The Times: Where all your spam is coming from
A new law against unwanted junk e-mails has led to a boom in British-based spam, according to a leading authority on unsolicited e-mails. David Rowan reports
Criminal gangs, as well as established marketing firms, are taking advantage of the Electronic Communications Directive, which became law last month, to make Britain one of the world's fastest-growing sources of spam.
For the first time, Britain is among the top ten originators of spam, which now accounts for about 15 billion daily e-mails around the world. AOL handles almost three billion junk e-mails a day, typically promising an enhanced male anatomy or drugs such as Viagra at blackmarket rates.
With spam now accounting for about 70 per cent of all e-mail traffic, a proportion that is rising rapidly, experts say that it could render e-mail virtually unusable within a year. Most recent spam has originated in the United States, China and South Korea, with Britain barely attracting the attention of regulators. But last month, for the first time, Britain overtook India to become one of the ten main offenders.
There are now about 25 Britain-based internet service providers, and some of them account for thousands of internet addresses from which spam is being sent, according to the Spamhaus Project, a non-profit body run by volunteers that tracks known spammers and publishes their internet addresses so that internet service providers can block anything sent from them.
"The British problem has only just come to our attention in the past few weeks," said Steve Linford, who runs Spamhaus from a houseboat on the Thames near Hampton Court. His website enjoys publishing death threats received and warnings that it will be sued for "deformation".
This growth in spam in Britain appears to be directly related to the new law, which makes it a criminal offence, punishable by a fine, to send spam to private e-mail addresses after the Information Commissioner has issued an enforcement order. After intense lobbying by the marketing industry, the Department of Trade and Industry agreed that business e-mail addresses should be exempted from the law. According to Mr Linford, this has given spammers a justification for claiming that their unregulated sales pitches are solely intended for business in-boxes.
"We warned the Government that if it tried to regulate spam, rather than ban it, it would only legitimise it," Mr Linford said. The main operators send an average of 80 million spam e-mails a day, Mr Linford said, with a target of one sale per million.
"If they sell 80 packets of Viagra a day, that's a lot of money from one PC on the kitchen table," he said. Last August, a security flaw at a website selling a herbal supplement claiming to bring about penis enlargement revealed the scale of the business. In one month, 6,000 people replied to e-mails and ordered the supplement, at $50 (£28) a bottle. As a result, criminal gangs from Italy, where spammers can be jailed for three years, are now setting up business here, Mr Linford said.
"It's mostly small-time spammers, but we're starting to see it rising as they know the law allows it," Mr Linford said. "The Government needs to understand that there is no legitimate reason for anyone to send unsolicited bulk e-mail."
Most spam arriving in British in-boxes still originates overseas. Many of the most prolific US-based spammers, such as Alan Ralsky, of Michigan, commonly use computer servers based in China, where regulation is weaker. British law does not address foreign-based spam operations.
Spamhaus protects the in-boxes of 200 million people by scanning the addresses of incoming e-mail, and bouncing back any that match its database of known offenders. One difficulty lies in tracing the perpetrators. When The Times sought last night to contact Phone Direct, a British company that Spamhaus claims is responsible for large numbers of junk e-mails, we traced its web servers to a company called Scarlet Charger Internet, based in Reading. The website for Scarlet Charger Internet was inactive, and the contact number provided for its website registration was for a mobile phone which, when called, did not answer.
Some spam operators go to greater lengths to escape detection. They use computer viruses to install miniature mail and web servers on infected home PCs. According to Spamhaus, about 70 per cent of spam comes from virus-infected machines belonging to innocent third parties. There are now 400,000 such active machines.
The spammers have a number of tricks to bypass internet firms' attempts to filter their bulk e-mails. Typically they will misspell words such as "Viagra" or insert spaces and invisible HTML (computer language) tags in the middle of words so that the filters are not activated.
The Department of Trade and Industry said last night it was committed to reviewing the process for dealing with spam and with monitoring the law's enforcement. But a spokesman said that much of what appeared to be British traffic originated overseas. "Spam statistics are notoriously unreliable and difficult to substantiate internationally," the spokesman said. "Any rise would be a concern, but Britain is still a minor player."
[PANEL]
PROTECT YOUR IN-BOX
Never post your private e-mail address in a public part of the internet.
Use a disposable web-based account if you post to news groups or chat rooms
If you have a website, replace the "@" sign in your given contact address with the word "at", or similarly disguise the address.
Spammers use programs to search the web for what look like e-mail addresses
Never respond to spam, even to request no further solicitations. You will only confirm that your address is active. And an abusive reply could be breaking the law
Do not forward chain letters, they will contain your e-mail address
Use an internet service provider that blocks spam according to databases of known offenders
Consider using spam-filtering software that blocks spams according to key words
Never buy from a spammer, it will help to make the business case for it
Always consider why a website wants your e-mail address. Supply it only when absolutely necessary, and ensure that you have opted out of receiving unrelated mailings
(The Times, January 24 2004)
Criminal gangs, as well as established marketing firms, are taking advantage of the Electronic Communications Directive, which became law last month, to make Britain one of the world's fastest-growing sources of spam.
