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Study Sees Way to Win Spam Fight

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Perknose

Perknose

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For years, a team of computer scientists at two University of California campuses has been looking deeply into the nature of spam, the billions of unwanted e-mail messages generated by networks of zombie computers controlled by the rogue programs called botnets. They even coined a term, “spamalytics,” to describe their work.

Now they have concluded an experiment that is not for the faint of heart: for three months they set out to receive all the spam they could (no quarantines or filters need apply), then systematically made purchases from the Web sites advertised in the messages.

The hope, the scientists said, was to find a “choke point” that could greatly reduce the flow of spam. And in a paper to be presented on Tuesday at the annual IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in Oakland, Calif., they will report that they think they have found it.

It turned out that 95 percent of the credit card transactions for the spam-advertised drugs and herbal remedies they bought were handled by just three financial companies — one based in Azerbaijan, one in Denmark and one in Nevis, in the West Indies.

The researchers looked at nearly a billion messages and spent several thousand dollars on about 120 purchases. No single purchase was more than $277.

If a handful of companies like these refused to authorize online credit card payments to the merchants, “you’d cut off the money that supports the entire spam enterprise,” said one of the scientists, Stefan Savage of the University of California, San Diego, who worked with colleagues at San Diego and Berkeley and at the International Computer Science Institute.
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But first, some newly surfaced naked pictures of Arnold's maid.
 
Interesting. Though, I doubt the banks will cut off the spammers, even if they do, I doubt that the spammers will have trouble finding new places to store their money.
 
Cogman said:
Interesting. Though, I doubt the banks will cut off the spammers, even if they do, I doubt that the spammers will have trouble finding new places to store their money.
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If they do I'll gladly set up a financial institution to take their money.
 
Wouldn't it be cheaper to simply hire mercenaries to pick off spammers one by one? Eventually the rest might get the message.

The bonus is that it would be quick, very effective, and 100% ethically-sound.
 
Jeff7 said:
Wouldn't it be cheaper to simply hire mercenaries to being picking off spammers one by one? Eventually the rest might get the message.

The bonus is that it would be quick, very effective, and 100% ethically-sound.
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Many of the spammers are owned by russian mobs. Its some messed up crap really.
 
Pretty cool. Unfortunately I've always used the hack and slash method of filters, while successful, anyone I don't have pre-screened I wont get mail from. Obviously this presents problems as servers change, mail addresses change, or just someone wants to say hi w/o authorization.
 
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Cogman said:
Interesting. Though, I doubt the banks will cut off the spammers, even if they do, I doubt that the spammers will have trouble finding new places to store their money.
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You just pass a law that allows the FBI or whoever to freeze the funds of suspected spammers. If the money can't leave US banks, then the spammers can't get the money.
 
So, what's next, send the FBI on companies that send snailmail direct mailers? or companies that leave flyers on your car? Or door to door salesmen?

Sorry, you can't save everyone from their stupidity.
 
Is spam still a problem? For personal email, gmail lets 1 piece spam hit my inbox every few of months, max.

I haven't had an issue at work either in... 7 or 8 years. Corporate email filtering systems are 99.999... % effective, so nobody complains about it anymore.
 
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