WEEKLY WHINE

Interaction: Spam in the place where you work

D Myers: Good evening, and welcome back to Warwickshire as we bring you another week of Interaction, where all our guests are laboratory tested for your safety. Our topic this week is E-mail spam. By most accounts, spam totals 40% of all E-mail traffic around the world. However, by most accounts, spam is an annoyance to nearly all who receive it. So why is it still sent? Are spammers in denial? Are they hopeful for that tiny fraction of respondents? Do they watch too much Oprah? We turn now to our panel, who may have some answers. With us this evening in Taipei is the network system administrator at Central Operations Taiwan, Mr Cu Do Ba.

Cu: Hello.

D Myers: In Vancouver, BC, Canada, we have the sales director for P.D.Eh Limited, Mr Randall Myers.

R Myers: Good day.

D Myers: Joining us from Dallas, TX, USA is the data analysis supervisor at Luntercom Systems Inc, Ms Trisha Rimba.

Rimba: Nice to be here.

D Myers: And with me here in Warwickshire is Belgium's leading pro-spam activist, Ms Carmelita Busch, who serves as the Region 6 Coordinator at the Association for Proper E-Mail Usage.

Busch: Hello. xcvlhds

D Myers: Welcome all of you. Do, we'll go to you first. How is your organisation affected by spam?

Cu: Well, Debbie, spam has been a major problem for us. In the past year we've seen spam rates explode. About half of all messages that go through our E-mail servers are classified by our users as spam. With about ten thousand users, that gives us something like one hundred thousand items of spam every day. At peak times during the day, it can even tie up our bandwidth. This is the largest problem that our network faces right now.

D Myers: Certainly some important considerations there. Randall, would you agree with Do's characterisation of spam as a major problem?

R Myers: Definitely. Fortunately, we have been able to use preventative measures to reduce our spam levels. As such, spam is under five percent of our incoming E-mail. We still feel that we can do more to fight spam, and so we have been developing more intelligent filtering techniques.

D Myers: A worthwhile pursuit there. Trisha, you have been spending much of your time on analysing the characteristics of spam. What insights can you offer?

Rimba: In short, spammers are tricky little bastards. They keep slipping through the filters.

D Myers: Harsh criticism now. Carmelita, you seem to be fighting an uphill battle in your support of spam. What benefits does spam offer?

Busch: As it happens, spam is very useful for individuals to find out about ways to refinance, lose weight, or meet people. Fully .4% of the messages my organisation sends out elicit responses. hggoihdfs

D Myers: Well, that brings up an interesting point. You listed refinancing, weight loss, and personals, Carmelita. Trisha, what are the most common types of spam that you've studied?

Rimba: A large fraction - about half - are for adult concerns, which is comprised mostly by pornographic websites and distributors of erectile dysfunction medications. The rest is made up primarily of financial concerns and stupid suggestions for losing weight. An interesting consideration is that one of the most common types just two years ago - stupid technical concerns like books about cable descramblers - is now dwindling in number.

D Myers: Randall, does the changing subject matter of spam make it difficult to devise filters?

R Myers: Not so much. We try not to examine the particulars of the message content and instead look at some other characteristics. For example, if the E-mail address or subject contains a sequence of seemingly random characters, that's usually a dead giveaway. Things like that are most helpful in tagging spam.

D Myers: But how effective, Do, have spam filters been in your experience?

Cu: About 75% of spam messages can be caught by our filters. But our users tag the other 25% for us, and by examining these other 25% which the filters couldn't recognise, we can improve the algorithms that the filters use.

D Myers: So spam recognition still one of many things that humans are much better at than computers. With that, then, we'll head to the questions. You've got, as usual, a number of ways to get your questions to us. Here are the addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and other coordinates that you'll need, along with a reminder that any messages you submit are the permanent property of the programme and we may do anything we like with them, including feed them to my cat Cronkite. Only a few messages have been dealt with this week, which means we've got a good crop of issues to handle. Starting us off is a question from Dr Aaron Rudblatt in Biosphere 4, in the suburbs of Cork, Ireland. Are you there, Dr Aaron?

Dr Aaron in Biosphere 4: Yes I am.

D Myers: What is your question?

Dr Aaron in Biosphere 4: What can I do to avoid getting spam in the first place?

D Myers: A complex question. Randall, you mentioned earlier that you use preventative measures to cut down on spam. What sort of preventative measures are these?

R Myers: The short version is, don't give your E-mail address out. The long version is, don't give your E-mail address out to anyone you don't trust.

D Myers: What do you mean by that - who exactly can you not trust?

R Myers: We try to discourage our clients from using their business addresses for personal matters. This helps to keep spam out of the business E-mail systems.

D Myers: Isn't that seen as information control? I would expect a backlash from users who don't want to be told whom to E-mail and whom not to.

R Myers: We do see a bit of that, but it's straightforward mathematics. The fewer people who have an address, the less likely it is to receive spam. And we also provide alternative ways to make people conform.

Busch: But there are those who are unwittingly open to sales in spam, so distribution of E-mail addresses is a good thing for society. wienflskdvydk

D Myers: I see. Trisha, has your analysis offered any insight on where spammers are getting their E-mail lists?

Rimba: This is a bit harder to track, but it appears that a number of companies have been handing out addresses of people who use their websites.

D Myers: So, one should always examine the privacy policy?

Rimba: Absolutely. Even then, it's hard to enforce; there aren't a lot of legal recourses for someone who's been a victim of a privacy policy violation. I fully expect to see, within the next two years, a case of violence against someone at a company that sold E-mail addresses.

D Myers: Well, that's certainly a sobering prediction. We'll go to a fax next, from Javier in Leicester, Peru. Javier asks how legislative acts against spammers are faring. Are they succeeding, Do?

Cu: In some ways, yes. But spammers typically do a very good job of concealing the origins of their messages, which makes it difficult to identify them and track them down. That's why Central Operations Taiwan supports a new bill up for vote here, which would keep tabs on computers in Taiwan. Those found to be sending E-mails in bulk would have to answer to a specially convened committee.

D Myers: And what would that committee do?

Cu: The major punishment that this committee would be authorised to give would be the painting of a big red S across the spammer's face.

D Myers: Carmelita, what is your reaction to this bill?

Busch: I think that such reactions are ill founded. After all, how else can you be debt free in minutes, look young feel young, say hello to the ebay cashcow, and see young girls with horses? voxi cwe nvdkjds ocssl sghsidc

[Pause.]

D Myers: You know what? Why don't we just call it a night right here. Thanks to Ms Carmelita Busch, Ms Trisha Rimba, Mr Randall Myers, and Mr Cu Do Ba for being here tonight. I'm Debbie Myers. Next week we'll get out of the house once more. We'll travel to Washington, DC, USA, where inflation has just reached levels unseen since 1966. We'll speak with a leading market analyst, a proponent of interest rate reduction, an mathematician in the field of forecasting economic growth, and a guy who looks like Alan Greenspan. Till then, good night.

Busch: Before we leave, I'd just like to point out that hot teen sluts do anything on their webcam. xckvosg

Rimba: You know, I'm feeling pretty close to a case of violence against a spammer myself.