I’ve said for years that, from my perspective, SPAM accounts for 75% to
95% and in some cases 99.9% of emails received.
Finally, the sad
truth about how big the SPAM problem really is, is starting to come to light.
According to Postini, December last year they found: “81.3
percent of 160,611,437 emails currently processed by Postini per day are spam
(that’s 10 of every 12 messages on average) ” and ” The ratio of spam to
legitimate email increased from 65 to 80 percent during 2003 ” and now “Of the 10.75 billion SMTP connections
received, only 11 percent were legitimate email.”
To me,
their numbers are far more realistic than the common 50-60% SPAM ratio.
What I don’t understand is why the forces that are & the
internet industry have such trouble upgrading to a more spoof-proof email
protocol, can’t shut down SPAM zombies and can’t stop spammers in their tracks.
It’s costing the economy billions of dollars (actually, it does create jobs
& revenue in the anti-spam industry). Make the internet environment tighter,
secure the mail protocol, make SPAM as illegal as it can get, do the same for
SPAM tolerant ISPs & companies and those using SPAM services.
You SPAM? Your mail server is insecure? Bye bye connection. Your PC
is a SPAM Zombie? Sorry, fix it. ISPs have the capability to check how much
email you send, they should use it. You are an ISP that tolerates spammers? Or
actually rents bandwidth to known spammers? You’re locked down and we’ll see you
in court. Same thing for those using SPAM to promote their product(s), store,
service … Of course once that starts, the bad guys will start faking SPAM (!)
to get legitimate companies in trouble. But, that shouldn’t be hard to track
down. It’s pretty clear that those leading the fight against SPAM know who’s who
& where.
Fighting SPAM is not impossible, we just need more
action.
Just kidding. That market
