It's hard not to draw parallels between spam and viruses. Unwanted proliferation, performance hits, companies popping up all over the place to sell antivirus (antispam) products.
Went to a link to unsubscribe from a newsletter a week ago (the newsletter was legit, so I was reasonably sure it won't simply result in me getting more spam), and I found it interesting to see that about half the page was a banner for some anti-spam program. A bit shameless really.
But what is the main difference between a virus and spam? The Melissa writer got in serious trouble for that (don't remember whether it was jail or a hefty fine); other select virus writers have had their hands slapped. We still have viruses, yes, but at least because of these few examples people know that if they write a virus, release it in the wild and get caught, they're in trouble.
Until something like that happens with spam, I see NO reason why spammers would stop, or do anything other than increase their efforts - especially since they can make money directly out of the spam, unlike virus writers.
A bit off-topic, but Solaris (the movie) is based on Solaris (the book) written by Stanislaw Lem (the author) in 1961 (the year), which I'm pretty sure came before Solaris (the operating system).
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It's hard not to draw parallels between spam and viruses. Unwanted proliferation, performance hits, companies popping up all over the place to sell antivirus (antispam) products. Went to a link to unsubscribe from a newsletter a week ago (the newsletter was legit, so I was reasonably sure it won't simply result in me getting more spam), and I found it interesting to see that about half the page was a banner for some anti-spam program. A bit shameless really. But what is the main difference between a virus and spam? The Melissa writer got in serious trouble for that (don't remember whether it was jail or a hefty fine); other select virus writers have had their hands slapped. We still have viruses, yes, but at least because of these few examples people know that if they write a virus, release it in the wild and get caught, they're in trouble. Until something like that happens with spam, I see NO reason why spammers would stop, or do anything other than increase their efforts - especially since they can make money directly out of the spam, unlike virus writers.
A bit off-topic, but Solaris (the movie) is based on Solaris (the book) written by Stanislaw Lem (the author) in 1961 (the year), which I'm pretty sure came before Solaris (the operating system).