So much spam is being sent and received nowadays that nine out of 10 e-mails sent across the globe are spam, according to the spam prevention company Postini. The company said that it had detected seven billion spam messages in November -- compared to 2.5 billion in June this year.
Spamhaus, another spam monitoring group, has stated that around 200 criminal gangs are running these spam operations and accounting for almost 80 percent of all spam messages sent out globally. Dan Druker of Postini says, "E-mail systems are overloaded or melting down trying to keep up with all the spam."
The main reason for the rise in spam messages is the ability of the hackers to use computer programs that can hijack home PCs. Secretly installed "backdoor" software gives these criminals nearly unlimited power to send out their messages.
"What's clear from this trend is that legislating against spam is not a very successful strategy for stopping it," said Mike Adams, founder of Arial Software and anti-spam technology advocate. "This is why legislation alone will never stop spam. Criminals, by definition, don't follow laws. If we want to genuinely stop the spam problem, we must look at technical solutions that involve modification to the SMTP protocol," Adams said.
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