[huridocs-tech] How one spam leads to another

Dear list members,

I found this an interesting article on spam-mail.

Best wishes,
-Frank

--------------
How One Spam Leads to Another
By Michelle Delio

Wired News
2:00 a.m. July 3, 2002 PDT

If you want to be your own boss and make money working from home
while increasing the size of your penis and shopping for cut-rate
electronic products from China -- you're in luck.

The quantity of e-mailed advertising pitches for these and other
fabulous opportunities is about to increase dramatically, according
to research by Bob West, an anti-spam activist.

E-mail addresses are the currency in a financial shell game that
involves rapidly moving consumer contact information from database to
database while concealing where and how the data was collected,
according to West's research, which he has documented in a map[15]
that painstakingly details all the dark and twisted paths that your
e-mail address has been traveling.

Spammers harvest e-mail addresses from websites and public posts on
Internet newsgroups and bulletin boards and then sell the addresses
to other spammers, or to unscrupulous marketing companies who pay a
bounty fee per submitted name. These marketing lists may eventually
be sold to legitimate companies who often believe they are purchasing
a list of eager consumers' addresses.

One end result of all this activity is, rather obviously, more spam
showing up in already jammed inboxes. West said his research
indicates that unless consumers complain publicly and loudly about
the promiscuous passing around of their e-mail addresses, spam will
make the mailboxes of most Internet users virtually unusable within
the next six to nine months ... "a year if we're lucky."

Other anti-spam activists agreed that spam is proliferating, but
pointed out that West's "Spamdemic Map" doesn't indicate any concepts
that aren't already widely understood.

"We already know that once one spammer has your address, most other
spammers will have it very soon after," Steve Linford of the Spamhaus
Project[16] said.

West maintains a website[17] devoted to spam-stopping education and
tools. He said the map project was something of an afterthought that
has since taken on a life of its own.

Spamdemic traces how West's e-mail addresses are being passed around
from database to database. West said that he has not given his
address to even one of the companies that appear on his map, or given
any of them permission to send him e-mail. Yet nearly all seem to
have one or more of his e-mail addresses. And most -- although not
all -- are spamming him.

Steve Atkins of Sam Spade, an anti-spam website, said that while the
"shape of the picture" painted by the Spamdemic Map is generally
accurate, viewers need to be clear on what the map is actually
portraying. Just because companies are connected somehow with others
that spam doesn't necessarily indicate guilt.

"For example, it's very common for companies to run affiliate
programs, where they pay affiliates a fraction of any sales due to
the affiliate sending people to their site," Atkins said. "That's
perfectly legitimate and a pretty good way to improve your online
business if done well. But unfortunately, spammers -- both
professional and amateur -- will sign up as affiliates, then spam to
advertise the affiliate link.

"The spam certainly does advertise the company running the affiliate
program, but isn't being sent by them, or with their knowledge."

Atkins added that West does note clearly in his documentation that he
is only attempting to show possible connections -- not every name
that appears on the map belongs to a known spammer.

"It's certainly true that spammers sell e-mail addresses to each
other," Atkins said. "It's also true that spammers will misrepresent
the source of lists of e-mail addresses they have and sell them to
legitimate, if naive, companies that end up spamming
unintentionally."

West said the most dangerous trend highlighted by his map is the
sudden popularity of bounties paid for e-mail addresses.

Fees ranging from a few cents to almost $1 per name are paid by some
direct marketers[18] for every e-mail address submitted to their
databases. The problem, according to antispam activists, is that many
of these submissions are made by third parties and often include
e-mail addresses of people who did not give permission to be included
on direct e-mail marketing lists.

Antispam activists believe that before names are added to marketing
lists, the owners of e-mail addresses should be given the opportunity
to confirm their interest in receiving the marketers' information by
replying to a confirmation request.

"The Spamdemic Map is just a tiny portion of the overall picture,
gathered from my own experience. It doesn't include hard-core
spammers who hijack servers[19] and forge headers," West said.
"What's sad is that fully half of the volume of UCE (unsolicited
commercial e-mail) I now get is from the supposedly legit companies."

But Spamdemic also points to some good news, according to Atkins.

"There are, what, a few hundred domains listed on this map? There
are, as of this (Monday) morning, 21,211,347 dot-com domains alone.
So the fraction of online organizations that have any connection to
spam is vanishingly small."


Related Wired Links:
[IMAGE]
Nigeria Hoax Spawns Copycats[20]
June 18, 2002

Aussie Gets Into Pickle With Spam[21]
June 11, 2002

Klez: Hi Mom, We're No. 1[22]
May 24, 2002

Amy Grant Spams a Sour Note[23]
May 10, 2002

No Subscription for Spam Relief[24]
April 5, 2002

The Law Is Going After Spam[25]
April 2, 2002

Spammers Slam Anti-Spam Proposals[26]
March 28, 2002



Copyright © 1994-2002 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved.


*** References from this document ***

[orig] http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,53617,00.html
[15] http://www.cluelessmailers.org/spamdemic/index.html
[16] http://www.spamhaus.org/
[17] http://www.cluelessmailers.org/
[18] http://www.cluelessmailers.org/index.html#blacklist
[19] http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50455,00.html
[20] http://r.wired.com/r/wn_related/http://www.wired.com/news/b\
usiness/0,1367,53115,00.html
[21] http://r.wired.com/r/wn_related/http://www.wired.com/news/p\
olitics/0,1283,53102,00.html
[22] http://r.wired.com/r/wn_related/http://www.wired.com/news/t\
echnology/0,1282,52765,00.html
[23] http://r.wired.com/r/wn_related/http://www.wired.com/news/c\
ulture/0,1284,52435,00.html
[24] http://r.wired.com/r/wn_related/http://www.wired.com/news/e\
biz/0,1272,51517,00.html
[25] http://r.wired.com/r/wn_related/http://www.wired.com/news/p\
olitics/0,1283,51486,00.html
[26] http://r.wired.com/r/wn_related/http://www.wired.com/news/p\
olitics/0,1283,51370,00.html




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