Technology solution to slicing spam lags

TalkBack 4 of 12:: Next »; « Previous

Thread View
Flat View

SPAM from Asia: About 4 years ago I spent an entire year every morning tracing the source of my spam and filing complaints with ISP's. During the course of that year my spam went from about 100 per day to 15 per day. Due to the fact I really wanted to do something else with my life I quit filing those complaints and my spam has risen to about 50 per day. I watch very closely who I give my address out to and do not surf rogue/porn type of websites. Still the spam problem continues.

About a year ago I had a chance to move to Central America for a business opportunity as a computer technician. Since my arrival I have had a very rude awakening in regard to the source of SPAM. During my investigations I traced a lot of SPAM to Asia, Central and South America. At the time I thought there were people in these countries who were abusing the internet. And I must apologize for accusing these people of such misdeeds. The truth about the source IP address in the header that is traced to these countries is that ?American? and ?European? scumbags are exploiting these people without their knowledge through virus infections and botnets. People in these countries love the internet and find total fascination in what it has to offer but they are in many cases naive when it comes to understanding security and what can happen if you are not careful. This is a haven for the true criminals to exploit.

I am doing everything I can to help these people with the problem, they do not want it anymore than you or I do and they do not make a single penny from the problem. How are they exploited? It is very simple, due to the economic forces in these countries many are using pirated operating systems and software. If I were to bet, I?d have to bet that more than 70% of the operating systems here are pirated. Understand this, the average income of a full time employee in the country where I am located is about $150.00 USD and the cost of living is quite relevant to the US economy. Due to duty and tariffs a legal OEM copy of XP Home edition will sell for about 2 weeks wages for the average person here. Sad but true.

As a personal goal I have made the commitment to help these people by removing as much of the pirated software as possible and setting them up with security software that can be used free. I teach them how to use the software and to also be aware of the dangers that lurk on the internet. The people here are truly grateful for what I am doing for them. But it would be real nice if the companies that dominate the security software world would take a true passion in cleaning up the mess. For example, if Microsoft, Symantec, McAfee, Panda, Kaspersky and the other leaders of the pack would simply detect the IP address of their install/update processes to identify problem regions of the Internet and give these people the software and updates free then the botnet problem would be greatly reduced. After all they surely are not making much money selling their products here due to the piracy level. But, do they really want to do this? They stand to make a lot of money by allowing the problem to exist.; Posted by: Uncle Buck Posted on: 04/27/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use