Spam
02 April 2011
Symantec: Global spam mail down by a third ZDNet
Global spam mail volumes have been reduced by about a third following the takedown of the Rustock botnet, reported Symantec. This number is expected to decrease further after Trend Micro announced it had crippled a Zeus botnet server, too.
26 March 2011
Spammers sought after botnet takedown BBC News
The Rustock botnet, which sent up to 30 billion spam messages per day, might have been run by two or three people.
19 March 2011
Microsoft says helps take down spam email network Reuters
Microsoft Corp claimed credit on Thursday for taking down one of the biggest producers of spam e-mail in a joint effort with federal authorities across the United States.
18 March 2011
Major spam network silenced mid-campaign BBC News
The sudden drop in activity of a major spam producer looks to be the result of the largest co-ordinated attack on spammers.
05 March 2011
Germany identifies a secure way to deal with spam Network World
In theory, stopping spam is easy: just make it uneconomic to send millions of messages by charging for each one sent, or make senders authenticate their identity to stop address spoofing and simplify blocking.
04 March 2011
Robert Soloway Exits Prison, Disavows 'Spam King' Ways Wired
America, beware. Robert Soloway is free to e-mail again. After three years, eight months and 27 days, Soloway -- the internet villain dubbed the "Spam King" by federal prosecutors -- is allowed back online.
27 February 2011
China cleans up spam problem Network World
It's been a few years coming, but it looks like China may finally be getting a handle on its spam problem.
24 February 2011
FTC asks US court to shut down text spammer Computerworld
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has asked a judge to shut down an alleged text-messaging spam operation that sent out 85 text messages per minute at its peak, the agency said Wednesday.
15 February 2011
Image site hits back at spammers BBC News
Spammers are being thwarted by finding that their junk messages unexpectedly contain warnings urging recipients to delete the e-mail.
Mobile malware grows as spam takes a dive: Security experts Computerworld
Security software providers, M86 and McAfee, have warned companies not to be complacent in the face of increased mobile malware, as two new reports reveal mobile malware is on the rise while spam emails are declining.
29 January 2011
How you and Google are losing the battle against spam in search results Washington Post
Earlier this month, my friend Rebecca Skloot replaced her hulking big-box TV - I can vouch for its girth, having moved it once - with a flat-screen no thicker than an iPad. She turned it on and, horror of horrors, the picture was lousy.
28 January 2011
Australian spam levels drop ZDNet
Australia's spam rate has fallen by more than 15 per cent since July 2010, and it's now 1.3 percentage point below the average 78.6 per cent registered globally, according to a report published today by Symantec's MessageLabs division.
How Facebook Killed (Most) Spam Using Smart Filters Fast Company
Facebook announced this week that they cut down the number of annoying messages you receive from the likes of FarmVille and Mafia Wars by 95% last year. Here's how they did it.
13 January 2011
Sophos: Spam to get more malicious ZDNet
Spam is becoming more malicious in nature as trickery tactics change in line with current user interests, according to a new report released Tuesday by Sophos.
12 January 2011
U.S. still top spammer, report says PC World
At the end of 2010, the United States remained on top of the "Dirty Dozen" list of spam relaying nations compiled by IT security firm Sophos.
11 January 2011
Global drop in spam email is 'short lived' BBC News
A recently observed global decline in spam e-mail could prove to be short lived, researchers say.
06 January 2011
Spam Volumes Drop as Botnets Go Quiet Network World
The infamous Rustock botnet, responsible for almost half of all spam sent last year through its command-and-control system exploiting over a million compromised PCs, has suddenly slowed to a crawl, Symantec said today, noting the unexplained event has led to a substantial drop in spam.
05 January 2011
New Canadian spam bill hopes to block unsolicited emails Financial Post
Change is afoot for those who rely on email for marketing. The federal government has passed a law that will bar the sending of unsolicited email or spam.
27 December 2010
How Dan quit work to take on the spam kings - and won The Age
Daniel Balsam hates spam. Most everybody does, of course. But he has acted on his hate as few have, going far beyond simply hitting the delete button. He sues them.
13 December 2010
Spam Will Wreck Social Networks PC World
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced in 2004 that the problem of e-mail spam would be "solved" within two years.
04 December 2010
Russian man tells US court not guilty in global spam scheme Reuters
A 23-year-old Russian man pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges he operated a spam e-mail business that may have accounted for a third of global spam, and he was ordered held without bail.
03 December 2010
Russian man to face spamming charges in American court The Australian
A 23-year-old Russian man accused of running a worldwide spamming network, which Internet-security experts say on some days accounted for one of every three unwanted e-mails, is scheduled to appear in a Wisconsin courtroom to hear charges against him.
22 November 2010
Dealing with spam: Vigilance, not technology, can best counter spam and the criminals who send it The Economist
Bill Gates, then still Microsoft's boss, was nearly right in 2004 when he predicted the end of spam in two years. Thanks to clever filters unsolicited e-mail has largely disappeared as a daily nuisance for most on the internet (see article). But spam is still a menace: blocked at the e-mail inbox, spammers post messages as comments on websites (including economist.com) and increasingly on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. The criminal businesses behind spam are competitive and creative. They vault over technical fixes as fast as the hurdles are erected.
16 November 2010
Global spam email drops after hacker arrests BBC News
Levels of spam have fallen by almost 50% since August 2010, suggest figures.
27 October 2010
Email Spam Falls After Russian Crackdown New York Times
You may not have noticed, but since late last month, the world supply of Viagra ads and other e-mail spam has dropped by an estimated one-fifth. With 200 billion spam messages in circulation each day, there is still plenty to go around.
