[LINK] spam impact

[Jan Whitaker]

How spam really is ruining the world

http://www.theage.com.au/national/how-spam-really-is-ruining-the-world-20090425-aiu0.html 

    * Conrad Walters
    * April 26, 2009

A STUDY has found that 62 trillion unsolicited spam messages were 
sent across the internet last year, making up more than 80 per cent 
of the world's email traffic.

The energy devoted to sending, storing and sorting phoney messages is 
33 billion kilowatt hours of power, generating greenhouse gases 
equivalent to driving a car around the planet 1.6 million times.

The study, commissioned by the computer security company McAfee, and 
conducted by climate change analysts at ICF International, notes that 
when one spammer, McColo, was closed by its internet service provider 
last November, worldwide spam fell by 70 per cent overnight.[but 
they're back. And they are even sneakier, with subject lines that are 
much more realistic]

But the robot computer networks, or botnets, that McColo harnessed to 
send spam were redeployed and the relief was short lived, McAfee's 
regional spokesman, Michael Sentonas, said.

"Today, spam comes with malware (malicious software) with links to 
compromised websites," Mr Sentonas said. "Spam is a great tool to 
steal someone's identity, (and) identity theft rates are growing 
exponentially."

One reason for that proliferation is email servers that can be used 
anonymously, although Australia has closed its servers to unknown 
entities, said Peter Coroneos, chief of the Internet Industry 
Association. [Oh? How does that work? or is this an error by the writer?]



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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