Internet Security as Conversation Piece

August 20, 2007 — CSO — About a month ago Robert Soloway, the so-called Spam King, was arrested and there was much rejoicing in the land. Microsoft lawyers called it “a very good day.” A self-impressed Department of Justice suggested consumers could see a dip in junk mail.

Yesterday, an e-mail arrived here with this subject: Spam is Out of Control...Trending Higher Every Day.

That wasn’t the only one. [Vendor] tracks new stock spam and results read another e-mail’s subject line, referencing the new, wildly successful pump-and-dump stock spam that uses PDF files to get past spam filters. Trading volume on the stock advertised in the spam message was 40 times normal and its price jumped more than 50 percent, from 15 cents to 23.

Soon, an e-mail from another vendor arrived: Spam Rockets as Pump-and-Dumpers Manipulate Share Prices, and it reported that global spam volume had risen 30 percent overnight. The vendor was “warning people” about the ongoing scam’s existence. Then came an e-mail with the goofiest subject line yet: Media Alert: Largest Pump-and-Dump Spam Scam in History in Progress Right Now. And this one said that spam volume was up 53 percent day over day, with peak volume reaching 175 percent higher than normal and spam message size increasing 445 percent. The company was “currently” tracking the scam “right now” and would “continue to track this trend...”

The pitches carried a queer feeling of real-time resignation, like a fire department telling you that some wildfire was “currently, right now” scorching millions of acres, but giving no sense that anyone from the fire department had bothered hoisting a hose. But hey, if you want to talk about how bad the fire is, we’re available. The e-mail that arrived yesterday included this pitch: “The Solution: [Our product] is uniquely positioned to report these trends instantly to our customers.” Apparently, being first to learn that spam is “out of control...trending higher every day” is somehow a selling point.

All of the e-mails I saw mentioned some expert who was available to comment, but comment on what? The fact that, a mere two months after the backslapping over the arrest of one spammer, the problem is, predictably, worse than ever? (Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Read Critical Thinking on Arrest of Spammer for our take on the arrest of the spam king. We were less than impressed.) Are they going to comment on the fact that even as they all professed to have products to stop this kind of thing, it wasn’t stopped? Many of these same vendors were bragging about their filters stopping image spam just a few months ago and already they find themselves again playing the inept Tom to the spammers’ clever Jerry. The idea of “stopping” spam is rapidly losing meaning, anyway. As the vendors themselves point out, image spam and its derivatives use so much bandwidth in transit that its distribution is a problem in itself, regardless of whether it’s “stopped” from reaching an inbox.