Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Continuing saga of spammers getting smarter

February 04, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Continuing saga of spammers getting smarter

TAGS: Security

This morning, The Washington Post ran a story about spammers getting smarter with their techniques. New tactics, the article said, hold the potential to drive the volume of new spam messages significantly higher in the coming months.

Basically, spammers are sending out blasts through their ISPs as a trick to hide where the spam comes from and, ultimately, to get around spam blocking practices. The story also said that many U.S. ISPs have not adequately improved their spam enforcement.

Just yesterday I blogged about a report from The University of Maryland stating that spam costs businesses nearly $22 billion in lost time and productivity each year.

Analysts said that they expect spam costs to increase to approximately $50 billion in 2005, a figure that includes both lost productivity and network maintenance expenses.

Fellow InfoWorld blogger Ed Foster has an idea of how the government can start to eradicate spam:

Now that it's become obvious that the Can Spam Act is actually making the spam problem worse, it's time for Congress to admit its mistake and do the only thing it can do. Repeal the "Yes, You Can Spam Act" before the Internet chokes to death on the unsolicited commercial e-mail it encourages.

Foster makes the excellent point that even without the Can Spam Act, we have all the laws in place that are needed to go after zombie networks, phishing scams and Nigerian hoaxers.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on February 4, 2005 06:24 AM

RATE THIS ARTICLE: