Salon.com > Brian McWilliams

How Microsoft is losing the war on spam

Wed, 19 Jan 2005 20:30:00 +0000

It was one of those unscripted moments that Microsoft's public-relations handlers probably wish they could have back. Speaking at a January 2004 conference in Switzerland, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates boldly predicted that "spam will be solved" by 2006.

But with 346 days remaining on that prognostication, spam still comprises over 60 percent of e-mail traffic. Microsoft is now backpedaling on Gates' vision of a spam-free near future. A spokesperson said last week that the company's goal is to help "contain" the spam problem by 2006.

Yet, according to many experts, Microsoft remains as much the root of the spam problem as the key to solving it.

Most junk e-mail today emanates from Windows computers that spammers have hijacked and turned into spam "zombies" using security holes in Microsoft's operating system. What's more, Microsoft is blamed for wrecking efforts this past summer to create e-mail authentication standards. The company also stands accused of trying to neuter state anti-spam laws. And Microsoft has yet to win a lawsuit against a major spammer.

Remove me!

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 20:30:00 +0000

Casper Jones is the head of BlackMarketMoney.com, a spam operation that's been pelting the Internet with junk e-mail for fake Rolex watches. I'm almost positive his name is a pseudonym. But does he know that Chris Smith is not my real name?

That's how I introduced myself last month, when I sent Casper an e-mail asking to join his spamming crew. I fibbed to him that I was a full-time bulk e-mailer looking for a new sponsor. I said that one of my business associates had recommended his program. (For authenticity, I lightly sprinkled typos and grammatical errors throughout the message.)

I wanted to be one of Casper's sales affiliates. In today's world of spam, a sales affiliate sends out junk mail on behalf of a spam-site operator or "sponsor," who assigns the affiliate a special tracking code to include in his e-mail ads. For every sale the affiliate's spams generate, he is paid a commission by the site operator. Sponsors also provide "remove" lists, spamming software, and other support to help their affiliates successfully market the site.

Since September, Casper and his associates had been clogging my various e-mail accounts with ads for a watch shop called Royal-Replicas.com (formerly onlinereplicastore.com). I filed several complaints with the Chinese Internet service provider hosting the site, to no avail.

Spam, the Nazi hunter and Citizen Joe

Tue, 07 Sep 2004 19:30:00 +0000

Over the years, junk e-mailers have engaged in countless legal battles with the operators of spam-blocking services. But the latest courtroom clash over the legality of such filters promises to become especially ugly.

Later this month, a jury in Orange County (California) Superior Court is scheduled to decide whether Joe Jared, operator of the free OsiruSoft Open Relay Spam Stopper, negligently blacklisted Pallorium, a private investigation firm that claims it never sent a speck of spam.

A spam blacklist (or "block list") service prevents mail from people or companies deemed to be spammers from reaching anyone who subscribes to that service. Those who end up on such blacklists are rarely happy about it, and in this case, the aggrieved party became hopping mad.

"I am ferociously supportive of legitimate efforts to fight spam. But this was not a responsible or technically sensible way to do it," says Steven Rambam, Brooklyn-based Pallorium's senior director.

Meet the spam Nazi

Tue, 29 Jul 2003 19:30:00 +0000

Dave Bridger answers his cellphone with a simple "Yo." It comes across as feigned mafia-like toughness. But you can hardly blame him for being edgy whenever the phone rings.

In recent weeks, Bridger has published his cellphone number in thousands of junk e-mails sent all over the world. The spams invite other "real bulkers" to join him in peddling a penis-enlargement pill called Pinacle.

"Everybody wants a bigger penis, so this product pulls a massive amount of sales ... All you do is MAIL, MAIL, MAIL. And collect your commission check," claim Bridger's invitations.

For more than three years, Bridger has deftly balanced the most difficult task of a spammer (or "bulk mailer," to use the term he prefers): giving out enough contact information to make a sale without putting the whole operation at risk.

For Bridger, keeping a grip on his own identity may be another challenge. When he's tired or distracted and the cellphone chirps to life, Bridger might even have to pause and ask himself: What is my name today?

Iraq goes offline

Mon, 31 Mar 2003 20:03:00 +0000

U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles, aimed at destroying Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine, have left a key Iraqi government site online, still displaying controversial photos of American POWs and dead soldiers. Meanwhile, the air strikes appear to have disabled the primary Internet access points used by average citizens of Baghdad.

