Of course, old Ben didn’t have Internet access. Otherwise, he would have added spam to the mix.
No matter how many laws or brilliant minds we throw at the scourge of electronic communication, spam always finds a way.
It finds a way because — well, it works.
“The things that wind up in your in-box: They are there because people buy them,” said
Strange as it may sound, there are people out there
willing to spend money on deals most people consider absurd. More than
just a few, actually, according to a study released over the summer by
the
Internet and technology providers. The study found that half of
Internet users have opened e-mail they thought was spam. Of those, 12
percent did it because they were interested in the product.
Exactly how much spam is out there is a source of
some debate. Some studies have suggested it’s around 85 percent of all
e-mail. Some say it’s 90 percent.
recently pegged it at 97 percent. Pick whichever number you’d like to
believe. All that matters is that the vast majority of e-mail coursing
through the Internet’s veins is worthless, unwanted and sometimes
dangerous.
Worse, most experts agree there’s little hope you’ll
ever escape those unsolicited offers of free money, larger male members
and secret weight loss techniques. Unless, that is, you unplug yourself
from the net.
“People are sort of resigned to the fact they’re going to get spam. It’s just a question of how much,” said
It really comes down to money, and the fact that
there is so much of it to be made by spammers, who need only a tiny
investment to set up shop.
Generally speaking, all you need is an Internet connection
for a million addresses) and a message to send. It takes just a few
successful hits for the spammer to recoup expenses and turn a profit.
The good ones can make thousands of dollars a day.
But there’s also a more legitimate side of the
business. And those are the ones who occupy the minds of the folks at
Lashback. Phillips is quick to point out that reputable bulk e-mailers
don’t particularly like being called spammers.
Often, they’re doing marketing work on behalf of companies like NewEgg,
That’s the law that, among other things, requires
unsolicited commercial e-mail to include an “unsubscribe” feature
that’s supposed to take you off the mailing list.
Lashback offers a monitoring service that rates bulk
e-mailers based on how well they comply with law. That information
helps retailers and service providers decide who to use for their
e-mail marketing efforts.
Just how well those unsubscribe buttons work has
long been a matter of debate among security experts. Some advise you to
never click the unsubscribe link, since it effectively tells the
spammer that yours is a valid e-mail address.
“What we found out is that sometimes “unsubscribe”
works. And sometimes it gets you on a list to be sent more mail,”
Phillips said.
Still, of the companies monitored by Lashback, he said the unsubscribe feature works at least 95 percent of the time.
Of course, legions of spammers out there make no
effort at legitimacy. They are little more than pirates of the online
world, pitching scams and spreading malicious programs.
You might even be helping them.
Much of the truly bad spam is essentially
untraceable. Or, at least, it can’t be traced back to the real senders,
who often hide from authorities by using loose configurations of
hijacked computers called “bot nets.” It’s a bit sobering to think that
while you sleep tonight, your computer — hijacked because it’s infected
with a virus — could be sending out hundreds of thousands of spam
e-mails.
On any given day, there are some 400,000 active bots
in the world, according to Project Honey Pot, a group of developers and
IT professionals who track spammer activities. The number has
quadrupled every year since 2004.
Naturally, one of the ways spammers gain control of
others’ computers is through spam. A common ploy is an e-mail warning
that a computer has become infected with a virus. The e-mail urges the
user to click a link for a quick scan and repair. It fixes nothing, and
instead installs a virus allowing the computer to be used as a bot.
“Spammers have gotten really smart. They are very good at social engineering,” said
They are also in a constant state of war with
security experts and anti-virus firms who try to block spam before it
ever gets to you. A common filtering technique looks for, and blocks,
all e-mail that appears identical, figuring it must be spam, said
Cranor, of
Spammers counter with programs that insert random spaces or words into the text, making each message slightly different.
“It’s sort of an arms race,” Cranor said.
—
(c) 2009, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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