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{"id":433,"date":"2012-09-09T15:16:58","date_gmt":"2012-09-09T15:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icaruspressblog.wordpress.com\/?p=433"},"modified":"2019-04-17T11:45:55","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T11:45:55","slug":"spam-dropped-25-in-2-years-no-one-notices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/09\/spam-dropped-25-in-2-years-no-one-notices\/","title":{"rendered":"Spam Dropped 25% in 2 Years, No One Notices"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"is_150122_downward_trending_graph_800x600\"$ As reports on the state of unwelcome emails keep on surfacing, it shouldn\u2019t come as any surprise that yet another article is trumpeting the slow and timely death of the disease known as email spam. This time it\u2019s from a blog called infomarketingexperts.com<\/a>, which appears to be a site supporting companies on the spam bubble \u2013 that is, companies that want<\/em> to send you lots of emails, trying to sell you stuff that you don\u2019t need. It\u2019s not surprising that this particular site is happy about this recent piece of news. \u2018Legitimate\u2019 spammers have been working just as hard<\/a> as the \u2018true\u2019 spammers to circumvent spam filters and get their emails into your inbox.<\/p>\n

More surprising, perhaps, is how this little blog post that could<\/a> has piqued the interest of several other sites, notably here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>. Honestly, it seems like Chicken Little all over again, so let\u2019s take a look at what the folks at infomarketingexperts.com are saying and see if we can make sense of it.<\/p>\n

Spam, which the post says comprised 90 percent of all emails a few years ago, has dropped by 25 percent in the past two years. What\u2019s changed? the post asks rhetorically. A number of things, it answers, \u201cthe most prominent being back in 2007 when botnets were at full strength. Even though they are still around, virus protection and security has adapted and killed off a large percentage of the network.\u201d Okay. First, I\u2019ve yet to meet a security program that can saunter out and slay a botnet, but let\u2019s keep going and see what else the post has to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Botnet designers are still producing new programs but it is considerably harder and usually means they have to take advantage of older systems with weaker security.\u201d Hmm. This one seems tenuous at best. The biggest threats to any network are its users and the guy knocking on the door. Normally, the guy knocking on the door is far more capable of breaking it down than we are of buttressing it. Also, there\u2019s no relevant data to suggest correlation between spam volumes and older systems. It seems like a stretch to assume that new systems and security are directly responsible for decreases in spam volumes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther factors include wide scale data audits<\/a>, which many companies now use as standard to root out the bots.\u201d This one seems a little confusing, not because companies don\u2019t perform data audits, but because the link in the post jumps to a company that appears to offer QC services on data, that is, scrubbing it for duplicates and inaccuracies, not for signs of botnets.<\/p>\n

The post goes on to use recent spam laws as another reason for this decline. \u201cSince the laws on the use of subscription based advertising [have] been strengthened, a lot of the more illegitimate email marketers which are pushed under the header of spammer (primarily due to the places where they have purchased their mailing lists) have cleaned up their acts.\u201d First, spam is spam, period. The companies I\u2019ve consulted for have adopted a zero-tolerance approach to unsolicited emails, and it would be a strange thing, indeed, to hear a network administrator yell out to his colleagues, \u201chey, these 200 emails from Urban Outfitters are pushing its Labour Day sale, so they\u2019re okay!\u201d Second, I must have a different understanding of what constitutes \u2018illegitimate\u2019 email marketers, and I\u2019ll leave it there.<\/p>\n

Finally, the post opines that \u201cprobably the bigger and most overwhwelming [sic<\/em>] factor has been spam filters making spam unprofitable.\u201d You\u2019ll get no argument from me there, but better spam filters shouldn\u2019t have a direct correlation to the decline in spam. Better spam filters just put the spam where it deserves to be: the trash. The innuendo here seems to be that spammers have raised the white flag of defeat and moved onto greener pastures like Twitter and Facebook, when everything I\u2019ve seen suggests that we may have entered a golden age of spam where spammers have become more diversified<\/a> and more targeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not really clear where the number of a 25% decline referenced in the post came from, but we have seen evidence that spam numbers have dipped and risen consistently<\/a> through the years. If spam\u2019s overall numbers have declined year over year, it\u2019s safe to say it\u2019s because spammers have gotten smarter<\/a>. But two things are clear: spam reports can be confusing, and no one can argue that as long as spam is a cash cow<\/a>, it\u2019s not going anywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"