The Rustock botnet was a botnet that operated from around 2006 until March 2011.
88-426: It consisted of computers running Microsoft Windows, and was capable of sending up to 25,000 spam messages per hour from an infected PC. At the height of its activities, it sent an average of 192 spam messages per compromised machine per minute. Reported estimates on its size vary greatly across different sources, with claims that the botnet may have comprised anywhere between 150,000 and 2,400,000 machines. The size of
176-669: A core network /backbone network; each subsequent network handles more traffic than the last. Mobile service providers also have similar networks. A mailbox provider is an organization that provides services for hosting electronic mail domains with access to storage for mail boxes. It provides email servers to send, receive, accept, and store email for end users or other organizations. Many mailbox providers are also access providers, while others are not (e.g., Gmail , Yahoo! Mail , Outlook.com , AOL Mail , Po box ). The definition given in RFC 6650 covers email hosting services , as well as
264-472: A telecommunications service, thereby preserving net neutrality. On 10 November 2014, President Barack Obama recommended that the FCC reclassify broadband Internet service as a telecommunications service in order to preserve net neutrality. On 16 January 2015, Republicans presented legislation, in the form of a U.S. Congress H.R. discussion draft bill , that makes concessions to net neutrality but prohibits
352-444: A television station or cable network . VoIP spam is VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) spam, usually using SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) . This is nearly identical to telemarketing calls over traditional phone lines. When the user chooses to receive the spam call, a pre-recorded spam message or advertisement is usually played back. This is generally easier for the spammer as VoIP services are cheap and easy to anonymize over
440-441: A tier 1 carrier . In reality, the situation is often more complex. ISPs with more than one point of presence (PoP) may have separate connections to an upstream ISP at multiple PoPs, or they may be customers of multiple upstream ISPs and may have connections to each one of them at one or more point of presence. Transit ISPs provide large amounts of bandwidth for connecting hosting ISPs and access ISPs. Border Gateway Protocol
528-902: A Tier 1 ISP. Transit ISPs may use OTN ( Optical transport network ) or SDH/SONET (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy/Synchronous Optical Networking) with DWDM ( Dense wavelength-division multiplexing ) for transmitting data over optical fiber. For transmissions in a metro area such as a city and for large customers such as data centers, special pluggable modules in routers, conforming to standards such as CFP , QSFP-DD, OSFP, 400ZR or OpenZR+ may be used alongside DWDM and many vendors have proprietary offerings. Long-haul networks transport data across longer distances than metro networks, such as through submarine cables, or connecting several metropolitan networks. Optical line systems and packet optical transport systems can also be used for data transmission. Ultra long haul transmission transports data over distances of over 1500 kilometers. A virtual ISP (VISP)
616-557: A case in a federal court against the operator of a small Oklahoma-based Internet service provider who accused him of spamming. U.S. Judge Ralph G. Thompson granted a motion by plaintiff Robert Braver for a default judgment and permanent injunction against him. The judgment includes a statutory damages award of about $ 10 million under Oklahoma law. In June 2007, two men were convicted of eight counts stemming from sending millions of e-mail spam messages that included hardcore pornographic images. Jeffrey A. Kilbride, 41, of Venice, California
704-427: A cheese product ), but this term did not persist. In the late 19th century, Western Union allowed telegraphic messages on its network to be sent to multiple destinations. The first recorded instance of a mass unsolicited commercial telegram is from May 1864, when some British politicians received an unsolicited telegram advertising a dentist. The earliest documented spam (although the term had not yet been coined )
792-552: A commercial telecommunications market, such as the United States. In 1995, NSFNET was decommissioned removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic and network access points were created to allow peering arrangements between commercial ISPs. On 23 April 2014, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was reported to be considering a new rule permitting ISPs to offer content providers
880-547: A coordinated effort by Internet service providers and software vendors. It was revealed the next day that the take-down, called Operation b107, was the action of Microsoft , U.S. federal law enforcement agents, FireEye , and the University of Washington . To capture the individuals involved with the Rustock botnet, on July 18, 2011, Microsoft is offering "a monetary reward in the amount of US$ 250,000 for new information that results in
968-467: A faster track to send content, thus reversing their earlier net neutrality position. A possible solution to net neutrality concerns may be municipal broadband , according to Professor Susan Crawford , a legal and technology expert at Harvard Law School . On 15 May 2014, the FCC decided to consider two options regarding Internet services: first, permit fast and slow broadband lanes, thereby compromising net neutrality; and second, reclassify broadband as
