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Spam United States The Internet

U.S. World's Foremost Spam Nation In 2004 274

Posted by timothy from the then-why-is-mine-mosly-cyrillic? dept.
der Kopf writes "As reported by ZDNet, '42 percent of all spam sent this year came from the United States,' which makes the U.S. the unthreatened king of the 2004 spam hill. Number two on the list is South Korea (with 13.43%), while China can be found in third place (with 8.44%). The U.S. put out more spam this year than all the other countries in the top 12 combined." All depends who's counting, I guess.
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U.S. World's Foremost Spam Nation In 2004 More

U.S. World's Foremost Spam Nation In 2004

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  • Woohoo! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Primotech ( 731340 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:04PM (#11180949) Homepage
    We're good where it counts.

    • Re:Woohoo! (Score:5, Funny)

      by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:23PM (#11181020) Homepage
      We're good where it counts.

      Where's that? The enl@rjd p3njs?
    • You do realize that the spammers are mostly trying to sell penile enlargements, viagra, insurance and mortgage. Hmmmmmm ;)

    • Wrong: China is Still # (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The statistics in the original article is misleading. In total volume, the USA may be #1. Yet, if we weight the numbers based on GDP per capita, then China is #1, followed by South Korea [phrusa.org].

      In other words, the USA has more computers than China. Once China reaches a higher level of prosperity, with the same number of computer desktops possessed by the USA, then China will easily exceed the spam level generated by the USA.

      • I block all email based on IP. If the IP is registered in APNIC, LACNIC, or RIPE, it goes to the SPAM bin. SPAM from U.S. and Canadian IP addresses goes to a different folder, then reported to FTC and originating ISP via SpamCop.

        The ratio varies from 30/70 to 20/80, with the majority percentage coming from foreign (to the U.S.) IP addresses.

        In other words, anecdotal evidence indicates most SPAM comes from countries *other* than the U.S.
        • Can you outline a brief tutorial on how you do that? Or provide a link or two?

          Thanks!
          • Two ways:

            At the server, using iMail filters (if HEADER CONTAINS [nnn.nnn. send to FOLDER)

            Locally, SpamBully does the same thing at the receiving computer plus Bayseian filters everything else (which is how I trap "domestic" SPAM).

        • Re:Wrong: China is Still # (Score:5, Informative)

          by TFGeditor ( 737839 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @01:39PM (#11181280) Homepage
          Lame reply to my own comment, but forgot something.

          The majority of U.S.-sourced SPAM I receive comes from the following ISPs:

          Comcast
          Road Runner
          EarthLink
          Pacbell
          Ameritech

          In that order.

          • I'm in the process of researching issues like this for a new business. Would it be possible for you to email me the numbers you have based this post off of?

          • Re:Wrong: China is Still # (Score:4, Interesting)

            by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @04:05PM (#11181733)
            I can believe Comcast is still #1. That's my ISP and the number of spams I get (not to mention the number of worm propagation attempts) from Comcast addresses is remarkable. Of course, they do have a lot of IPs. I do know that, in my area at least, they've implemented a policy whereby if you send more than some {undefined} number of emails within some {undefined} interval, SMTP access is suspended automatically. I know because I had accidentally set my mail server to bounce unknown messages back to the sender. Since I receive over a thousand spams a day that made me a spammer, so far as Comcast was concerned. Okay, my bad ... but Comcast couldn't be bothered to let me know what was going on. Their assumption was that I was deliberately spamming: the fact that I might have been zombied didn't seem to occur to them. All I knew was that my SMTP access had been blocked, for no apparent reason, and their tech support had no idea what was going on. I finally found a person who had a clue, and he said it would take a couple of days for my access to return automatically.

            I hear all kinds of noise about how to deal with spam from the standpoint of broadband users running as unwitting spam relays. Everything from "make it the ISPs responsibility" to "require users to get training and get a license in order to get online". What is the real solution? I don't know, but anything that requires passing a Federal law will probably cause more harm than good. Doesn't mean they won't try to pass one, though.

            Personally, I liken people that run unprotected, unpatched machines as being "bad neighbors". You know the kind: the one that lets his dog run free and crap all over your yard. Yes, I realize that most of these zombied systems are in that situation because of the ignorance of their owners. But if that neighbor started building a garage extension on your side of the property line, you wouldn't let him off the hook because he couldn't read a survey.

