'9 out of 10 e-mails Now Spam'

[Slimy]

Criminal gangs using hijacked computers are behind a surge in unwanted e-mails peddling sex, drugs and stock tips. The number of "spam" messages has tripled since June and now accounts for as many as nine out of 10 e-mails sent worldwide, according to U.S. email security company Postini. As Christmas approaches, the daily trawl through in-boxes clogged with offers of fake Viagra, loans and sex aids is tipped to take even longer. "E-mail systems are overloaded or melting down trying to keep up with all the spam," said Dan Druker, a vice president at Postini. His company has detected 7 billion spam e-mails worldwide in November compared to 2.5 billion in June. Spam in Britain has risen by 50 percent in the last two months alone, according to Internet security company SurfControl.

The United States, China and Poland are the top sources of spam, data from security firm Marshal suggests. About 200 illegal gangs are behind 80 percent of unwanted e-mails, according to Spamhaus, a body that tracks the problem. Experts blame the rise in spam on computer programs that hijack millions of home computers to send e-mails. These "zombie networks", also called "botnets", can link 100,000 home computers without their owners' knowledge. They are leased to gangs who use their huge "free" computing power to send millions of e-mails with relative anonymity. While "Trojan horse" programs that invade computers have been around for years, they are now more sophisticated, written by professionals rather than bored teenagers. "Before it was about showing off, now it's about ripping people off," said SurfControl's Harnish Patel. Spam costs firms up to $1,000 a year per employee in lost productivity and higher computing bills, according to research published last year.

Home computer users are at risk from e-mails that ask them to reveal their bank details, a practice known as "phishing". The latest programs mutate to avoid detection and send fewer e-mails from each machine. Fast broadband Internet connections, which are always connected, help the spammers. The gangs send millions of e-mails, so they only need a fraction of people to reply to make a profit. "This is a constant game of cat and mouse," said Mark Sunner, Chief Technology Officer at MessageLabs, an e-mail security company. "The bad guys will not stand still." They disguise words to try to outfox filters searching for telltale words. So, Viagra would become V1?gra. When anti-spam experts clamped down on this, the spammers began to send messages embedded in a graphic instead of plain text. It is harder for filters to scan pictures. Random extracts from classic books are often included to confuse filters looking for keywords.

Anti-spam laws have had mixed results. The first U.S. convictions came last year, while Britain has yet to charge anyone under 2003 anti-spam legislation. It is difficult to fight spam because the problem crosses international borders, said a spokesman for the UK Information Commissioner's Office, the body which enforces the law. Some believe laws and filters will not defeat spam. It will only end when people stop buying diet pills, herbal highs and sexual performance enhancers, said Dave Rand, of Internet security firm Trend Micro. "The products they are selling by spam are exactly the same products that they sold in the Middle Ages," he said. "This really is a human problem, not a computer problem."

CNN

[sundayx Veteran]

how effective are spams? for me almost all my spams are caught (gmail and hotmail), and they are never read. but i heard some that recieve a lot of spams in their inbox with the same service providers, and i know corporate emails that uses less effective filters get a lot in their inbox. all in all i just hope they would stop this junk, its ineffective in promotion anyways

[User6060]

My prediction: In ~5 years from now, you will need "electronic stamps" just like snail mail. I couldn't imagine mass mailers sending this **** if it cost 50c a pop.

[Hurmoth]

:o Wow, 9 out of 10 emails are spam emails. That, that seems excessive if you ask me. I can't speak for other people, but I know I don't get that much spam. That's just crazy!

My prediction: In ~5 years from now, you will need "electronic stamps" just like snail mail. I couldn't imagine mass mailers sending this **** if it cost 50c a pop.

I'm all for it actually. If it cuts the spam, let's do it :yes:

[Sarm]

I run my own mail server and I'd say that's about right.

A typical day I'll see 90 spam vs 10 real emails.

Although I've got filters about 10-20 per day get through as spammers are wise to how the filters work.

My servers even use the blacklist lookup, so without all those it's more than 9 out of 10!

My problem is I've had the same email address for nearlly a decade of web use, and over time it's been CC'd by mates on joke emails which end up being harvested etc.

[primexx]

:o Wow, 9 out of 10 emails are spam emails. That, that seems excessive if you ask me. I can't speak for other people, but I know I don't get that much spam. That's just crazy!

I'm all for it actually. If it cuts the spam, let's do it :yes:

but you see we dont send snail mail for something like "k thx" but we do for email, so charging is NOT an option. PLUS the internet should remain free, email tax == bad.

[Popcorned1]

How does charging for it work?

I still get a crap load of spam through my letter box.

[Hurmoth]

but you see we dont send snail mail for something like "k thx" but we do for email, so charging is NOT an option. PLUS the internet should remain free, email tax == bad.

The internet should remain free? :blink: Don't you pay an ISP? Someone is paying for you to use the internet, whether it be a public library, or you yourself, someone is paying. So the internet isn't free.

I, personally, would consider "k thx" as a spam email. What a waist of time it is to have to open up an email that only has "k thx" in it. That sounds like something that should go through an IM rather than an email. But that's just me though...