The attacks, which began early Saturday morning, Baghdad time, reportedly destroyed several satellite dishes and an Internet server housed at Iraq's Ministry of Information building. Local phone service in the city was also reportedly disrupted by separate missile strikes on two telecommunications switching centers.

Yet Babil Online, the home page of an Iraqi newspaper run by Saddam Hussein's son Uday, was still reachable following the bombing.

A headline atop the front page of Babil Online exhorts visitors to read an article about the war, which includes several postmortem photos of what appear to be U.S. troops. The images were displayed last week on Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV. Subsequently, the TV network's Web site came under repeated denial-of-service attacks.

Iraq still online

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 20:30:00 +0000

Since the U.S. military moved into the "shock and awe" phase of its campaign early Friday, Web surfers have encountered intermittent problems reaching Uruklink.net, the Iraq government's main Web site.

But those access difficulties are apparently due to a surge of Internet visitors, along with some untimely technical changes, rather than to damage from the bombing or a government shutdown.

In fact, on Thursday, following the start of the U.S.-led attack, traffic to Uruklink.net hit a record. According to a counter at the site's home page, over 14,200 people visited March 20, making it the busiest day at the site since the counter was installed in December. Traffic Friday was down somewhat and will likely tally around 8,000 visits -- still well above the daily average of 4,000.

Uruklink.net currently displays a computer-generated date of March 21, 2003. Atop the home page are prominent links to streaming video versions of last month's interview between Hussein and CBS News anchor Dan Rather.

Unleashing the dogs of cyber-war on Iraq!

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 20:30:00 +0000

Like an artist concealing his signature in the background of a painting, Loay Edmon Al-Botany tucks his name in the source code of Web pages at BabilOnline, the site he manages for Saddam Hussein's son Uday.

Al-Botany, a lifelong resident of Baghdad, says his work for the government-controlled Iraqi newspaper site doesn't pay very well -- the equivalent of 100 U.S. dollars per month. But he considers himself lucky to have one of the few Internet jobs in the country, and a high-profile position at that.

Any day now, however, it could all come crashing down from a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, says Al-Botany.

"If USA attack Iraq, the first thing [they will do] is a cyber-war," he says.

Al-Botany, 30, remembers well the U.S. bombing of Baghdad in 1991, which targeted telecommunications and power systems. This time around, many observers predict that the U.S. will also deploy viruses, government-trained hackers, and special electromagnetic pulse bombs to knock out Iraq's computers and other sensitive electronic equipment.

Dot-com noir

Mon, 01 Jul 2002 19:30:00 +0000

The men who ran Website Results, an Internet marketing company, had a unique test for gauging the moral fiber of their employees. According to former colleagues, Ronald J. Penna, Michael K. Osborn and Kevin Smith used to pose this question: Imagine there's a peasant somewhere halfway across the world. If you could push a button and kill the person without getting caught, would you do it for a million dollars?

"For them, it was yes, in a heartbeat. They just wanted to know whether we felt the same way. Who even thinks that way?" said Steve Simkovitch, a salesman who worked for Website Results for most of 1999.

Website Results specialized in the quintessentially dot-com boom service of "search engine optimization" -- the business of making sure a client's Web site ranks high on the listings returned by search engines such as Google or AltaVista. For a time, the company performed so effectively that in August 2000, Penna and his partners sold Website Results to the online ad giant 24/7 Real Media for $95 million in stock.

The pop-up ad campaign from hell

Tue, 07 May 2002 19:30:00 +0000

Looking for state-of-the-art Internet skulduggery? Try this: Thousands of unsuspecting visitors to a family entertainment site are discovering a cornucopia of unwanted, potentially malicious software on their computers -- the result of a pop-up ad campaign, a booby-trapped Web site, a compromised Web browser, and strange doings at a shadowy Los Angeles company.

The story starts at Flowgo, a site that prides itself as the leading family entertainment portal. According to officials at eUniverse, the California firm that operates Flowgo, a pop-up ad that ran at the heavily trafficked humor site for a couple of weeks until late April caused the trouble.

The ad, purchased by a Los Angeles Internet marketing firm named IntelliTech Web Solutions, was designed to automatically redirect visitors away from Flowgo (no mouse click required) and to dump them at a booby-trapped site called KoolKatalog.