            People don't really think of security as being a social issue as well as a personal one. I believe that most people want to be good neighbors, and would take steps if you reported their dog taking a dump on your property. But there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of zombies out there whose owners have no idea that their systems are crapping in everyone's back yard. Somehow, we need to close the loop on these people so they a. know that they've been taken over and b. give them easy, effective steps to take care of the problem. Tall order, I know. Comcast is heading in the right direction with their policy, but they need to let people know when they've been disabled, and why. Maybe they are now, I don't know.
        • Of course... Because spammers generally prefer open proxies and open relays outside of US to hide identity.
          Just think about it: you usually get spam in english trying to sell something to english-speaking audience. It's not someone like random guy in China. It's US-based "marketers".
      • From my observations I find that Americans hire the Koreans and Chinese and send there junk from there ip space.

        Korean/'insert country name here' send spam - yes ... but funded by an american(s)

        Now in the case of Robert Solaway (as seen on spamhaus) I find he uses borked windoze boxes worldwide to send his junk (he also hosts in China - well thats what the dns reports)

        Murky stuff this.
        • I believed this for a long time as well, but it seems that the research is starting to show its coming from within... With the amount of people that just don't care about spyware and such, its really not surprising that, in some cases, their ignorance/stupidity is causing their biggest complaint.
          • I work phone support for a DSL ISP. People get pissed when you tell them they've been suspended because of it. It's never their fault (or so they fanatically believe). Sometimes it's my fault, other times it's the ISP.

            Slashdot is always raving about how SP2 does or doesn't protect against this or that... irrelevant. The number of people who call up wanting help configuring 98 and ME for DSL is astounding. None have ever heard of linux, mozilla, adaware. The exceptions tend to loathe the mentioning of such
            • I feel your pain. No one cares about anything until it happens to them. Then, like you say, they claim ignorance and blame anyone but themselves. Yea, I did 5 years of TS work...

              I burned out about 3 years into it. My fourth year, I got a 'promotion' into E-Support (email support). Each email, from then on, started with "I'm sorry" then I read their message - honest to god truth. Oddly enough, I was the admin of the email box (Kana) and management wouldn't let me put that into the startup response...

              I wish
              • As a power user though, I don't want them going nazi, deciding what OS's can be used with it, what ports are fair game. Too far away for DSL myself, I have to get cable, which *does* do that.

                Personally, I don't get it. What happened with cars? I don't remember ever reading stories about the 1920s, with 9 out of 10 drivers being wreckless speeding maniacs, who didn't bother to tighten lugnuts, who flew down the road wearing blindfolds. Why do they do this with computers?
                • Well, I can see your point. Security has its issues but some things help.

                  As for your car analogy, the government stepped in, which is what the 'net community doesn't want. Technically speaking, the government kicked in after saftey became an issue. Heck, the first automobile accident was in 1771, 2 years after it had been created.

                  Now, until people start getting killed by their computers for stupidity (short of chat room issues0, I don't see things getting much better.
      • China, Japan, Korea, Singapore - ok, most SE Asian countries don't have enough public IP addresses allocated to them to hadn out to consumers. So consumers get a NAT'd IP address, and no inbound connections possible. This would certainly protect their systems a lot more than having all of the default Windows ports exposed to the world.

        So I think the States - which has the largest pool of public IP addresses - will always come out ahead in this one.

    • Re:Woohoo! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bsharitt ( 580506 ) * <(moc.ttirahs) (ta) (tegdirb)> on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:57PM (#11181132) Journal
      This would be a good thing if it's accurate, that would mean that close to half of all spam would be under US jurisdiction, which means they can be sued and shut down in the US.

      • Re:Woohoo! (Score:2, Insightful)

        by canuck57 ( 662392 )

        This would be a good thing if it's accurate, that would mean that close to half of all spam would be under US jurisdiction, which means they can be sued and shut down in the US./p?

        It is true. Americans generate the problem to sell products to solve the problem.

        The legal system in the US is not interested in enforcing SEC regulations, fraud laws or business licensing issues with regards to spam. You can't put 80% of the business in court for being spammers. The company you work for might be a spamme

        • Re:Woohoo! (Score:3, Insightful)

          by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 )
          Given how unpopular spam is, this only really goes to provide evidence towards my contention- that the US political system is institutionally corrupt.

          i.e. the backhanders that senators and wotnot get from 'advertising' businesses mean that the laws have little or no teeth.

          I mean, in the US, it's pretty much legal to say just about anything in an advertisements. In the UK, you have to be actually not misleading.

  • Yay! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:05PM (#11180954)
    Finally, something to be proud of.
  • That one just isn't going to change. Never has, never will.