[Sarm]

The charging method WOULD work, in fact Microsoft have been long behind the idea of a "virtual postage stamp"

the idea is a single email is just something like $0.01 to send, so for a typical user it's just a couple quid/dollars in a month (100 emails sent=$1), maybe charged by your ISP etc.

That would then make the spammers think twice before sending out a million emails to random people when a cost is associated.

I personally would be VERY happy to go down this route.

Even better if the fees went to a non profitable organisation to improve the internet and the email system.

Another year or so and I think it's going to happen, every year it's getting worse and we're close to melt down.

[Matrix XII]

I definitely believe this. I get up to 100 spam emails a day, they are all caught by my spam filter at least though :p

[Fourjays Veteran]

I doubt paying for email would help; you get loads of junk through your letterbox which companies pay for, so how would it be any different? At least with emails, you can filter out the junk.

I must get about 80-90 spam a day on my private email with my ISP (had it for about 2 years). All advertising viagra and dodgy Chinese stock options. Luckily Thunderbird picks em all up. My gmail gets alot too, which is picked up by their filters.

[Hurmoth]

I doubt paying for email would help; you get loads of junk through your letterbox which companies pay for, so how would it be any different?

The difference is that those are usually legit companies, not an individual.

See the electronic stamp would have a serial number on it that no one else could have, like an IP Address, so there would always be a way back to the user because he'd have to pay for that stamp with some for of identification (credit card for example, or a bank account). The authorities would be able to easily track a spammer down faster than what they can today because of so many free email accounts out there.

Will there still be spam? Absolutely, you can't stop it completely, but you can minimize it and this is the only solution to do it. More spammer being prosecuted means more spammers that stop spamming. If we were lax on malware laws, don't you think we'd have more malware developers? I believe so. I think the problem is we don't have tough laws against spammers right now, and this is one step to helping enforce the tough laws once we get them.

[Cavalyr]

almost never get a spam email. email addy is given out to just everyone. got the usual 2 or 3 emails for various things and people. it is sad that is the stat for right now. hope they let up some soon.

[Miuku.]

:o Wow, 9 out of 10 emails are spam emails. That, that seems excessive if you ask me. I can't speak for other people, but I know I don't get that much spam. That's just crazy!

Here are some stats from our corporate email server:

Total Processed Total Spam 	Spam Percentage
179893		  149051		83%

The spam percentage on days goes from about 75% on the lowest to 93% on the worst date (These statistics are from the last 14 days - note that this only represents a portion of the total email we get, this is taken from one Linux+Microsoft Exchange mail server combo)

[Intersect]

i wish blueyonder woud do more to stop all this stock info spam from being delivered to customers inboxes.

i get about 10 of these a day and its realy srarting to **** me off. most of these come from packistan spammers.

[:: Lyon ::]

Yeah I'm sick of these spams..

Had filtering here and there but sometimes I 'm afraid I'll lose real important emails. ugh

[Quillz]

I don't think charging for e-mail will be effective or popular.

[Valerus]

I don't find this surprising.

From now on, I will stop deleting my spam messages and I will see how many I get in one month, compared to my normal messages.

[Intersect]

there must be a way for an ISP to monitor email servers for spam activity.

and block from beign sent.

[ambiance]

I get 10 spam messages in my GMail account a day. None in my hotmail anymore and rarely receive one in my ISP provided e-mail.

It's due to the amount of ignorant users with zombie machines adding to the botnet of spamalot.

[NinjaGinger]

My ISP was hacked and my e-mail is now sending loads a day. My ISP told me to change my mail address, that was the full remit of there ideas. Knowing how many peeps I would have to tell to accept a new mail from me, I decided to not do as they said, so I get about that 50 returned by spam catchers per day. So if any of your spam is from me, sorry, its not me, honest. :D :no:

[GeeZuZz]

On my server, about 95% of the mail arriving is spam.

I would have no problem at all paying for sending email, as long as it it would kill the spam fully. But theres one major problem, and that is the fact that probably a very big percentage of the ham are actually mass-mails. Newsletters, registration confirmations, etc. It would not be possible for most companies/organisations to pay for that.

I think i vote for a new email system that does not allow "just anyone" to send a mail. The mail servers should be needed to be registered and inspected by organisations (like domains are controled), in order to be able to send mail.

I mean, it's too simple to set up a php-script to send dozens of mails. And i guess a large percentage of the spam is sent on virus infected PC's...

[Intersect]

we pay good money to our ISPs and one comes to mind BTYahoo

who used to be btinternet/btopenworld

ever since they became BTYahoo my btopenworld email address is now on view on the yahoo public profiles. Way to go BT you realy know how to protect your customers.

so the ammount of spam has gone from 1 to 10 a mounth to a shocking 790. that i have just deleated.

[Nightwind Hawk]

For my Dad, the last count was 2 real e-mails out of 2,200. And let's just say he gets alot of important e-mails.

So yeah.. thousands of spam a day. :blink:

[primexx]

Oh and making people pay for email would effectively lock everyone under 18 out of email. Plus, even a levy of 1 cent is still TOO MUCH for email. You pay for the connection to the internet, not the content on it. Levying a tax on email is similar to what AOL did, except worse. It's not an option.