Background
Everyone across the world who has an email account is likely familiar with the term “spam.” Although the origin of the term may have derived from that perky meat product made by Hormel©, it’s obviously less favorable to the taste buds. Spam is also referred to as Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) or Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE). Although the threat of spam is not as significant to that of viruses, it is worthy of evaluation by companies and individuals around the world. Since email can be sent at any time from any place, spam has become a nuisance of global technology that needs attention.
UCE/UBE spam molds into many shapes ranging from health cures, expeditious money-making schemes, investment promises and sex/porn offerings. In SurfControl’s white paper on The New Face of Spam, another type of email spam is “friendly-fire” assault from family and friends who send chain letters, jokes and mp3’s. The difficult aspect to this is, do our family and friends realize they may be spamming? It is our responsibility to tell them.
So what’s the harm in receiving a handful of annoying emails and immediately just pressing the delete key? Sounds simple enough to me so why is spam so bad? Spam is annoying, an invasion of privacy, time consuming, absorbs network resources on servers and diskspace on local systems, can be fraudulent, and in some cases spread viruses. Based on the report from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in April 2003, 86% of email addresses listed on websites and newsgroups were spam targets. Additionally, email lists can be purchased by spammers. A related news post today from CNN online today, reported that spammers secretly obtained a list of email addresses from the company Orbitz. The FTC report also found that 63% of emails are never actually taken off the requested “remove” list. The types of spam in the report were split between business/investment offerings and adult/financial opportunities.
To address fraudulent spam in the US, FTC have filed district court lawsuits taking action to challenge these deceptive spammers. Some of the cases filed involve situations where spammers connected users to their own networks, solicited money for 100% college funding, promised secure VISA/MC for a fee, and offered work-at-home schemes for stuffing envelopes & internet businesses. Victims of these spam scams lost money and time. In an effort to reduce spam at an international level, the FTC has been working with agencies across the world to encourage the closure of open-relay servers.
Countries around the globe are fed up with spam and taking measures against it. According to the BBC, in an effort to ban spam, the UK will fine companies up to £5000 to sending unsolicited commercial mail to individuals without their consent. The drawback of this law is it does not protect business email addresses. The Internet Society of China’s Anti-spam Email Coordination team blocked 127 servers that were generating spam on 9/9/2003. In Korea, the Information Minister enacted a law that fines spammers for unsolicited email. According to EuroCAUCE Poland and Italy spam is also punishable by fine.
Spammers are obviously not the only ones benefiting, as anti-spam is becoming a very profitable business. Wired, posted an article on how spammers may make 11 million from their efforts while anti-spam companies could gain $653 million defending them. Scary.
5 biggest fears about spam
- Spam can host viruses, worms and trojans such as the W32.BugBear worm.
- Increases costs of network resources at the expense of others
- Harvests fraudulent messages that could impact recipients if they take action
- Offensive content sends a negative message to encourage hate crimes, etc
- Requests to be removed from the spammers "remove me" will not be honored and may validate my existence resulting in more spam!
Web resources (
Note: Referenced in essay)
The New Face of Spam
http://www.surfcontrol.com/general/assets/whitepapers/New_Face_of_Spam.pdf
This white paper describes types of spam, costs, affects and anti-spam defense.
Why is spam bad
http://spam.abuse.net/overview/spambad.shtml
Lists and describes reasons why spam is a negative.
FTC: False Claims PDF
http://www.ftc.gov/reports/spam/030429spamreport.pdf
This data is very interesting as it outlines the results of a random sample taken from 1000 spam emails regarding type.
CNN article - Orbitz and spam
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/10/30/orbitz.security.ap/index.html
The online travel agency Orbitz, recently had a security breach where it's email lists are being used by spammers.
FTC: Enforcements to reduce spam
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/05/swnetforce.htm
Describes how spam is being enforced by law and details the district court cases of spammers.
BBC News - UK Bans Spam Message
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3120628.stm
Article on how the UK is fining spammers.
The Internet Society of China’s Anti-spam Email Coordination team
http://www.isc.org.cn/20020417/ca134455.htm
This page included the Anti-spam Email Coordination team's conferences on how they address spam and their 5 governing appeals.
Washington Times article on Spam in Korea
http://washingtontimes.com/business/20030901-102352-8411r.htm
Describes how Korea's Information Minister enacted a law that fines spammers
FTC: Spam page
http://www.ftc.gov/spam/
The FTC is attempting to challenge internet fraud. This section of their site describes how to reduce /protect yourself from spam, lists information about civil actions against various deceptive spammers and enforcement actions being taken.
EuroCauce (European Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email)
http://www.euro.cauce.org/en/index.html
This is a large volunteer group to support the fight for spam legislation in Europe.
Wired article on Anti-spam profits
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60327,00.html
This article references how spammers and anti-spammers are both profitting from their efforts.
Recommendations to combat spam
- Even though it may seem harsh to some, I recommend preventative measures to block spam on servers worldwide by closing "open relays." This is something the FTC is encouraging in their initiatives to fight spam and I support that effort.
- Individuals and businesses should use up-to-date antivirus/antispam software that blocks or filters spam, should not respond to the "remove me" option spammers send and should not open attachments from spammers. Some enhanced email features may require incoming email to be authorized before it is received.
- Do not offer or register primary email address to people you do not know well or to online orders, forums or chats. Create a secondary email account for online use. This will help prevent viruses from being distributed and reduce spam to your primary address.