For the first time, Britain is among the top ten originators of spam, which now accounts for about 15 billion daily e-mails around the world. AOL handles almost three billion junk e-mails a day, typically promising an enhanced male anatomy or drugs such as Viagra at blackmarket rates.
With spam now accounting for about 70 per cent of all e-mail traffic, a proportion that is rising rapidly, experts say that it could render e-mail virtually unusable within a year. Most recent spam has originated in the United States, China and South Korea, with Britain barely attracting the attention of regulators. But last month, for the first time, Britain overtook India to become one of the ten main offenders.
There are now about 25 Britain-based internet service providers, and some of them account for thousands of internet addresses from which spam is being sent, according to the Spamhaus Project, a non-profit body run by volunteers that tracks known spammers and publishes their internet addresses so that internet service providers can block anything sent from them.
"The British problem has only just come to our attention in the past few weeks," said Steve Linford, who runs Spamhaus from a houseboat on the Thames near Hampton Court. His website enjoys publishing death threats received and warnings that it will be sued for "deformation".
This growth in spam in Britain appears to be directly related to the new law, which makes it a criminal offence, punishable by a fine, to send spam to private e-mail addresses after the Information Commissioner has issued an enforcement order. After intense lobbying by the marketing industry, the Department of Trade and Industry agreed that business e-mail addresses should be exempted from the law. According to Mr Linford, this has given spammers a justification for claiming that their unregulated sales pitches are solely intended for business in-boxes.
"We warned the Government that if it tried to regulate spam, rather than ban it, it would only legitimise it," Mr Linford said. The main operators send an average of 80 million spam e-mails a day, Mr Linford said, with a target of one sale per million.
"If they sell 80 packets of Viagra a day, that's a lot of money from one PC on the kitchen table," he said. Last August, a security flaw at a website selling a herbal supplement claiming to bring about penis enlargement revealed the scale of the business. In one month, 6,000 people replied to e-mails and ordered the supplement, at $50 (£28) a bottle. As a result, criminal gangs from Italy, where spammers can be jailed for three years, are now setting up business here, Mr Linford said.
"It's mostly small-time spammers, but we're starting to see it rising as they know the law allows it," Mr Linford said. "The Government needs to understand that there is no legitimate reason for anyone to send unsolicited bulk e-mail."
Most spam arriving in British in-boxes still originates overseas. Many of the most prolific US-based spammers, such as Alan Ralsky, of Michigan, commonly use computer servers based in China, where regulation is weaker. British law does not address foreign-based spam operations.
Spamhaus protects the in-boxes of 200 million people by scanning the addresses of incoming e-mail, and bouncing back any that match its database of known offenders. One difficulty lies in tracing the perpetrators. When The Times sought last night to contact Phone Direct, a British company that Spamhaus claims is responsible for large numbers of junk e-mails, we traced its web servers to a company called Scarlet Charger Internet, based in Reading. The website for Scarlet Charger Internet was inactive, and the contact number provided for its website registration was for a mobile phone which, when called, did not answer.
Some spam operators go to greater lengths to escape detection. They use computer viruses to install miniature mail and web servers on infected home PCs. According to Spamhaus, about 70 per cent of spam comes from virus-infected machines belonging to innocent third parties. There are now 400,000 such active machines.
The spammers have a number of tricks to bypass internet firms' attempts to filter their bulk e-mails. Typically they will misspell words such as "Viagra" or insert spaces and invisible HTML (computer language) tags in the middle of words so that the filters are not activated.
The Department of Trade and Industry said last night it was committed to reviewing the process for dealing with spam and with monitoring the law's enforcement. But a spokesman said that much of what appeared to be British traffic originated overseas. "Spam statistics are notoriously unreliable and difficult to substantiate internationally," the spokesman said. "Any rise would be a concern, but Britain is still a minor player."
[PANEL]
PROTECT YOUR IN-BOX
Never post your private e-mail address in a public part of the internet.
Use a disposable web-based account if you post to news groups or chat rooms
If you have a website, replace the "@" sign in your given contact address with the word "at", or similarly disguise the address.
Spammers use programs to search the web for what look like e-mail addresses
Never respond to spam, even to request no further solicitations. You will only confirm that your address is active. And an abusive reply could be breaking the law
Do not forward chain letters, they will contain your e-mail address
Use an internet service provider that blocks spam according to databases of known offenders
Consider using spam-filtering software that blocks spams according to key words
Never buy from a spammer, it will help to make the business case for it
Always consider why a website wants your e-mail address. Supply it only when absolutely necessary, and ensure that you have opted out of receiving unrelated mailings
(The Times, January 24 2004)
posted by David Rowan at Saturday, January 24, 2004
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