Deleting Spam Costs Billions, Study Finds

AP ^ | February 2, 2005 | ANICK JESDANUN

[billorites]

Time wasted deleting junk e-mail costs American businesses nearly $22 billion a year, according to a new study from the University of Maryland.

Related Links

•	Spam Cost Survey (Univ. of Maryland)

A telephone-based survey of adults who use the Internet found that more than three-quarters receive spam daily. The average spam messages per day is 18.5 and the average time spent per day deleting them is 2.8 minutes.

The loss in productivity is equivalent to $21.6 billion per year at average U.S. wages, according to the National Technology Readiness Survey produced by Rockbridge Associates, Inc., and the Center for Excellence in Service at Maryland's business school.

The study, to be released Thursday, also found that 14 percent of spam recipients actually read messages to see what they say, and 4 percent of the recipients have bought something advertised through spam within the past year.

The random survey of 1,000 U.S. adults was conducted in November and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I know I just wasted another day, yesterday, dealing with spam issues.

I have 300 user email accounts on my network and for the last year or so I was averaging around 3000 spams a day - which is "reasonable" in the context of a modern day network.  But in Janurary that number sky rocketed to 27000-30000 a day.

The dictionary attacks against my Exchange server would shoot up to 80000 on weekends.  Given that my software spam-filter was on the Exchange server, the machine was being taxed-out 24 hours a day:  between receiving the email, evaluating it and kicking back a non-delivery report X 30000 times a day we were starting to periodically lose legitimate email.

Yesterday I put a trial Barracuda Spam Firewall between my Symantec SGS 5420 and Exchange server.  From all appearances the spam hits on the server immediately dropped and the torrent of "No Such Account" emails to my Bad Mail Folder stemmed to a trickle.

When he sent me the evaluation "Barracuda", my network supplier didn't even try to "sell" me on it.  He just said he'd send me a fresh unit out of the box, I'd install it and a couple days later I'd call him back for the bill.  Just from looking at it a couple hours I'm thinking he's right.  He said he's sent out about 30 evaluation units and none of them have been returned.

Frankly, at this point spam has gone from being an annoyance to literally becoming a purposeful attack on computer networks and should be treated as such.  The government should be going after spammers the same way they go after virus writers.

[anniegetyourgun]

True....but I'm one of those who trashes her snail-delivered junk mail without opening too! It's a deeply-rooted loathing for salespeople.....they shouldn't toy with me....I'm likely to become unhinged. (It's genetic. I come from a long line of salepeople loathers. I remember seeing my dad chase a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman down the street and out of the neighborhood.)

As for spam, I wish I could write a program that will find the originator, return the mail, and then cause the source hardware to instantly meltdown.

[Psycho_Bunny]

now children....can we all say firewall?

Do you have the slightest idea what you're talking about or does it just appear that you don't?

[backhoe]

Frankly, at this point spam has gone from being an annoyance to literally becoming a purposeful attack on computer networks and should be treated as such. The government should be going after spammers the same way they go after virus writers.

Bunny, I agree, absolutely- it's well past being amusing, not funny anymore, and downright malicious. I am sick of this garbage.

I'm the last one to call for "there ought to be a law!" but I have to make an exception in this case. Go after the money first, and if that doesn't work, jail the bastards.

[mike182d]

I wonder how much time "zoning out" costs American businesses?

[Route101]

never heard of a spam firewall?...then you deserve all the spam you get..

[Psycho_Bunny]

now children....can we all say firewall?

A "Firewall" is not a anti-spam device.  It is a network protection device.

There are two classes of spam-filters, consumer, for the end-user machine, and commercial for email server systems.

"Spam-filters" are software installed on the machine receiving the email or serving it.

A "spam firewall" (not "firewall" as you stated) is a stand-alone network device requiring a IT professional to install and operate.  Such a device - if it is worth anything - costs at least $3,000 and has yearly licensing fees.

So when you stand on your mountain of road apples and condescendingly call everyone on this thread "children", as if you're some IT god who's sullied himself to throw all of us hopeless kindergarteners a bone of your infinite wisdom, I assume you think we all have thousands of dollars to blow on a device for our home computers which no one here should actually need.

You could have avoided looking like a moron here three ways: 1. By actually knowing what your were talking about or, if you do (which I doubt considering your inability to grasp even the concept of capital letters), choosing your words more carefully so as to convay that you acutally understand how computer networks function.  2.  By not calling your peers at FR "children" and 3.  By not being a jerk-wad.

[Uncle Fud]

and 4 percent of the recipients have bought something advertised through spam within the past year.

This is the really scary part. Even if the "study" is 300% off and only ONE percent of the spammed respond with cash, the economics are still working very strongly in the spammers' favor which means the inundation will go on.

[cooldog]

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Deleting Spam Costs Billions, Study Finds, Route101 wrote:

never heard of a spam firewall?...then you deserve all the spam you get..

I own and operate a small hosting company. Route101 --- you obviously don't have the foggiest notion of what's involved in the battle against spam, while Psycho_Bunny and I have been fighting it.

I'm an open-source shop ... so I use Qmail along with SpamAssassin, Razor, DCC and half a dozen RBLs (Real-time Block Lists) to reduce the flood. Better than 75% of all connection attempts are rejected using the RBLs, SpamAssassin identifies perhaps 75% of the remaining spam, but the tiny fraction that is left still accounts for perhaps as much as 20% of the mail to my desktop.

The cost of maintaining all this effort is high, and the cost of the bandwidth is also considerable.

Spammers should be shot.

I volunteer.

[steve-b]

The government should be going after spammers the same way they go after virus writers.

Spam is an excellent method for secret communication, immune to traffic analysis (there's no way to tell which of ten million recipients is Muhammad al-Jihadi, awaiting the specific "p3n!s enl@rg3r" ad text that translates to "Release the anthrax power today".

The Feds need to bring all known spammers in for anal probes of their customer lists (which can be easily accomplished by simply threatening them with prosecution under existing laws concerning fraud, theft of resources, etc). I'd bet that they'll turn up a few... interesting... connections.