Who responds to spam?

Most of us have got accustomed to using spam filters, so we never even see most of it. The spam that does get through, we tend to ignore. We just glance past it, delete it, and never bother reading it, because we’re used to the suspicious headings and the tip-offs that classifies it as an advertisement. Anything coming from a barrister in Nigeria, or a crooked banker in South America goes straight to the trash, as do all the ads for pharmaceuticals, get-rich-quick schemes, and secret tropical fruit juices that are used by people on some island in Southeast Asia where they all live to be 100 years old.

But it seems, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and there are a few people out there who actually want those fruit juices. If you’re one of those people, here’s a tip: I used to buy that same juice that the multi-level marketers sell for $40 a bottle, when I was living in Bangkok, from street vendors for about a half a dollar. Be that as it may, now and then there is an ad that catches my eye. Yes it’s true, sometimes those ads do peddle something useful, like printer ink cartridge refills, which I regularly purchase. But I suppose to lots of other people, those ads are spam, too.

The point is, there are people who respond to it, and many times they’re responding to the less-than-reputable types of spam. A survey conducted by the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), with the delightfully tongue-in-cheek title of “A look at consumers’ awareness of email security and practices, or, ‘of course, I never reply to spam–except sometimes’” showed that 12 percent of Americans surveyed have responded to a message they considered to be spam. The reason? Because it was something they really were interested in. Another six percent clicked on it “just to see what would happen,” and 13 percent did so unknowingly.

Also, the survey said two-thirds of the respondents said they were either “somewhat” or “very” experienced in the subject of Internet security, but only a third of respondents were careful about posting their email addresses online.

Another telling result was that 82 percent were aware of bots and other types of malware threats, but only 20 percent thought their own computers could get infected–the old “couldn’t happen to me” syndrome. Users are therefore quite aware of the threats, but not necessarily active in protecting themselves against those same threats. The survey makes the point that an enormous percentage of email is spam, and most spam is generated by a “bot.” One could imply from the results then, that there are a great many people out there who understand what a bot is, don’t think they’re vulnerable to them, but are nonetheless playing host to one without knowing it. How does your computer get turned into a bot? Usually, it’s by opening up an infected email attachment, or clicking on a link contained within one of those spam messages.