Article Ten

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/26/a-new-look-at-spam-by-the-numbers/

This article talks about the ever prevalent problem of spam. A recent research venture done by Twitter showed that only 1% of posts were spam. This may seem encouraging, but in regards to email only 10% are not considered as spam. On average, an email address receives 100 spam messages a day. This is most likely a direct result if hackers setting up "phantom computers", or computers that simply send out mass spam email. Shockingly, according to a survey conducted by CNN nearly half the people still click on these links despite them realizing it is spam. To try and fight this battle, the government has put out a list of tips and tricks to try and avoid falling for spam. Twitter has also taken the same initiative to try and get less people to possibly give up personal information.

I find it shocking how many people can possibly fall for the spam emails we all get every day. Sure, on the surface it sounds great. "Fill out a survey and get a $500 gift card of your choice!" or "email submit for a new LCD TV!". Really people, does this even sound realistic. I understand it can be sometimes hard to sway away from these ads, but clearly this is a case of too good to be true. It's almost sad to hear these stories because typically it tends to be those who are in need of money or have some sort of mental disability. I feel badly for these people, but especially those in need of money have to realize the impossibility of these things being true. I suppose that is always going to be human nature though. Any time something is easy to do and ends in what seems to be a high payout, people will do it.

I guess the thing I still don't understand is how the major email clients have not been able to stop the flow of spam emails. I realize they are impossible to stop, it just seems that in today's society we would be capable of making a process to let these fake emails even hit the spam folder. I can personally say that my yahoo email receives roughly 75 spam emails a day. Although i never pay more attention to them other than to delete them, that is definitely too many for a email service as popular as Yahoo!

http://erictric.com/2010/03/26/twitter-cuts-down-spam-to-under-1-of-total-daily-tweets/

This article briefly talks about the attempt of Twitter to reduce the serious problem of spam they had in early and mid 2009. They were able to reduce the spam count from roughly 11% of posts to under 1% now. They did this by specifically targeting the programs and ways spammers hit the site and stopped it. If Twitter was able to do this, I find it amazing that google and yahoo! aren't able to get on board in regards to email. I realize that these emails are not technically illegal to send, but the average of 100 is incredible to me. Even more than 5 makes me feel as though Yahoo is not doing a good enough job to prevent it's user from dangers. Yahoo and other email clients need to step up their security and limit the number of spam emails sent to it's user. I know they aren't literally forcing anyone to click these sites, but they have to realize people will. Human nature will trump common sense.