[IP] Spam: Born In The USA
Begin forwarded message:
From: Gunnar Helliesen <gunnar@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 13, 2004 11:44:55 AM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Spam: Born In The USA
Prof. Farber,
For IP if you wish.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?
articleID=28700163
An analysis by messaging-filtering vendor CipherTrust says the large
majority of the world's spam comes from a few spammers within the
United States.
By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News
A survey released Thursday said that nearly all the world's spam is
spewed by a limited number of hard-core spammers within the United
States.
Based on analysis of the spam it blocked for its 1,000-plus clients
during May, June, and July, message filtering firm CipherTrust said
that 86% of all spam originated in the United States.
Although U.S.-based IP addresses accounted for only 28% of the total
addresses used to spam--tying South Korea for the top spot--spammers
overwhelmingly favor U.S. domains. Messages from Korean IP addresses,
in comparison, accounted for just 3% of all spam. Similarly, China and
Hong Kong, where about 23% of all spamming IP addresses reside, account
for just 2.6% of all spam.
"That was quite a surprise," said Dmitri Alperovitch, a research
engineer at CipherTrust. "The percentage of spamming IP addresses
within the U.S. is in line with other surveys, but in the actual number
of messages, the U.S. is responsible for the vast bulk of spam."
CipherTrust's numbers run counter to those in other surveys, which
claim that a much larger percentage of spam comes from outside U.S.
borders. Commtouch, for example, recently estimated that the U.S.
accounted for only 56% of the world's spam.
Alperovitch defended his company's data by pointing out that other
studies rely on spam-gathering honey pots, while CipherTrust tallies
only those actual messages it intercepts. "Those two approaches are
quite different," he said, "because some spammers are actually
targeting specific companies with messages that the honey pots wouldn't
see."
CipherTrust's numbers also bolstered the long-held theory that a few
kingpin spammers are responsible for most of the spam. "The bulk of
U.S. spam is coming from a very limited set of IPs with high-bandwidth
connections," said Alperovitch, who estimated that the high-volume
spamming addresses number fewer than 10,000 and the number of spammers
at less than 200.
The United States is the origin of choice for spammers, said
Alperovitch, because of the plentiful supply of cheap high-speed
bandwidth. "Spammers need big pipes, and they don't want to pay much
for it," he said.
That explains the low percentage of spam messages originating from
overseas' IP addresses. The lack of cheap bandwidth outside the United
States is stymieing spammers' attempts to scale up the volume of their
mailings to U.S. sizes. In fact, the majority of spam that does come
from countries other than the United States originates with
zombies--hijacked computers typically with high-speed, high-volume
access to the Web, giving spammers a free ride, bandwidth-wise.
Zombies are less of a problem in the United States, said Alperovitch,
because of the inexpensive access spammers can buy here, as well as
some recent efforts by major Internet providers to clamp down on
zombies.
Cable provider Comcast, for instance, launched an effort in May to
block its members' cable-connected machines from being used by
spammers; it claimed a one-third reduction in spam coming out of its
network. "We also saw a significant drop-off in spam from Comcast after
May," said Alperovitch, who added that the decrease was in the 30%
range.
Although the United States has anti-spam laws in place at both the
states and federal levels--the latter through the Can-Spam Act that
went into effect in January--critics have said that fighting spam
locally doesn't do any good when the problem's global.
CipherTrust's numbers may mean it's possible to put at least a partial
lid on spam through laws and enforcement solely within the United
States. "Enforcement of Can-Spam could go a very long way toward
reducing spam," Alperovitch said.
--
Gunnar Helliesen | Bergen IT Consult | Open Source activist
Systems Consultant | Bergen, Norway | Jaguar enthusiast
gunnar@xxxxxxxxx | www.bitcon.no/~gunnar | Märklin collector
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