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#17328950728361056-460: A huge number of times to scroll other users' text off the screen. In early chat-room services like PeopleLink and the early days of Online America (later known as America Online or AOL), they actually flooded the screen with quotes from the Monty Python sketch. This was used as a tactic by insiders of a group that wanted to drive newcomers out of the room so the usual conversation could continue. It
1144-412: A link to a supposed keygen , trainer, ISO file for a video game , or something similar. The actual content of the video ends up being totally unrelated, a Rickroll , offensive, or simply on-screen text of a link to the site being promoted. In some cases, the link in question may lead to an online survey site, a password-protected archive file with instructions leading to the aforementioned survey (though
1232-436: A lot of harm before finally realizing that the business is not profitable. Some companies and groups "rank" spammers; spammers who make the news are sometimes referred to by these rankings. In all cases listed above, including both commercial and non-commercial, "spam happens" because of a positive cost–benefit analysis result; if the cost to recipients is excluded as an externality the spammer can avoid paying. Cost
1320-694: A number of other criteria an up to $ 30 per month discount toward internet service, or up to $ 75 per month on certain tribal lands. Access provider ISPs provide Internet access, employing a range of technologies to connect users to their network. Available technologies have ranged from computer modems with acoustic couplers to telephone lines, to television cable (CATV), Wi-Fi , and fiber optics. For users and small businesses, traditional options include copper wires to provide dial-up , DSL, typically asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), cable modem or Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) (typically basic rate interface ). Using fiber-optics to end users
1408-403: A prank by participants in multi-user dungeon games, to fill their rivals' accounts with unwanted electronic junk. The first major commercial spam incident started on March 5, 1994, when a husband and wife team of lawyers, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel , began using bulk Usenet posting to advertise immigration law services. The incident was commonly termed the " Green Card spam", after
1496-434: A problem when the Internet was opened for commercial use in the mid-1990s. It grew exponentially over the following years, and by 2007 it constituted about 80% to 85% of all e-mail, by a conservative estimate. Pressure to make email spam illegal has resulted in legislation in some jurisdictions, but less so in others. The efforts taken by governing bodies, security systems and email service providers seem to be helping to reduce
1584-514: A region. ISPs may engage in peering , where multiple ISPs interconnect at peering points or Internet exchange points (IXPs), allowing routing of data between each network, without charging one another for the data transmitted—data that would otherwise have passed through a third upstream ISP, incurring charges from the upstream ISP. ISPs requiring no upstream and having only customers (end customers or peer ISPs) are called Tier 1 ISPs . Network hardware, software and specifications, as well as
1672-841: A result do not have any specific functionality or a meaningful description; (ii) multiple instances of the same app being published to obtain increased visibility in the app market; and (iii) apps that make excessive use of unrelated keywords to attract users through unintended searches. Bluespam, or the action of sending spam to Bluetooth -enabled devices, is another form of spam that has developed in recent years. E-mail and other forms of spamming have been used for purposes other than advertisements. Many early Usenet spams were religious or political. Serdar Argic , for instance, spammed Usenet with historical revisionist screeds. A number of evangelists have spammed Usenet and e-mail media with preaching messages. A growing number of criminals are also using spam to perpetrate various sorts of fraud. In 2011
1760-399: A second of traffic was observed, likely indicating a transfer of command and control to Russia . While these actions temporarily reduced global spam levels by around 75%, the effect did not last long: spam levels increased by 60% between January and June 2009, 40% of which was attributed to the Rustock botnet. On March 16, 2011, the botnet was taken down through what was initially reported as
1848-420: A sufficient conversion rate to keep the spamming alive. Furthermore, even though spam appears not to be economically viable as a way for a reputable company to do business, it suffices for professional spammers to convince a tiny proportion of gullible advertisers that it is viable for those spammers to stay in business. Finally, new spammers go into business every day, and the low costs allow a single spammer to do
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#17328950728361936-446: A tier 2 or tier 1 ISP usually has a larger network than the contracting ISP or is able to provide the contracting ISP with access to parts of the Internet the contracting ISP by itself has no access to. In the simplest case, a single connection is established to an upstream ISP and is used to transmit data to or from areas of the Internet beyond the home network; this mode of interconnection is often cascaded multiple times until reaching
