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India Tops Target List For Spam 107

Posted by Zonk from the where-does-all-the-magic-go dept.
Ant wrote to mention a ZDNet news report on the realities of spam traffic. The U.S. is still the number one producer/distributor of spam in the world. However, with their quick adoption of technology over the last few years, Indian users are now top targets for spam. From the article: "India's rapid adoption of new technology has left its PC users struggling to cope with very high levels of spam, according to a report released Wednesday. Ninety-one percent of email traffic sent to Indian PC users is spam, according to email security company MessageLabs, which warned that the rate of technological advancement has outstripped growth in security awareness. 'There is booming technology in India, but it has been suggested there is little thought for security, which creates a market to exploit that,' said Paul Wood, security analyst at MessageLabs."
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India Tops Target List For Spam More

India Tops Target List For Spam

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  • Appropriate, considering that a large proportion of the spam I receive is about "offshoring oppportunities" in India.

  • the rate of technological advancement has outstripped growth in security awareness

    That happened the first time one of our grandmothers got a computer "to look at the online." The day computers outgrew the subset of the population who knew everything about how to use them safely is long past.

    • That happened the first time one of our grandmothers got a computer

      I thought it happened the first time a business major looked into the engineering department to see the flashing lights on that computer thingy that everyone was talking about.

      Of course, if we looked into history, we probably would find tricked out abacuses in ancient China.

      The interesting thing here is that US computer knowledge has evolved along with the evolution of computer threats. Many people in India are getting their introduc

  • Wo-ho! US banking spam (Score:3, Funny)

    by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Thursday March 02, 2006 @10:00AM (#14834145) Homepage
    Ha! Turnabout is fair play. MY NAME IS JOHN SMITH AND I WAS REFERRED TO YOU BY A CLOSE FRIEND...FOR YOUR PART WE WOULD PAY YOU 30 BILLION(s) IN RUPEES...

    Hehe. Come on, let's get started! How do you say "penis pills" in Hindi?

    • Hehe. Come on, let's get started! How do you say "penis pills" in Hindi?

      We say "HangingChad"...
    • I think it would be more profitable to sell the Indians pills that "guaranteed" that they'll have sons. And then another to sell sex dolls for those 20 million men who are unable to find a wife because everyone prefered sons so they had their daughters aborted or whatever.
    • Come on, let's get started! How do you say "penis pills" in Hindi?

      Laude Lasoon.
    • You cant sell Penis Enlargement Pills to Indians. Due to ancient Tantric knowledge we already have the biggest dicks in the world.

      Can I now interest you in a set of course of Tantric knowledge on how to enlarge your hmmm ego?? Only 19.95 plus delivery .

    • Land ki dawai. :p
  • I guess the truth is out there software, or should I say somewhere...

    It somehow claims to be outdated open-relay-sendmail and could be easily replaced by other software - like some of the rest of the world you have to change and adapt to common evolutions, or could it be that this is a commercial stunt on selling Anti-Spam software...
  • First they take our tech jobs, and now they are taking our spam! Is there no end to this madness?!
  • How ironic that 'India Tops Target List For Spam' when 70% of India's population are vegetarians. [wikipedia.org]
  • In response, Microsoft India is trying [usatoday.com] to sell their stuff to illiterate people. Smart move. Customers who can't read spam aren't bothered by it.
    • In response, Microsoft India is trying to sell their stuff to illiterate people. Smart move. Customers who can't read spam aren't bothered by it.

      ASCII art of penis pills along with before and after illustrations isn't that hard. However, if they don't use fixed-pitched fonts, it might look like a warped cucumber. Breast enlargers may be easier.

            (.)(.)

  • There is booming technology in India, but it has been suggested there is little thought for security, which creates a market to exploit that.

    I wonder if the "little thought for security" also applies to the call centers there, who have access to at least some customer information, certainly including email addresses, and likely including home addresses.

    Note that I am not bashing the quality of phone support sourced from the subcontinent. I have had good and bad support experiences with people from all over

  • for the mods (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sameeer ( 946332 )
    Its interesting to see how so many direct insults to India are being modded as "Funny" etc while a slight indirect negative comment on Microsoft can get one labelled "Flaimbait"..

    Following this observation, I wouldn't be suprised if this post gets labelled Flaimbait either..
    • u've got it all wrong. the mod handbook dictates the following

      negative comments about indians = funny
      negative comments about microsoft = insightful
      negative comments about apple = troll
      negative comments about slashdot = redundant

  • fellow /. rs,

    i am shocked to see how much hatred brews under the hood of all these free spirted guys. Me included, my first reaction when somebody pulls a bad one me is to get right back. But given the facts, we didnt go to US or whatever other country to oursource jobs, it was in US citizen's hand to do it and they did it, and if by any chance, you can take a fact from an Asian, do understand that its all money games. You start bad mouthing me, I start wid my own things, but do understand how did we reach
  • I think that nothing has really changed, since spammers don't actually target anyone. They just carpet-nuke everyone on the planet with impunity.

    And 90% spam isn't unusual. Only if it's getting *past* your filters, although the article seems to suggest that there aren't any.
  • "Spammers have now discovered India it appears. The anti spam community around the world has noticed a steady increase in the amount of spam originating from Indian open relay SMTP servers. "The problem is compounded by the fact that several of these servers are running old Mail Transport Agents (mostly outdated versions of Sendmail) which are anonymous open relays. That is, they allow spammers to relay mails without the sender's IP address being stamped in the headers, as is the case with most modern MTAs
  • MessageLabs' study is limited to their customers -- corporate mailservers that run MessageLabs' spam and virus filtering solutions.

    So much hulla-boo when the study itself is not credible.

    90% of the statistic is made up. Or in the MessageLabs' case -- made up of 10% of the information. /sarcasm
  • Maybe the reason that they have a high proportion of spam to ham is that there's not much ham? Maybe no-one wants to send them real email, so all they get is spam. Maybe if spam was made from cows, it would be different in India. Is it different in Israel? Maybe it's Spanna (spiced manna)?

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