    • Sure it will (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      as the center of the world's economy moves away from the US (which is is). Americans have way too high a Standard of Living. Worse, we've got a high SoL for most anybody here. The rich bastards of the world are busy ballancing the books and it looks like India and China (with their hugh, easily abusable populations) will come out ahead. Just give it time and the spammers won't have nearly enough Americans with more money than sense anymore, but they'll be plenty elsewhere.
      • How can you say that a standard of living can be too high? That seems like one of the most horrible things someone could possibly say. Just because it's higher than yours you call it "too high" and want to take it away. I bet you'd call it "immoral" too.
        • It's too high for the upper class' liking. The lesser people are starting to get downright uppity, expecting such unheard of luxuries as a steady food supply, 40 hour work weeks, and maybe even (gasp) health care. Seriously though, the problem is, there's a limit on what society can produce, but no limit on the number of greedy, conscienceless bastards who will do horrible things to get absolutely everything they want. These people want society to bend and break to their will, giving them anything they want
      • Its not like the 'large, easily abused' populations are getting paid an incredible surplus that makes them more likely to be targetted for spam. The whole idea is that you don't pay a Chinese or Indian worker anywhere near what you pay someone in America.

  • Who's counting? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:07PM (#11180963) Homepage
    All depends who's counting, I guess.

    This study comes from the UK; given recent electoral history, I'm far more inclined to trust that they can count than I am to trust any study which comes out of the US.

    • Re:Who's counting? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:38PM (#11181066)
      All depends who's counting, I guess.

      What the fuck was that editorialil comment supposed to mean anyway?

      Every time spam comes up as a topic here we get dozens of xenophobic rednecks proudly explaining that since they've "blocked all APNIC" they "don't get any spam, and who cares about communicating with them anyway". Even in the face of data like this, I'm sure they'll continue to lecture the rest of the world on how thay have to shut down "their" spammers or be cut off.

      Personally, living in Hong Kong, about 1% of my spam is local, 2-5% Nigerian, the rest American.

      • About 85%-90% of the spam I receive seems to be merkin - advertising pharmacy sh!te, penile enlargements, p0rn and mortgages, the rest seems to be fairly evenly spread over stuff in some east asian encodings and cyrillic.

        Seems that 'harvesting' e-mail addresses from web forums and mailing lists is a merkin habit. Some throw-away mail addys I have used recently for this, is only getting merkin spam.

        Got to hand it to you merkins though, you seem to have the filthiest women in the world, all them housewives
      • What the fuck was that editorialil comment supposed to mean anyway?

        It means it depends on how, when and what methods you use to gather your evidence. If I assumed all spam written and sent in English was originated from the U.S., then yeah the U.S. is the biggest spammer. But if you wanna get deep and complex you can look at when certain spam flows originate (last February I got a bunch of spam for the Chinese New Year and I doubt most U.S. spammers would know let alone target that). Or you look at where t

  • And it's mostly coming from fucking idiots... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:08PM (#11180968)
    ...with owned, unpatched Windows machines sitting directly on cable or DSL connections.

    If Comcast and Verizon spent half as much on cracking down on their moron customers as they do on mailers begging me to use their Internet services, they'd have this problem under control in no time.

  • Simple solution (Score:3, Funny)

    by ringer9cs ( 743732 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:09PM (#11180970)
    I am going to block USA, Korea and China on my firewall!
    • No, seriously, this makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. Case in point, I support several web applications used only in UK based universities. These applications have their own e-mail addresses, which forward on to me. Blocking mail to these, from major USA based ISPs, would drastically cut down the spam that gets to me, with a minimal impact on genuine e-mail...

      Even for my personal e-mail, I could whitelist my USA-based friends, and add a high spam score to anything else coming from USA ISPs... very

  • Good news in disguise? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Magus424 ( 232405 ) <magus@the-magGAUSSi.us minus math_god> on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:11PM (#11180971)
    If most of the spam comes from the US, that means that any anti-spam legislation passed here could have a huge effect.

    Of course, now we have to wait for Congress to actually do something about it. ;-)
    • If most of the spam comes from the US, that means that any anti-spam legislation passed here could have a huge effect.

      Please explain how you expect people stealing other people's computers to send their spam to suddenly care about the law.
    • Congress isn't in charge of enforcing the laws. You're looking for the executive part of the government to make the crackdown. Of course, congress passes the budget, which has a line in there (or should have a line in there ...) for expenditures in enforcing spam laws.

