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Spam is an international problem that no single country is able to solve on its own. Although different countries to Australia have their own strict laws against spam, there is really nothing to stop a person outside of that jurisdiction from spamming Australians every single day.
In my recent post on spam vs email marketing it was mentioned that a global law enforcement body may be what we ultimately need in order to fully address the problem of spam.
Some companies have tried to tackle the problem themselves, such as Microsoft offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible for the Conficker worm.
One state in Australia has taken the problem seriously and is trialing a system that will permit victims of Nigerian phishing scams to report their case directly to authorities in the African nation. Queensland police Detective Superintendent Brian Hay leads the Fraud and Corporate Crime Group which has also developed other initiatives to prevent internet fraud or make it easier to report and investigate.
In the early stages, we’re having some wins. Some of those investment and inheritance scams are reducing but the big problem that we’ve got now is we’ve seen a 100 per cent increase in romance and relationship scams. It’s just gone through the roof.
How effective this will ultimately be is unknown, given that spammers have a track record of constantly adjusting their methods to get around new prevention techniques. It is hoped that more open communication and effective reporting may make it easier for authorities in countries such as Nigeria to permanently strike at the root of the problem.
August 2nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Hi Paul!
I keep wondering why it really is so hard to tackle spam?
Spam in itself is the repeated sending of (nearly) identical messages to a lot of people. It cannot be so hard to distinguish a mail that reaches several thousand people from a mail intended for a small group or a single person.
(With the exception of newsletter postings, which you have (hopefully) opted in)
So if you can identify the mails and you can identify the routes these mail take, why can’t you go backwards in the routing step by step, identify the responsible server, identify the responsible admin and give him/her the choice to cooperate in the fight against spam or be excluded from mail traffic by a BAN list.
I know this sounds kind of strict, but since a few years this Spam keeps binding more and more ressources and money, and it is time to fight back.
ISPs not willing to shut of spam senders will have to be shut off from the network completely. I cannot understand why a provider allowing to distribute that crap through his network is still on the internet. Local law should make the ceo personally responsible for the damages. As soon as you take the step to a persons wallet they start to cooperate mighty fast.
I wonder how you think about this?
Best regards
Andreas Kroll
August 5th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
[...] last post on international spam fighting attracted a comment from reader Andreas Kroll. Andreas asks “Why is it really so hard to [...]
August 6th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Hi Andreas, thanks for your comment. You’re not alone in your view that spammers should be dealt with by a “zero tolerance” approach, but the situation becomes complicated when you consider where spam is really coming from. It is a bit too much to answer in one comment, so I wrote a new blog post instead to answer your questions.
Check out http://www.allspammedup.com/2009/08/why-is-it-really-so-hard-to-tackle-spam/