"Junk Mail" a game under the unspoken rules

As one of the breeding grounds for viruses, "spam" is as hateful as "rogue software", but despite repeated prohibitions. "Spammers are constantly innovating to escape the prosecution in a smarter way, a game under cat and mouse rules," said the cloud, the Microsoft China Strategic Security Advisor. "That's why the industry has to keep increasing research and development inputs to improve anti-spam technology." ”

The proportion of a drop of harm still exists

It is reported that before October 2006, the proportion of "spam" received by Chinese Internet users is 61.99%, and the latest statistical result is 59.49%, although there are only 2.5% weak margin, but the trend is encouraging.

But despite this, the harm done to Chinese netizens by "junk mail" has not fallen significantly. Chinese Internet users send an average of 11.45 e-mails a week, but receive 18.96 "spam", with an average of 2.7 "spam" per day, while normal mail is only 12.94 a week. It takes a lot of effort and time to delete junk mail (on average 12.67 minutes per person per week).

In fact, people feel that the number of "spam" has decreased, not to send "spam" initiative began to converge. "The amount of spam is still so much, even more than ever, and you'll see it all by opening a long, unused mailbox," says one observer. In addition, another reason for the drop in the percentage of "junk mail" is the change in Internet users ' anger. After a few years of nurturing, the use of high-frequency email e-mail is being replaced by QQ and Windows Live Messenger as the representative of instant messaging software, people's interest in receiving mail is less intense than before.

International cooperation for the implementation of "encirclement and suppression"

In addition to publishing the latest status of the Chinese Internet "spam" report, because "spam" came into being the "green mailbox" has become the "anti-spam annual meeting," another focus of attention. Including Sina, NetEase, 263, Sohu, Tom and million Nets 14 enterprises 19 Mailbox Products selected, the first was labeled "Green Mailbox" brand label.

The so-called "Green mailbox" means that through technical means, the service provider in the mailbox to add anti-spam, anti-virus interception, filtering and other additional functions of the launch of the mail products. Statistics show that, in addition to capacity, speed and stability, "Green mailbox" is becoming the current Chinese Internet users to choose another important reference to the mailbox service-47.86% of users want the service provider to provide anti-spam capabilities, 22.68% of users are using anti-spam features installed software, 9.2% of users have used anti-spam services provided by Third-party agencies outside the mail service. Roughly half of all Chinese Internet users have been or are trying to use "green mailboxes" as a "Hongyanchuanshu" tool for themselves.

80% "Junk mail" 10 people made

"At the moment, in addition to a few personal actions, the main sending tool for spam is professional spam, search software and mass software," said Zeng Ming, director of the China Internet Association's Anti-Spam Center, in its comments on the status of "junk mail" in China. 80% of the world's "spam" is concocted by 10 of people, citing the spamhause of anti-spam organizations. This involves the question of what interests drive the sending of "spam" as a professional job for some people.

The industry analysis, from the motive, currently send "spam" the original intention of three, that is, send ads, attack the server and try to manipulate the mail recipient's computer. "Every spam message will bring benefits to the sender." Among these three attempts, the most damaging to netizens is undoubtedly the last-"The trend of spam is turning to picture spam and URL Trash, where 50K of picture spam is 10 times times bigger than 2005," IronPort's spokesman said. Because of the POP3 software, ie browser ActiveX vulnerability, disguised as a picture file of the virus file, once activated, will be implanted in the computer Trojan, and mail senders can use this remote control user's computer, file leaks, credit card password theft and other dark activities, and then resell.

And for the mail service provider, the most helpless is because of a sudden large number of requests resulting in server paralysis, or "on the back of the bag." According to an electronic news website, the proportion of "spam" attacks from the United States in November 2006 was 27%, down 21% from October 2006, but at the same time, the data from China rose sharply from 10% to 26%. "A lot of spam is being sent by someone else transiting China's Mail service," Microsoft said at its annual meeting. It can be said that a considerable portion of the "spam" sent through China is actually "forwarded" from other countries.

"Garbage na" who to define?

December 4, 2006, 2006 World Telecom exhibition opens in Hong Kong, China. Experts from Microsoft, the International Telecommunication Union, China Internet Association, and the Internet Association held a seminar on 8th as the International Telecommunication Union's first major event outside Europe to advise on the "junk Mail" business in China. However, there are indications that it would be quite difficult to build on the 60% basis.

First of all, like Rogue software, as a network behavior, "spam" also has a difficult to define the confusion-what kind of mail can be identified as "spam"? Do not say mail users, is designed to provide filtering technology mail service providers, also on this issue mixed. So there is such a phenomenon, the normal mail just because of the use of sensitive "theme" and was filtered out, and the real spam is in the way.

Postscript

There is no doubt that in the past 2006, China has made great strides in its anti-spam business, but it must also acknowledge that there is a considerable distance from the total disappearance of "spam"---every 1% per drop will be hard work, including technical and legal issues.

The bigger problem is that it seems like an "impossible task" to eradicate "spam" from technology. Like anti-virus software, filtering "spam" is always a passive thing. The real idea is to arouse the public awareness of all netizens and create a "enemies" environment. At present, China has specifically set up a "spam" reporting phone, so when you found in your mailbox "junk mail", should you raise your hand in the phone?