  • It's funny cuz (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:12PM (#11180976)
    The US is supposed to have a legal tool against spam [spamlaws.com], and yet it's the worst offender in the world.

    I guess we CAN-SPAM and we're mighty proud of it...

  • Wonderful news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:12PM (#11180977) Homepage
    So we hold the majority on manhood enhancement, hot free teens, and low low mortgage rates.

    *sniff* I've never been so proud of my country.

  • Obviously (Score:2, Informative)

    by btbo ( 769556 )
    If you'd ask me, 90% or more comes from the US, through relays all over the world...
  • 100% of Spam comes from the USA! SPAM is a registered trademark [spam.com] of Hormel Foods [hormel.com] Corporation based in Austin, Minnesota!

  • A better question... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mhrmnhrm ( 263196 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:13PM (#11180982)
    How did they come up with their numbers? I can easily see the US leading because of zombified Windows machines, but where are the ISP mail relays those zombies are using?
    • What are you talking about!? If all the hacked Windows boxes were using mail relays the problem would REAL easy. They are not. Those hacked Windows boxes are trying to connect DIRECTLY to the mail servers -- they are the relay themselves.

      • Really they use both ways at the same time. Probably there are several types of spammer's viruses/worms and some of them use relays and some direct sending. Later is quite easy to cope with from ISP side. Just block all outgoing connections to port 25 besides ones originated from legitimate mail servers.

        But if you want to stop all the abuses of mail relays, you should monitor your mail server constantly. And it is not something ISP admins are paid for.
        • If blocking unauthorized port 25 connections stopped spam by 50%, that means the total received would go down 20%; What's wrong with that. I sure that there are a few that would object but not many. Most clueless windows owners would be mortified that their computers were being used to defraud others.
          A little out-reach education on how to avoid and detect being owned wouldn't be a bad idea either.

    • How did they come up with their numbers? I can easily see the US leading because of zombified Windows machines, but where are the ISP mail relays those zombies are using?

      You don't need to send mail through a relay. Just take your domain, look up the MX record, and send directly to the recipient's SMTP server. An extremely minimal SMTP implementation could probably be done in 20 lines of code or less, making it well within reach of worm/virus writers. Who cares about error checking if 95% of the messages

      • Spammers do realize this. Many of the mass-mailer worms do not have any mechanism for actually doing SMTP communication....they simply dump what would be a legit SMTP session to port 25 on the remote machine. Many simple web mailer scripts (these often are exploited, too) also do this. The Exim Manual [exim.org] has a good description of this under the smtp_enforce_sync option. Turning this on has stopped quite a bit of bulk e-mail on my host.
    • They don't need mail relays. The zombies can use their own SMTP engines just like the various Windoze viruses can.

      The problem is the ISPs who allow all their DSL/cable clients to do direct-to-MX mailing. A large secondary cause is all the ISPs who do spam filtering but who DO NOT assign a +100 SpamAssassin score to any mail that originates directly from a dynamic IP pool. Fix those two problems and zombie spam drops to nearly nil.

      p
    • Most important is that almost all spam we get is actually advertising for US companies; products and services sold or rendered in the US by US companies. Only a small minority of companies advertising by the spam we receive is located in Korea, China or Russia (at least what is caught in the spam filters of our 28 servers, according to our own analysis)

      I don't give a hoot about which country spam is sent from - it's the companies contracting spammers for their services in the first place that should feel t
  • Absolutly! There are some places in the world that don't count p3n|s enlargment email as spam!

  • Inspiration (Score:4, Funny)

    by CaptainZapp ( 182233 ) * on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:15PM (#11180993) Homepage
    The U.S. put out more spam this year than all the other countries in the top 12 combined.

    They must have gotten their inspiration from military spending.

    Fucking spammers!

  • flawed data (Score:3, Informative)

    by +Addict-09+ ( 239664 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:18PM (#11181003)
    These reports use records at arin/apnic/ripe/lanic to determine country of origin. Just because an ip was issued by ripe (for instance) doesn't mean it's being used in Europe.

    • Re:flawed data (Score:3, Informative)

      by kaarlov ( 259057 )
      Usually there is information about the country where the ip is assigned in the registries' whois-records. And there are compiled lists which quite accurately tells in which country ip-address is located. On of these is http://countries.nerd.dk/ [countries.nerd.dk]. Of course they aren't 100% accurate, but enough for purposes like this.

