Internet could be overburdened

[a_unique_person]

email spam currently accounts for a large percentage of bandwidth waste on the internet (and is increasing at alarming rates). This is the worst offender and must be stopped. Sorry - if you actually saw the hundreds of spam emails you receive (or are intercepted at your ISP) every day, you'd be alarmed. I don't stop them and am currently receiving over spam 400 emails per day! Think about that for millions of people at hundreds of KB or several MB per day. I'm not resistant to capital punishment.

The place I work at saw an order of magnitude jump in just a month about a year ago. It effectively made our old SPAM filter, which had been working fine, obsolete overnight.

 

[kuroyume0161]

The place I work at saw an order of magnitude jump in just a month about a year ago. It effectively made our old SPAM filter, which had been working fine, obsolete overnight.

Yes, I've seen it too (as noted). About a year ago, I would wake up in the morning to about 100 spams every day. Now I wake up to about 200 spams in my inbox (or junkmail box to where obvious ones are sent) every day.

The research and reading that I've done on this subject makes it clear: the only way to eradicate spam is to make it unprofitable. It was shown that even a ~0.00001% response to spam (response here is following the links and actually purchasing something - the term 'conversion' was used) is enough to make spamming profitable. (see Spamalytics article in "Communications of the ACM" 09/2009 Vol. 52 No.09) Filters and laws haven't worked to quelch the oil-tanker loads of spam emails dumped into the internet every second one iota. Every site that discusses spam avoidance and defeat honestly states that the only real way is to stop spammers from making a living. Filters just hide the problem (but the ISPs, hubs, and internet connections are still overwhelmed with spam email packets even if you don't see them). Laws are useless unless they are enforced and international laws are rarely enforced to the degree necessary.

This shows how small the required investment is for spammers to profit from destruction of the universe (or, at least, the internet).

My proposal is an email surcharge. Every email is charged a small percentage of a monetary unit (say 1/100th of a penny). For someone that sends out even hundreds of emails per day, this would be literally pennies a day. Businesses could maybe 'purchase' bulk emailing rights to stem costs of valid bulk emailing or public emailing facilities. But, aha, spammers who send out millions of emails a day would all of the sudden need to fork over tens or hundreds or thousands of dollars every day or go out of business (by being denied email send capabilities). Someone needs to pay for the hapless destruction of internet bandwidth. They are the ones actually doing it, therefore they should pay for it.

 

[Fishstick]

Yes, I've seen it too (as noted). About a year ago, I would wake up in the morning to about 100 spams every day. Now I wake up to about 200 spams in my inbox (or junkmail box to where obvious ones are sent) every day.

The research and reading that I've done on this subject makes it clear: the only way to eradicate spam is to make it unprofitable. It was shown that even a ~0.00001% response to spam (response here is following the links and actually purchasing something - the term 'conversion' was used) is enough to make spamming profitable. (see Spamalytics article in "Communications of the ACM" 09/2009 Vol. 52 No.09) Filters and laws haven't worked to quelch the oil-tanker loads of spam emails dumped into the internet every second one iota. Every site that discusses spam avoidance and defeat honestly states that the only real way is to stop spammers from making a living. Filters just hide the problem (but the ISPs, hubs, and internet connections are still overwhelmed with spam email packets even if you don't see them). Laws are useless unless they are enforced and international laws are rarely enforced to the degree necessary.

This shows how small the required investment is for spammers to profit from destruction of the universe (or, at least, the internet).

My proposal is an email surcharge. Every email is charged a small percentage of a monetary unit (say 1/100th of a penny). For someone that sends out even hundreds of emails per day, this would be literally pennies a day. Businesses could maybe 'purchase' bulk emailing rights to stem costs of valid bulk emailing or public emailing facilities. But, aha, spammers who send out millions of emails a day would all of the sudden need to fork over tens or hundreds or thousands of dollars every day or go out of business (by being denied email send capabilities). Someone needs to pay for the hapless destruction of internet bandwidth. They are the ones actually doing it, therefore they should pay for it.

Sadly most spam is sent out from exploited and zombified servers and desktops which usually span into botnets comprised of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of these machines.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

This prediction cracked me up. Don't they realize all those telecommuters are on line at work anyway when they do come in?

Yes, but when they are at work they are more likely (not guaranteed) to be using a private intranet.

 

[Wudang]

My employer (very big bank) did this as an exercise a year or so back. It went surprisingly well though they decided they did need to upgrade the Citrix farm for those who used it. I think a couple of thousand IT staff took part.

 

[kuroyume0161]

Sadly most spam is sent out from exploited and zombified servers and desktops which usually span into botnets comprised of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of these machines.

Yes, unfortunately. This is how spammers mainly evade direct legal ramifications (besides forged headers and such) and reduce their workload: spread the 'love' virally.

Not that the email surcharge is a great idea - just an idea. I'm all for the 'stop buying from spammers' as the nail in their coffin but my take is that it'll never happen. We would need to stop everyone on the planet from doing it which is basically impossible.

The minute that I hear the slogan "War on Spammers" from some government that is when it is apparent that we've lost. Just like all other forms of eradication of supposed evils like alcohol, drugs, crime, prostitution have succeeded so overwhelmingly well.

And you can tell that 'stop buying' would work if employed continuously. As an example, mail from credit card and other related companies for credit cards dropped drastically once they were unable to make loans and give credit. I would say, "Maybe when it gets bad enough, people would be willing to unite and do something about it" but it is already bad enough and has been for the past decade. What will it take? Don't know. Maybe an evil spammer will clog the internet pathways so severely that it takes down communications, governments, media, military operations. That might get someone's attention. Look what it took to get reaction to Somali pirates...

 

[Ducky]

Are the tubes clogged yet?

 

[Nosi]

My situation got so bad that I won't even use email in Windows. Or do much surfing (except in sites I trust a great deal). I use Ubuntu. Ubuntu Linux just stares at maleware like "Errr, what are you dude? You do not compute." I do frequently run Antivirus scans on my system to check for crap for Windows running buddies.