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EDITORIAL: Deleting spam: For every gain in the war on spam, there remains plenty of opportunity for loss.
(Roanoke Times, The (Roanoke, VA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jun. 3--Any individual who engages in and profits from the practice of invading and clogging computers with junk e-mail ought to be prosecuted as severely as the concocter of any criminal conspiracy.
The arrest last week in Seattle of "Spam King" Robert Alan Soloway, accused of using "zombie" computers to send out millions of spam e-mails, is a welcome win in the fight against unsolicited stock tips, sham products and pornography.
But Soloway's arrest may provide only a brief respite from spam's vengeance. Some other nefarious ne'er-do-well is likely lurking, ready to replace him, using technological tactics in and outside of U.S. borders.
It is the World Wide Web.
And unless there is a more aggressive, global crackdown on spammers who have found ways to operate beyond American law enforcement's reach, computer users can count on more e-mails hawking products to enhance body parts.
Postini, a spam-blocking firm, reported in March that spam accounted for 93 percent of all e-mail the company monitored that month, a 222 percent increase since November 2005. The hotspots for malicious computer activity, Postini found, were Seoul, Sao Paulo, Beijing and Tokyo.
The anti-spam industry can't keep up with that kind of surge. The more sophisticated, far-reaching and utterly elaborate spammers become, the more difficult it is for the anti-spam industry to outrun them.
And for the authorities to nab them. Soloway is believed to have dodged detection for some time by moving his Web site to different Internet addresses and registering them through Chinese Internet service providers, apparently to cover up his involvement.
The fight against spam is proving tough to win -- and costly. One research firm predicts the global cost of spam in 2007 will be $100 billion, $35 billion in the United States alone.
The battle against spam is like Sisyphus' struggle with the stone: neverending.
But the struggle must continue, or the boulder will crush the Internet and all the good it brings.
To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com/.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Roanoke Times, Va.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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