2024-486: A user are broadcast to all followers of the user. Spammers, out of malicious intent, post either unwanted (or irrelevant) information or spread misinformation on social media platforms. Spreading beyond the centrally managed social networking platforms, user-generated content increasingly appears on business, government, and nonprofit websites worldwide. Fake accounts and comments planted by computers programmed to issue social spam can infiltrate these websites. Blog spam
2112-506: A waitress reading out a menu where every item but one includes the Spam canned luncheon meat. As the waitress recites the Spam-filled menu, a chorus of Viking patrons drown out all conversations with a song, repeating "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam… Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!". In the 1980s the term was adopted to describe certain abusive users who frequented BBSs and MUDs , who would repeat "Spam"
2200-556: Is a common approach in social networking spam such as that generated by the social networking site Quechup . Instant messaging spam makes use of instant messaging systems. Although less prevalent than its e-mail counterpart, according to a report from Ferris Research, 500 million spam IMs were sent in 2003, twice the level of 2002. Newsgroup spam is a type of spam where the targets are Usenet newsgroups. Spamming of Usenet newsgroups actually pre-dates e-mail spam. Usenet convention defines spamming as excessive multiple posting, that is,
2288-530: Is an operation that purchases services from another ISP, sometimes called a wholesale ISP in this context, which allow the VISP's customers to access the Internet using services and infrastructure owned and operated by the wholesale ISP. VISPs resemble mobile virtual network operators and competitive local exchange carriers for voice communications. Free ISPs are Internet service providers that provide service free of charge. Many free ISPs display advertisements while
2376-451: Is another option, including cellular and satellite Internet access . Access providers may have an MPLS ( Multiprotocol label switching ) or formerly a SONET backbone network , and have a ring or mesh network topology in their core network. The networks run by access providers can be considered wide area networks . ISPs can have access networks , aggregation networks/aggregation layers/distribution layers/edge routers/metro networks and
2464-434: Is called Fiber To The Home or similar names. Customers with more demanding requirements (such as medium-to-large businesses, or other ISPs) can use higher-speed DSL (such as single-pair high-speed digital subscriber line ), Ethernet , metropolitan Ethernet , gigabit Ethernet , Frame Relay , ISDN Primary Rate Interface , ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and synchronous optical networking (SONET). Wireless access
2552-479: Is done at IXPs, while private peering can be done with direct links between networks. Internet service providers in many countries are legally required (e.g., via Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in the U.S.) to allow law enforcement agencies to monitor some or all of the information transmitted by the ISP, or even store the browsing history of users to allow government access if needed (e.g. via
2640-498: Is named after Spam , a luncheon meat, by way of a Monty Python sketch about a restaurant that has Spam in almost every dish in which Vikings annoyingly sing "Spam" repeatedly. Spamming remains economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, servers, infrastructures, IP ranges, and domain names, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by
2728-421: Is spamming on weblogs . In 2003, this type of spam took advantage of the open nature of comments in the blogging software Movable Type by repeatedly placing comments to various blog posts that provided nothing more than a link to the spammer's commercial web site. Similar attacks are often performed against wikis and guestbooks , both of which accept user contributions. Another possible form of spam in blogs
Rustock botnet - Misplaced Pages Continue
2816-460: Is that search engine indexes are inundated with useless pages, increasing the cost of each processed query". The costs of spam also include the collateral costs of the struggle between spammers and the administrators and users of the media threatened by spamming. Email spam exemplifies a tragedy of the commons : spammers use resources (both physical and human), without bearing the entire cost of those resources. In fact, spammers commonly do not bear
2904-484: Is the combination of: Benefit is the total expected profit from spam, which may include any combination of the commercial and non-commercial reasons listed above. It is normally linear, based on the incremental benefit of reaching each additional spam recipient, combined with the conversion rate . The conversion rate for botnet -generated spam has recently been measured to be around one in 12,000,000 for pharmaceutical spam and one in 200,000 for infection sites as used by
2992-481: Is the first case in which US prosecutors used identity theft laws to prosecute a spammer for taking over someone else's Internet domain name. In an attempt to assess potential legal and technical strategies for stopping illegal spam, a study cataloged three months of online spam data and researched website naming and hosting infrastructures. The study concluded that: 1) half of all spam programs have their domains and servers distributed over just eight percent or fewer of
