New to the list since January to March are Ukraine (number 4), Kazakhstan (8), and Argentina (9); France (6), Peru (11), and South Korea (12) have dropped off the list.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, Sophos also considered the issue of population versus spam and came up with a totally different set of results, with Belarus topping the list by a Minsk mile. Suddenly, the \u2018big 3\u2019 disappear from the list, with (in order) Kazakhstan, Uruguay, Taiwan, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Chile, Argentina, Spain, and Singapore topping out the dirty dozen spammers in proportion to population.<\/p>\n

Sophos also points out that the numbers are likely skewed by the fact that the stealthy spammer uses bots to hide his true location, so we need to take the issue of originating country with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, why do big, connected countries like the U.S., China, and India still have such a problem with unprotected computers, if that truly is the issue? The truth probably lies in the middle, with the expectation that these very large countries are at the top of the list because they are so very large.<\/p>\n

It might be more interesting to ask why the U.S., one of the world\u2019s top developed nations has such a resounding leg up on its counterparts. Is it just because (as Gordon Gecko pointed out) greed is good; or is something else at play in the land of Hollywood and Wall Street? After all, the U.S. has been getting medieval on spammers<\/a> for quite some time now, and their CAN-SPAM act has been in place since 2003.<\/p>\n

Then there are China and India. Massive nations with more than enough greed to generate some interest in polluting people\u2019s inboxes, both countries have been on the spam radar (spamdar? radam? I don\u2019t know) ever since spam was a whining little brat. It might be easy to imagine that with populations well in excess of a billion, the low moral character that spurns spam activity in both countries is a function of sheer numbers. That\u2019s a reasonable assumption. If you\u2019re standing among a thousand strangers in a room, there\u2019s a solid chance that some of them would happily rob you blind before you get the chance to verify that your wallet\u2019s still in your pocket. That\u2019s just basic human nature. We\u2019re not all good people, and like it or not, there are some bad, bad people out there.<\/p>\n

So, if it\u2019s no surprise to anyone that the U.S., China, and India are on the top of the list of the world\u2019s most prodigious spammers, then you\u2019re at least educated enough about the plight known as spam to realize that, as long as they remain there, we\u2019re losing the unwinnable war. As oxymoronic as that may sound, the message, at least, should be clear. Let\u2019s put it in context. A woman reading the Sunday morning paper in the living room shouts to her husband, \u201cHoney! The U.S., China, and India are at the top of the spam list again!\u201d To which the husband responds, \u201cThat\u2019s nice, dear.\u201d<\/p>\n

It feels like nothing\u2019s being done about it, and if that\u2019s a na\u00efve approach to a very serious matter, then heck yes, I\u2019m na\u00efve. Every frigging spam report that drops in our laps say roughly the same thing: that nothing has changed. And as long as we sort of yawn and say \u2018ho-hum\u2019 when we hear that these countries are the sources of the stuff that keeps us up at night, then we probably don\u2019t deserve to win the war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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