SPAM, a plague that turns 30 WASHINGTON (AFP) - The world is open to celebrate on Saturday the thirty years of a phenomenon that has forever changed the face of internet and e-mail content: the 'spam' or junk mail.
Consider a bit of history. The message sent on May 3, 1978 by a marketer for DEC infromática company, now defunct, about 400 people in the U.S. west coast, it was still known as 'spam' and had been sent without malice. Things have changed much since then.
The name of spam (junk email) from a Monty Python scene in which a group of Vikings in a restaurant accompany every dish of Spam canned meat, repeating the word 'ad nauseam' Brad Templeton explains, author of several studies on the subject. "Thus the sense of the term: something that is repeated over and over again and enervating way" he explains from his website Templeton, who discovered the Internet by chance in the seventies, when the net was still called ARPANET and was administered by the U.S. government.
Today the 'spam' are the result of more complex operations that affect the lives of millions of people and do overwhelm the electronic mailboxes without protection.
The percentage of spam arriving in mailboxes, for example, Gmail (email service of Google) quadrupled between 2004 and 2008, from 20 to 80%. According to Jason Freidenfelds Gmail, only 1% of spam gets through the filter system installed by the company.
not only the scale but the method is changed in thirty years, becoming more dangerous. While the author of the first shipment of spam had to type the address of the recipient manually, today, spam being sent through 'cybermonstruos' as they are known in the jargon, or 'botnets', something like hidden networks of computers that work behind the backs of users. The 'botnets' have entered the 30% of personal computers or uninsured businesses, and they use them to spread millions of 'spam' per day, said Brad Templeton told AFP.
The content of spam and the reasons for your shipment has changed a lot since that innocent message inviting the product launch in May 1978. Today, some 'spam' come from alleged 'princes' Nigerians or relatives of African dictators who seek to blackmail the owners of web addresses to get the number from your bank account and up liquid cash with the promise of a share of the spoils of monarch or dictator has allegedly hidden somewhere in a tax haven.
Last year the 'spammers' got put out of government internet sites and companies in Estonia, for example, bombarding the servers with millions of emails, a technique used by a new category 'spammers' dedicated to extort.
"Often receiving the famous phrase" you have a beautiful little problem would be a pity if something happens "... and if you default on the server for protection will be bombarded all afternoon until it collapses and stop working, "said Brad Templeton.
The form of 'spam' best known, however, is that of unwanted messages that attempt to sell things like fake Rolex watches, magic diet pills or magical substances to achieve unimaginable sexual prowess. Almost 12% of Internet users has fallen into the trap of 'spam', told the AFP Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for security firm Sophos. For example, "a Brazilian model died after using weight loss pills after having received spam. Qye It is quite obvious that spammers do not have much attachment to ethics," he said.
Last year, 75% of Americans were victims of Internet fraud, most of them by spam ... with an outlay of nearly $ 239 million.
Consider a bit of history. The message sent on May 3, 1978 by a marketer for DEC infromática company, now defunct, about 400 people in the U.S. west coast, it was still known as 'spam' and had been sent without malice. Things have changed much since then.
The name of spam (junk email) from a Monty Python scene in which a group of Vikings in a restaurant accompany every dish of Spam canned meat, repeating the word 'ad nauseam' Brad Templeton explains, author of several studies on the subject. "Thus the sense of the term: something that is repeated over and over again and enervating way" he explains from his website Templeton, who discovered the Internet by chance in the seventies, when the net was still called ARPANET and was administered by the U.S. government.
Today the 'spam' are the result of more complex operations that affect the lives of millions of people and do overwhelm the electronic mailboxes without protection.
The percentage of spam arriving in mailboxes, for example, Gmail (email service of Google) quadrupled between 2004 and 2008, from 20 to 80%. According to Jason Freidenfelds Gmail, only 1% of spam gets through the filter system installed by the company.
not only the scale but the method is changed in thirty years, becoming more dangerous. While the author of the first shipment of spam had to type the address of the recipient manually, today, spam being sent through 'cybermonstruos' as they are known in the jargon, or 'botnets', something like hidden networks of computers that work behind the backs of users. The 'botnets' have entered the 30% of personal computers or uninsured businesses, and they use them to spread millions of 'spam' per day, said Brad Templeton told AFP.
The content of spam and the reasons for your shipment has changed a lot since that innocent message inviting the product launch in May 1978. Today, some 'spam' come from alleged 'princes' Nigerians or relatives of African dictators who seek to blackmail the owners of web addresses to get the number from your bank account and up liquid cash with the promise of a share of the spoils of monarch or dictator has allegedly hidden somewhere in a tax haven.
Last year the 'spammers' got put out of government internet sites and companies in Estonia, for example, bombarding the servers with millions of emails, a technique used by a new category 'spammers' dedicated to extort.
"Often receiving the famous phrase" you have a beautiful little problem would be a pity if something happens "... and if you default on the server for protection will be bombarded all afternoon until it collapses and stop working, "said Brad Templeton.
The form of 'spam' best known, however, is that of unwanted messages that attempt to sell things like fake Rolex watches, magic diet pills or magical substances to achieve unimaginable sexual prowess. Almost 12% of Internet users has fallen into the trap of 'spam', told the AFP Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for security firm Sophos. For example, "a Brazilian model died after using weight loss pills after having received spam. Qye It is quite obvious that spammers do not have much attachment to ethics," he said.
Last year, 75% of Americans were victims of Internet fraud, most of them by spam ... with an outlay of nearly $ 239 million.
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