US Overwhelmingly Responsible For Spam Deluge

[ibe98765]

Too many "entrepreneurs" or out-of-work techies in the USA!

http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/dispnewsstand?article=1929+++++US Overwhelmingly Responsible For Spam Deluge: ResearchersFebruary 27, 2004 -- Americans are overwhelmingly responsible for spewing junk e-mail, a recent analysis of spam origins by Sophos Inc. researchers showed, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The closely held anti-spam and anti-virus company analyzed two days' worth of spam it collected last week and tabulated which countries were associated with the sender machines' Internet-protocol addresses, the Journal says. It showed the US sent 57 percent of all spam. The No. 2 and 3 offenders, Canada and China, including Hong Kong, sent just 6.8 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively. The methodology isn't a foolproof way to assess message origins, particularly now that abusive spammers regularly use computers compromised by viruses and hacker programs to relay spam anonymously, the newspaper reported. Sophos, based in Abingdon, UK, and Lynnfield, MA., estimates that 30 percent of spam is generated by infected computers, unbeknownst to their owners, the Journal says. However, when Sophos assigned origins by tracing the ownership of the Web sites associated with the rampant e-mail pitches for porn and potions, a somewhat more reliable method, it found even more of the spam -- 67 percent -- came from US computers, the Journal reports. Germany was second with about 5 percent, and was followed by the UK, Canada, and China and Hong Kong, according to the Journal. Sophos said it wasn't able to confirm the ownership of Web sites associated with about 20 percent of the spam it studied, the Journal says.