civilization allows idiots to reproduce.
Actually, about the last 2:
- The funny thing about the health care bill is that right after it passed, it only had 40% of the American people not wanting it.
- You haven't been modded down.
However, also to add to your list:
- The Pope is Catholic!
- Bears shit in the woods!
I am officially gone from
Yes we can. Advertise cyanide capsules as v1agra and sell them via spam. Problem solved.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I see what you did there... and it hurts my brain. It's too early.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Traditionally, the party who pays for a thing expects that the party that has been paid has made the thing usable, and not booby-trapped.
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p
"continue to....forward it"!!!?!?!?!?!
FORWARD IT?!!
* apocalyptic seizure *
wha'? where am i?
I recognize the need for the rule of law. I know that vigilantism is wrong, that we should all adhere to the rules of a civilized society. I know that we should allow everyone their fair chance in a court of law, and that no man should be considered guilty until proof has been provided.
But you know what? Fuck that. Kill them all, now.
I hate printers.
... or you get a lot of email with embedded remote-linked images. Which, of course, most of us do.
I agree on the scripting/active content part, but it's not quite as simple as only opening network connections to the email server. HTML email means that your email client is really a web browser in disguise.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Nice flamebait.
Why not force users to copy/paste a URL if they really want to see the webpage their "friend" sent them?
I've been using computers for 30-odd years and I don't have a clue what a "start bar" is.
By deduction I think you might be referring to Windows' "system tray" but I wouldn't expect anybody's mother to understand that term either - not even if I told them in ALL CAPS.
No sig today...
Who's to say that since all these people are likely infected by some malware, that some of that malware isn't auto downloading/clicking on some of this spam? I mean, the people sending out the spam are already lowlifes, why wouldn't they scam their own clients (the spam products) to boost their own clickthrough ratios ;-)
Agreed. I've seen some very VERY cleverly-crafted bits of phishing that are almost indistinguishable from real email I get from my bank. Even the URLs are getting more and more clever.
I've started advising people just to never click on any link in any email, ever, under any circumstances, for any reason. If your bank sends you a notification, use the shortcut you have in your browser to log in to your account. If the notification is real, chances are the notification will be there and easy to get to from your account page.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Survey detects idiots are plenyful. What next??!?
Studies reveal 87% of AC posters on slasdot can't spell.
Thank you for the first truly new twist on that meme in a long, long time.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Don't forget:
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
Studies reveal 87% of AC posters on slasdot can't spell.
As opposed to the non-AC posters, of course. :)
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
- I will get mod'd down for stating 4 things that are 100% true!
Moderation
40% Troll
40% Funny
20% Flamebait
James Roday, is that you?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
CmdrTaco has been spamming us today with this story and "Yootoob iz dOWn!!!" stories
one of the few things i really can't stand about my iphone is that mobilemail, afaict, has no "don't auto-load pictures" setting. i worry from time to time about getting tracked or hacked by IMG links in spam that makes it past my filters. (this is particularly ironic given the 1.0.1 PNG jailbreak....)
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Have you ever looked at a "normal" user interact with a computer? In my experience is more or less like this:
What's that? A mail about some interesting photos I must check out by clicking here... Uhm, I don't know the guy sending it... and I have really no time for photos, but I have to check it to be able to drop it from my mind.
What's that? The Internet opened up. Ah! the photos must be there, but there is some stupid error message that stops me moving Yes! Yes! I said YES! Stupid machine!
What's that? Didn't work. No photos. Again the same message, or it's another one. Impossible to know since I never read the first one, they are all equal, anyway.
What's that? Again the same message. I'll have to read the message to see why I'm not moving forward. Stupid messages! What's an "X active" anyway, do they think I have time for all that. Oh! It seems that to go forward I have really to click "No" on the second message. Must be to avoid stupid users clicking blindly on "OK" all the time. Ain't I smart? I can now move. What? Installing what? Always waiting. Well, it seems to work now. Oh! Those are porn photos! Close, close, close. If the boss sees me I'm dead. Damn SPUM mail!
Ok, next point in my to-do list, banking. What's that? Yes , I want to ALLOW that program to access the site "allOfYourMoney.AreBelong.to.us". Stupid firewall. Won't let me alone to do my work. ...
People, probably due to a nomadic origin or something, think in computers in terms of "going" places, "reaching" things and "routes" they know (To open the Excel you go here, press here). Messages from the computer are interpreted as obstacles that one must overcome to reach the goal. Some other paradigm has to be found for security in computers. I have some ideas, but too tired to write more. If some rich company making OS's is interested, I do expensive consulting.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Genius. I might help send those spams.
I never click on advertisements. They all meet the criteria of spam.
"Ask your doctor if cyanide is right for you! Warning: May cause unintended side effects such as survival. Consult your doctor if your rigor mortis lasts more than four hours."
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
>"Taskbar Notification Area" and "System Tray" are both perfectly acceptable, and non-ambiguous, terms to refer to the icon area that sits to the left of the clock in Windows.
The problem is if I told my mom to click on the "Taskbar", or the "System Tray", she would have had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, and I would have ended up having to describe it as the big blue bar with START on one end, anyway.
It seemed obvious to me that calling it a "start bar" from the beginning would save some time. Obviously I was wrong, but I can assure you, it would have taken even longer if I had started out calling it a taskbar.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I thought I might have moved it to the top of her screen when I set up the system, but could not remember.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
And again, calling it a taskbar would only have led to me having to describe what a taskbar was, which would have led me to the start bar description anyway.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Studies reveal 87% of AC posters on slasdot can't spell.
As opposed to the non-AC posters, of course. :)
Yeah that's probably 88% Talk about hubris! :-P
In Soviet Russian Army, every soldier which is ever expected to shoot with a gun, is required to be able to take it apart and reassemble it in under 30 seconds. And he wouldn't ever dare say things like "I don't care how it works I just want it to shoot", or some sort of disciplinary measures would follow very shortly.