3080-475: Is the spamming of a certain tag on websites such as Tumblr. In actual video spam, the uploaded video is given a name and description with a popular figure or event that is likely to draw attention, or within the video a certain image is timed to come up as the video's thumbnail image to mislead the viewer, such as a still image from a feature film, purporting to be a part-by-part piece of a movie being pirated, e.g. Big Buck Bunny Full Movie Online - Part 1/10 HD ,
3168-530: Is their use in filtering the mail of users who are not informed of their use that draws fire. Even though it is possible in some jurisdictions to treat some spam as unlawful merely by applying existing laws against trespass and conversion , some laws specifically targeting spam have been proposed. In 2004, United States passed the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 that provided ISPs with tools to combat spam. This act allowed Yahoo! to successfully sue Eric Head who settled
3256-576: Is used by routers to connect to other networks, which are identified by their autonomous system number. Tier 2 ISPs depend on Tier 1 ISPs and often have their own networks, but must pay for transit or internet access to Tier 1 ISPs, but may peer or send transit without paying, to other Tier 2 ISPs. Tier 3 ISPs do not engage in peering and only purchase transit from Tier 2 and Tier 1 ISPs, and often specialize in offering internet service to end customers such as businesses and individuals. Some organizations act as their own ISPs and purchase transit directly from
3344-490: The American Civil Liberties Union has to do with so-called "stealth blocking", a term for ISPs employing aggressive spam blocking without their users' knowledge. These groups' concern is that ISPs or technicians seeking to reduce spam-related costs may select tools that (either through error or design) also block non-spam e-mail from sites seen as "spam-friendly". Few object to the existence of these tools; it
3432-522: The Bosnian War . However, as it was a violation of their terms of service, the ISP Panix deleted all of the bulk posts from Usenet, only missing three copies . Within a few years, the focus of spamming (and anti-spam efforts) moved chiefly to email, where it remains today. By 1999, Khan C. Smith, a well known hacker at the time, had begun to commercialize the bulk email industry and rallied thousands into
3520-697: The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 in the United Kingdom ). Furthermore, in some countries ISPs are subject to monitoring by intelligence agencies. In the U.S., a controversial National Security Agency program known as PRISM provides for broad monitoring of Internet users traffic and has raised concerns about potential violation of the privacy protections in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution . Modern ISPs integrate
3608-476: The Storm botnet . The authors of the study calculating those conversion rates noted, "After 26 days, and almost 350 million e-mail messages, only 28 sales resulted." Spam can be used to spread computer viruses , trojan horses or other malicious software. The objective may be identity theft , or worse (e.g., advance fee fraud ). Some spam attempts to capitalize on human greed, while some attempts to take advantage of
Rustock botnet - Misplaced Pages Continue
3696-431: The University of California, Berkeley and OvGU demonstrated that most (web-based) academic search engines, especially Google Scholar are not capable of identifying spam attacks. The researchers manipulated the citation counts of articles, and managed to make Google Scholar index complete fake articles, some containing advertising. Spamming in mobile app stores include (i) apps that were automatically generated and as
3784-402: The zombies in the botnet to perform various tasks such as sending spam or executing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Ninety-six servers were in operation at the time of the takedown. When sending spam the botnet uses TLS encryption in around 35 percent of the cases as an extra layer of protection to hide its presence. Whether detected or not, this creates additional overhead for
3872-497: The FCC from accomplishing the goal or enacting any further regulation affecting Internet service providers. On 31 January 2015, AP News reported that the FCC will present the notion of applying ("with some caveats") Title II (common carrier) of the Communications Act of 1934 to the Internet in a vote expected on 26 February 2015. Adoption of this notion would reclassify Internet service from one of information to one of
3960-633: The Internet for a monthly fee, were established in Australia and the United States. In Brookline, Massachusetts , The World became the first commercial ISP in the US. Its first customer was served in November 1989. These companies generally offered dial-up connections, using the public telephone network to provide last-mile connections to their customers. The barriers to entry for dial-up ISPs were low and many providers emerged. However, cable television companies and
4048-424: The Internet, and there are many options for sending mass number of calls from a single location. Accounts or IP addresses being used for VoIP spam can usually be identified by a large number of outgoing calls, low call completion and short call length. Academic search engines enable researchers to find academic literature and are used to obtain citation data for calculating author-level metrics . Researchers from
