[Gllug] spam

[John G Walker]

On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:23:00 +0100 Jason Clifford <jason at ukfsn.org>
wrote:

> > What do they gain by sending these spam email ?   
> 
> There are a number of reasons they send spam. The primary one is to
> make money from the idiots who reply to it one way and another.
> Another reason is to poison anti-spam systems so as to reduce their
> effectiveness in blocking spam.

Strictly speaking, the spammers have already made their money at the
time they send the email to you. This is because spamming is a
two-stage process (at least). There are the people who make their money
sending out spam. They are essentially agencies. Then there are the
people who pay them, much in the same way that they might buy
advertising space in a newspaper or advertising time on a radio
station. I have been told that the economics of spamming is such that,
for the second group, who are trying to sell you stuff, they only need
a positive response from 0.01% of the emails sent out in order to make
a profit. Whether this figure is based on genuine research or is
(educated?) guesswork, I couldn't say.

There are probably only a small number of the group I call the
"agencies". I recall that, a few years back when spam volumes were such
that I could attempt to control them manually, the city of Orlando,
Florida, was hit by a hurricane and the electricity was off for a few
days. During that time, I had no spam. It seemed weird at the time.
(Nowadays I get a similar effect by the use of a very good spam filter!)

The "agencies" are also responsible for a good number of viruses being
passed around. The infected machines then send out spam. This is a
well-organised big business, and It's not likely to stop anytime soon.
The only solution is a decent spam filter. I use Bogofilter, which
works, for me at any rate, almost perfectly,

-- 
 All the best,
 John
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