The Dark and Illicit Side of E-Mail Spam

Netscape Network ^ | 26 July '04 | Unattributed

[Martin Tell]

Thanks for the tip. I hear MyDoom is ramping up again - this time through attacking Google.

[steve-b]

I am about 90% certain that, if the Feds would get off their duffs and investigate, they would find that spam is being used as a terrorist comm channel. Any evildoer who is even slightly familiar with the Net would recognize it as the perfect way to avoid traffic analysis (study of who is sending messages to whom, without necessarily knowing anything about the content of the messages), which is why I don't feel impelled to refrain from pointing it out in public.

IMO, it's long past time for the Feds to do some serious anal-probing of known spam operations (even a cursory reading of spam spewings will provide probable cause for a plethora of IRS, FDA, SEC, and other three-letter-agency investigations) and check out their clients for terrorist connections.