  • Here's the standard spam-solution form (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    In anticipation of yet another wave of proposed solutions, I have attached the standard spam-solution form for your convenience:

    ----------

    Your post advocates a

    ( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

    approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work.
    Here is why it won't work:

    ( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
    ( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
    ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
    ( ) It is defenseless again

  • Spamvertised web sites in China (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MightyYar ( 622222 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:34PM (#11181054)
    I report all my spam via Spamcop.net [spamcop.net], and while I don't have any numbers, it seems like almost all of the spamvertised web sites reside in China.

    My understanding is that if you could close down the spamvertised sites, spam would largely be restricted to phishing attacks. If I didn't believe this, I probably wouldn't bother using spamcop!

    • Location of spamvertised websites != location where spam emails are sent from. Or at least, it's not generally the case.

      • Location of spamvertised websites != location where spam emails are sent from. Or at least, it's not generally the case.

        Yeah, I agree - but that was sort of my point. It doesn't matter from where the spammer is sending the mails, it matters where the spammer gets his revenue from. Who cares if spam is coming from compromised zombies in the US? If you want to stop spam it is very Quixotic to go after the source; you need to go after the complicit server companies that are hosting the spammers' websites.

    • Re:Spamvertised web sites in China (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @02:07PM (#11181375) Homepage
      it seems like almost all of the spamvertised web sites reside in China.

      Not for long I suspect, I do quite a bit of statistical analysis of spam and there are definitely changes in progress. Over the two years or so, there has a swing from using open relays and "bullet proof" hosted servers to actually send the spam to using compromised boxes on broadband connections. This is reflected in the report; a move from IPs in China to those in DSL pools countries with sizable adoption of broadband connectivity.

      The actual sites being spamvertised however have remained solidly in the traditional havens where ISPs with questionable anti-spam policies can be found. However, over the last few months in particular I have seen steadily growing numbers of spamvertised sites that are also being hosted in DSL pools, undoubtably on compromised boxes. From a spammer's perspective this is a no-brainer (no more hosting fees) so it's fairly obvious that this trend will continue I think.

      There are both good and bad points to this. The bad is that it makes traditional SpamCop style IP reporting almost unworkable - there are so many unpatched boxes that an ISP has no chance at dealing with them all. It was a game of Whack-a-Mole to start with, only now the number of holes that the moles can pop up from has gone up by a few orders of magnitude. The good however is that DNSBLs of the actual domains being used instead of the IPs, such as the SURBL lists, that can be generated from SpamCop submissions are *incredibly* good indicators of spam - so keep up that SpamCop reporting!

      More contentious though, is how ISPs might respond to this new spammer tactic. The simplest solution is probably going to be further restrictions on what an IP on a broadband connection can and cannot do. I expect to see more DSL services that are blocked prevented from running servers on certain ports, forced to send email through the ISP's gateway server, and possibly even outright firewalling of certain "remote access" ports like NetBIOS, RPC and so on.

      Frankly, given the rising tide of spam, ever increasing port scans bouncing off my firewall and almost total apathy of J.Sixpack in keeping his/her PC patched, I'm getting more fond of this idea every day. What I'd like to see is ISPs offering "standard" DSL packages with the kind of restrictions I mentioned above stated up front, alongside an unrestricted "premium" package - it could even cost a little extra. Alternatively, there is the middleground approach that my ISP uses: you can't run an email server by default, but send tech support and email and they'll unblock port 25 for free and periodically check that you are not running an open relay.

      One thing's for sure, if/when ISPs do respond to this latest spammer tactic, the spammers simply move the goalposts yet again. :(

  • I have a dumb question: Who are these people that reply to spam, making the practice profitable? If we could just identify these people, we could route around the spammers and tap into a fabulously rich energy source!
    • Spam is a form of pollution that results from an inappropriate pricing of a common resource. In this case the resource is the attention span of millions of literate intelligent internet users throughout the world.
      In other forms of pollution, a common resource is used for private gain because it is not correctly priced. For example, air pollution comes from a factory being able to dump its waste into the atmosphere for no cost.
      The solution to pollution is first decrease it and then ending it by makin
  • China controls manufacturing and India IT. But America will always remain #1 in penis enlargement.

  • Right! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:50PM (#11181114)
    I live in Austria (Europe) and all the spams I get at home and at work (over a hundred a day) are in English and address subjects relating to the US. All the mortgage spams refer to US mortgages, all the Viagra Spams refer to pharmacies that deliver to the USA, all prices are in dollars, and so on.

    Most European countries have tough anti-spam laws. I get practically no spams that come from Europe or specifically target Europeans. The last Spam I got in German was from some dumbass dot-com newbie who had bought a CD-ROM full of "guaranteed legal e-mail addresses" from some US scammer.