4136-657: The Internet. The FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler , commented, "This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech. They both stand for the same concept." On 12 March 2015, the FCC released the specific details of the net neutrality rules. On 13 April 2015, the FCC published the final rule on its new " Net Neutrality " regulations. These rules went into effect on 12 June 2015. Upon becoming FCC chairman in April 2017, Ajit Pai proposed an end to net neutrality, awaiting votes from
4224-495: The UHF band (including the MMDS frequency band) and LMDS . It is hypothesized that the vast divide between broadband connection in rural and urban areas is partially caused by a lack of competition between ISPs in rural areas , where there exists a market typically controlled by just one provider. A lack of competition problematically causes subscription rates to rise disproportionately with
4312-437: The additional equipment, software, and manpower needed to combat the problem. Spam's direct effects include the consumption of computer and network resources, and the cost in human time and attention of dismissing unwanted messages. Large companies who are frequent spam targets utilize numerous techniques to detect and prevent spam. The cost to providers of search engines is significant: "The secondary consequence of spamming
4400-474: The botnet was increased and maintained mostly through self-propagation, where the botnet sent many malicious e-mails intended to infect machines opening them with a trojan which would incorporate the machine into the botnet. The botnet took a hit after the 2008 takedown of McColo , an ISP which was responsible for hosting most of the botnet's command and control servers. McColo regained Internet connectivity for several hours, and in those hours up to 15 Mbit
4488-634: The business by building more friendly bulk email software and providing internet access illegally hacked from major ISPs such as Earthlink and Botnets. By 2009 the majority of spam sent around the World was in the English language ; spammers began using automatic translation services to send spam in other languages. Email spam, also known as unsolicited bulk email (UBE), or junk mail, is the practice of sending unwanted email messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities. Spam in email started to become
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#17328950728364576-471: The commission. On 21 November 2017, Pai announced that a vote will be held by FCC members on 14 December 2017 on whether to repeal the policy. On 11 June 2018, the repeal of the FCC's network neutrality rules took effect. Since December 31, 2021, The Affordable Connectivity Program has given households in the U.S. at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines or households which meet
4664-402: The cost at all. This raises the costs for everyone. In some ways spam is even a potential threat to the entire email system, as operated in the past. Since email is so cheap to send, a tiny number of spammers can saturate the Internet with junk mail. Although only a tiny percentage of their targets are motivated to purchase their products (or fall victim to their scams), the low cost may provide
4752-513: The costs of investigation by the state of Florida , and a $ 1.1 million penalty if spamming were to continue, the $ 50,000 was not paid, or the financial statements provided were found to be inaccurate. The spamming operation was successfully shut down. Internet service provider Early research and development: Merging the networks and creating the Internet: Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to
4840-533: The difference in competition levels has potentially negatively affected the innovation and development of infrastructure in specific rural areas remains a question. The exploration and answers developed to the question could provide guidance for possible interventions and solutions meant to remedy the digital divide between rural and urban connectivity. Altnets (portmanteau of "alternative network provider") are localized broadband networks, typically formed as an alternative to monopolistic internet service providers within
4928-400: The expertise of network management personnel are important in ensuring that data follows the most efficient route, and upstream connections work reliably. A tradeoff between cost and efficiency is possible. Tier 1 ISPs are also interconnected with a mesh network topology. Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) are public locations where several networks are connected to each other. Public peering
5016-424: The guise of a user's trusted contacts such as friends and family. As for Twitter, spammers gain credibility by following verified accounts such as that of Lady Gaga; when that account owner follows the spammer back, it legitimizes the spammer. Twitter has studied what interest structures allow their users to receive interesting tweets and avoid spam, despite the site using the broadcast model, in which all tweets from
5104-449: The identification, arrest and criminal conviction of such individual(s)." Botnets are composed of infected computers used by unwitting Internet users. In order to hide its presence from the user and anti-virus software , the Rustock botnet employed rootkit technology. Once a computer was infected, it would seek contact with command-and-control servers at a number of IP addresses and any of 2,500 domains and backup domains that may direct
