Spam: How Bad is It?

By Rob Dee

Spam is bad, we know this. It is a problem that doesn't seem to be getting any closer to going away. But the following numbers may be alarming to you, and demonstrate just how bad spam, the delivery of unwanted junk email, is becoming.

How Much Spam is out there?

In 1978 a single email was sent to 600 addresses, the first documented example of spamming. In 1994 the first largescale spamming of usenet newsgroups occurred, reaching an audience of several million. In June 2005 an estimated 30 billion spam messages were sent every day. In June of 2006 that estimate had risen to 50 billion messages per day. By December of 2006 the estimated spam messages sent per day had reached a staggering 85 billion.

This means in the past 18 months the number of spam messages being sent out has nearly tripled.

Where is it coming from?

Of the URL's in spam messages, 73.58% are located in China.

Other major destination URL's for spammer websites are located in Russia, South Korea, Japan, Canada and the USA.

What is it's Cost?

95% of virusses are spread by spam email in some capacity.

Spam messages cost US companies around $10 billion dollars during 2004 in lost man hours, software and hardware requirements and consultation. The ammount of yearly spam since this figure was estimated has quadrupled.

What does it get the spammer?

Jeremy Jaynes was chared with 3 spamming offenses in 2004. His reported income from spamming was $750,000 per month!

on the other hand, Vardan Kushmir, a known Russian Spammer, was found dead in his apartment following several blunt force blows to the head.

Rob Dee has spent several years managing an internet cafe and has had to listen to complaints about spam on a daily basis. For the longest time he simply felt it was something that needed to be accepted, but finally he created the website http://www.stopspamnow.info in an effort to educate the masses on ways of combating spam e-mails.