    The problem with spam is a problem with the USA.
    Fix it.
    Now.

  • Makes sense... (Score:5, Funny)

    by }InFuZeD{ ( 52430 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:55PM (#11181127) Homepage
    Hormel is located in the United States.

  • Ahh the Irony of Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Khuffie ( 818093 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @12:59PM (#11181140) Homepage
    When an article came out sometime last month about how a lot of spam is coming from China, people here were complaining about the damned Chinese, how they should just block the whole country and be done with it, that they do nothing at all and that China just blame sucks.

    Now an article with research backing it shows the US as the major culprit, and what does everyone do? Make excuses or jokes. What makes you think the Chinese don't have zombie machines? Or is it ok for the US to spam, but no one else?

    And the fact of the matter is, aside from a few random Russian/Chinese emails (1 in 100), most of the spam I receive is offering goods and services in English, directed at the North American market. 'Where' the spam comes from doesn't really matter, what the spam is selling and where that thing is should.

    • It's not really discrimination against countries, but against ISPs. It is your duty if you are an ISP to police your network. Not like you have to monitor every single thing that goes on, but if someone complains of spam, you need to investigate and respond to that complaint.

      If you e-mail our abuse line, we take it seriously. We see who has the IP, and check to see if the system is sending spam. If it is, it gets removed from the network until it has been cleaned. Even if not, we'll still give you an e-mai

  • Targets, too (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @01:36PM (#11181272) Homepage Journal
    It isn't just the source of spam - 95% or so of the spam is very obviously targetted at americans, too.

    Ok, porn sites are international, but mortgage refinancing and what else the other crap is seems totally US-centric to me.

    I'm sure 95% of the idiots who buy from spammers can be found in the US, too.

  • Who is the real badguy? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mahesh_gharat ( 633793 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @01:37PM (#11181274)
    Yeah, most of the spam is also US centric. It mainly contains either Via9ra or P3ni5 enlargement programs. Most of the people out side US receive these mails and some stupid amongst those who really want to purchase those products by reading the mails can not buy since most of these products even don't have distribution network outside US.

    One of my friends, who work for a US based company, which sells cigarretes online. All this guy has to do is get some working email ids and send the mail drafted by the US based company. He does this from location outside US though. This guy has written a UserAgent (Robot) which goes to Yahoo and grabs the email ids at random and mails them. Untill this it looks very bad but if you see inside they do get enough business through this channel for their survival at least. They do not have any other business channel other than this and they are doing fine.

    Even if this guy is generating the SPAM from the location outside US, he is doing it for his master sitting there in US.
    Now, who is the real badguy?
    • I'd say your friend is the bad guy. Why doesn't he look for a decent job like most of do? "He is doing it for his master ..." isn't an excuse. We're all human being with our own mind, only brainwashed people, or people who were tortured could say "I was doing so because I was asked to". Other people using this as an argument are just too lousy to take their responsibilities.
    • Who is the real bad guy?

      Your buddy.

      And you for still being friends with such a lowlife creep.

      If he has any morals at all, he'll tell his boss exactly how far up his own ass the boss's head is, and then he'll leave the company.

      Until he does, don't try and play the self-righteous "I just do this to pay the bills" bullshit here.

      p

  • Not surprising. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Renaud ( 6194 ) on Saturday December 25, 2004 @01:43PM (#11181295) Homepage
    All depends who's counting, I guess.

    Yeah, right...
    If I were counting, that would be more like 99% than 42%, sadly.

    More precisely, I'd say that 42% of the spam being relayed from computers in the US sounds about right. But when it comes to the target audience, or the companies/individuals behind the spamvertised goods/services/scams, it suddenly looks like a 99% american problem in my (and most people's) view.

    I had already commented on this [slashdot.org]

    Sad, but certainly not Slashdot headline-worthy.
  • I am considering to ban all mail coming from US.
  • Just after Christmas last year I noticed quite an uptick in spam attempts on my mailserver from U.S. residential broadband IPs. Clearly this was from new computers received as Christmas gifts getting quickly zombied.

    All the people who came downstairs this year to find a shiny new Dell or Gateway under the tree should be getting their machines owned by spammers right about..... now. So prepare for another post-Christmas onslaught as the spammers play with all their newly-acquired toys.

    ~Philly

  • As a Canadian, I am appalled, disappointed and throwing up by this biased and US-centric study that failed to consider our spamming abilities. Shame on them for failing to include us.

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