5192-470: The introduction of the World Wide Web . During the 1980s, online service providers such as CompuServe , Prodigy , and America Online (AOL) began to offer limited capabilities to access the Internet, such as e-mail interchange, but full access to the Internet was not readily available to the general public. In 1989, the first Internet service providers, companies offering the public direct access to
5280-546: The latter to end communication with the advertiser via SMS altogether. Despite the high number of phone users, there has not been so much phone spam, because there is a charge for sending SMS. Recently, there are also observations of mobile phone spam delivered via browser push notifications. These can be a result of allowing websites which are malicious or delivering malicious ads to send a user notifications. Facebook and Twitter are not immune to messages containing spam links. Spammers hack into accounts and send false links under
5368-451: The lawsuit for several thousand U.S. dollars in June 2004. But the law is criticized by many for not being effective enough. Indeed, the law was supported by some spammers and organizations that support spamming, and opposed by many in the anti-spam community. Earthlink won a $ 25 million judgment against one of the most notorious and active "spammers" Khan C. Smith in 2001 for his role in founding
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#17328950728365456-506: The mail servers handling the spam. Some experts pointed out that this extra load could negatively impact the mail infrastructure of the Internet, as most of the e-mails sent these days are spam. Spam (electronic) Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages ( spam ) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising , non-commercial proselytizing , or any prohibited purpose (especially phishing ), or simply repeatedly sending
5544-504: The menu items in the Monty Python sketch. One of the earliest people to use "spam" in this sense was Joel Furr . This use had also become established—to "spam" Usenet was to flood newsgroups with junk messages. The word was also attributed to the flood of " Make Money Fast " messages that clogged many newsgroups during the 1990s. In 1998, the New Oxford Dictionary of English , which had previously only defined "spam" in relation to
5632-596: The modern Internet: Examples of Internet services: An Internet service provider ( ISP ) is an organization that provides myriad services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet . ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned , non-profit , or otherwise privately owned . Internet services typically provided by ISPs can include internet access , internet transit , domain name registration, web hosting , and colocation . The Internet (originally ARPAnet )
5720-466: The modern spam industry which dealt billions in economic damage and established thousands of spammers into the industry. His email efforts were said to make up more than a third of all Internet email being sent from 1999 until 2002. Sanford Wallace and Cyber Promotions were the target of a string of lawsuits, many of which were settled out of court, up through a 1998 Earthlink settlement that put Cyber Promotions out of business. Attorney Laurence Canter
5808-658: The origins of spam were analyzed by Cisco Systems . They provided a report that shows spam volume originating from countries worldwide. Hormel Foods Corporation , the maker of SPAM luncheon meat, does not object to the Internet use of the term "spamming". However, they did ask that the capitalized word "Spam" be reserved to refer to their product and trademark. The European Union 's Internal Market Commission estimated in 2001 that "junk email" cost Internet users €10 billion per year worldwide. The California legislature found that spam cost United States organizations alone more than $ 13 billion in 2007, including lost productivity and
5896-445: The public and by Internet service providers , which have added extra capacity to cope with the volume. Spamming has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions. A person who creates spam is called a spammer . The term spam is derived from the 1970 "Spam" sketch of the BBC sketch comedy television series Monty Python's Flying Circus . The sketch, set in a cafe , has
5984-415: The quality of service in rural areas, causing broadband connection to be unaffordable for some, even when the infrastructure supports service in a given area. In contrast, consumers in urban areas typically benefit from lower rates and higher quality of broadband services, not only due to more advanced infrastructure but also the healthy economic competition caused by having several ISPs in a given area. How
6072-755: The relevant department of companies, universities, organizations, groups, and individuals that manage their mail servers themselves. The task is typically accomplished by implementing Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and possibly providing access to messages through Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), the Post Office Protocol , Webmail , or a proprietary protocol. Internet hosting services provide email, web-hosting, or online storage services. Other services include virtual server , cloud services, or physical server operation. Just as their customers pay them for Internet access, ISPs themselves pay upstream ISPs for Internet access. An upstream ISP such as
