82% of U.S. Email is Spam

Record Broken: 82% of U.S. Email is Spam

Outdoing most analysts' worst predictions, spam accounted for 82 percent of all U.S. email last month.

After a two-month drop in spam, the number of unsolicited bulk email skyrocketed in April, bringing the saturation number up to record levels here in the U.S. and across the world, according to MessageLabs, Inc., a security company based in New York.

''This is as bad as we've seen it,'' says Paul Wood, chief information security analyst for MessageLabs. ''I think it's likely that it will continue to rise but perhaps not at the same rate that it did in the past month.''

And April did show a dramatic increase.

Based on monthly statistics.....holy cripes!
Think about this each and everytime you send an e-mail.
Think about this each and every time that you open your e-mail.
No wonder 'spam blockers' are the rage that they are today.
Thank God for those ATS e-mail accounts, eh?

Seriously though, that is almost to incredible to fatham, much less believe.
Any college students here?
Think about how much your on-college-site e-mail accounts get SPAMMED by all those insignificant 'announcements' from campus!
What a waste.

Thoughts?



seekerof

[Edited on 8-5-2004 by Seekerof]

My email server at work now filters over 3000 spam emails every day. It gets worse every week.

Until the US legislates to kill spam, and judges stop giving the spammers rights, it will not stop. It's madness, spam companies are suing companies who block spam emails. It's insane.

I've never had a single one on my ATS account, though!

*wheres that applause button when you need it*
Thanks for responding Zzub.

...filters over 3000 spam emails every day

Holy smokes Zzub!
Man, I thought that 75+ I got almost everyday on my campus e-mail was horrific. Wowzers.
Man, the US needs to hit spamming like they did with the telemarket 'industry'....'industry'....hehehehe.




seekerof

I hate spam. I hate the food and the mail types. I think it's terrible plus some of them are radom things you never signed up for.

Thanks, Seekerof

They are all maddening. Even with the filters on our email server, Outlook Express / Spambayes still filters out another 100 or so at my workstation.

The ones that really irk me are the ones with titles like "Closing your account" or "Payment refused on your credit card" that you just have to look at incase they are real. The email address and domain are always different, and the content contains enough non-printable characters in the text that the spam filter has no chance.

I hate them so much

I think it will just get worse. This, combined with all the virus insanity is just going to bog down the Internet eventually. Bandwidth is a finite commodity.

Personally, I think they (ISPs and large backbone providers) will start trying to find a way to start charging per e-mail.

Also, isn't a second Internet being worked on involving the same people (DOD, R&D institutions, Universities, Big Companies) who started the first one? I imagine the second one will be much more restrictive.

Holy crap! That's a lot of spam!

It's kind of surprising being I get very, very little spam each week. Most of my email addresses are spam-free, with the exception of one Hotmail address that gets about 50 a week or so. Compared to some I know who filter a couple hundred a day.
It's absolutely ridiculous.

Yikes, thata's a lot of crap floating around the internet!!!!!
LIke parrhesia, I get very little spam, mostly on my yahoo account.
The thing is, I can't set the filter higher cuz then some of the stuff I've signed up for gets blocked.

Most irritating about this whole spamm issue, is legitimate things you sign up for and can't get because your ISP or email blocks them.
I've signed up for CNSNews so many times, and I never get it omre than once or twice

Spam does suck. Using filters should take care of most of it. Like some others i get very little spam in my filtered accounts and one that isn't filtered gets 100/per day or so. However there must be people who want these emails and like getting these emails because if spammers didn't make money off it, they wouldn't do it. Apparently spamming can be very lucritive. I hear about these arrests for spam and it seems like a bit much. Why should someone be arrested for sending emails? Personally i think the intrusive adware auto downloads are a lot worse than spam. They actually change your computers settings, where as with spam all you have to do is hit delete.

Originally posted by Ambient Sound
Also, isn't a second Internet being worked on involving the same people (DOD, R&D institutions, Universities, Big Companies) who started the first one? I imagine the second one will be much more restrictive.

Yes, it's called Internet2 (creative name huh). It's actually meant mainly for college to college connections, lab to lab, things like that. It's much, much faster than the internet we have now. They set a new speed record on it every couple of months. The last one was 840 Gigs in 30 minutes.

Don't expect to be able to use it to browse your normal everyday internet though

Spam is.
I is.
Therefore I have to deal with SPAM.

SPAM makes more money than me.
SPAM makes lawyers rich.
SPAM pays PAC money to politicians.

Does all this mean SPAM has more rights than the average citizen?


G