6160-699: The repeated posting of a message (or substantially similar messages). The prevalence of Usenet spam led to the development of the Breidbart Index as an objective measure of a message's "spamminess". Forum spam is the creation of advertising messages on Internet forums. It is generally done by automated spambots. Most forum spam consists of links to external sites, with the dual goals of increasing search engine visibility in highly competitive areas such as weight loss, pharmaceuticals, gambling, pornography, real estate or loans, and generating more traffic for these commercial websites. Some of these links contain code to track
6248-454: The same message to the same user. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam , the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam , Usenet newsgroup spam , Web search engine spam , spam in blogs , wiki spam , online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam , Internet forum spam , junk fax transmissions , social spam , spam mobile apps, television advertising and file sharing spam. It
6336-497: The spam-advertised goods in the study; and, 3) a "financial blacklist" of banking entities that do business with spammers would dramatically reduce monetization of unwanted e-mails. Moreover, this blacklist could be updated far more rapidly than spammers could acquire new banking resources, an asymmetry favoring anti-spam efforts. An ongoing concern expressed by parties such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and
6424-456: The spambot's identity; if a sale goes through, the spammer behind the spambot earns a commission. Mobile phone spam is directed at the text messaging service of a mobile phone . This can be especially irritating to customers not only for the inconvenience, but also because of the fee they may be charged per text message received in some markets. To comply with CAN-SPAM regulations in the US, SMS messages now must provide options of HELP and STOP,
6512-641: The subject line of the postings. Defiant in the face of widespread condemnation, the attorneys claimed their detractors were hypocrites or "zealots", claimed they had a free speech right to send unwanted commercial messages, and labeled their opponents "anti-commerce radicals". The couple wrote a controversial book entitled How to Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway . An early example of nonprofit fundraising bulk posting via Usenet also occurred in 1994 on behalf of CitiHope, an NGO attempting to raise funds to rescue children at risk during
6600-417: The survey, and the archive file itself, is worthless and does not contain the file in question at all), or in extreme cases, malware . Others may upload videos presented in an infomercial -like format selling their product which feature actors and paid testimonials , though the promoted product or service is of dubious quality and would likely not pass the scrutiny of a standards and practices department at
6688-465: The telecommunications and, according to Tom Wheeler , chairman of the FCC, ensure net neutrality. The FCC was expected to enforce net neutrality in its vote, according to The New York Times . On 26 February 2015, the FCC ruled in favor of net neutrality by adopting Title II (common carrier) of the Communications Act of 1934 and Section 706 in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to
6776-427: The telephone carriers already had wired connections to their customers and could offer Internet connections at much higher speeds than dial-up using broadband technology such as cable modems and digital subscriber line (DSL). As a result, these companies often became the dominant ISPs in their service areas, and what was once a highly competitive ISP market became effectively a monopoly or duopoly in countries with
6864-403: The total available hosting registrars and autonomous systems, with 80 percent of spam programs overall being distributed over just 20 percent of all registrars and autonomous systems; 2) of the 76 purchases for which the researchers received transaction information, there were only 13 distinct banks acting as credit card acquirers and only three banks provided the payment servicing for 95 percent of
6952-407: The trademarked food product, added a second definition to its entry for "spam": "Irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of newsgroups or users." There was also an effort to differentiate between types of newsgroup spam. Messages that were crossposted to too many newsgroups at once, as opposed to those that were posted too frequently, were called "velveeta" (after
7040-627: The user is connected; like commercial television , in a sense they are selling the user's attention to the advertiser. Other free ISPs, sometimes called freenets , are run on a nonprofit basis, usually with volunteer staff. A wireless Internet service provider (WISP) is an Internet service provider with a network based on wireless networking. Technology may include commonplace Wi-Fi wireless mesh networking, or proprietary equipment designed to operate over open 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, 4.9, 5.2, 5.4, 5.7, and 5.8 GHz bands or licensed frequencies such as 2.5 GHz (EBS/BRS), 3.65 GHz (NN) and in
7128-509: The victims' inexperience with computer technology to trick them (e.g., phishing ). One of the world's most prolific spammers, Robert Alan Soloway , was arrested by US authorities on May 31, 2007. Described as one of the top ten spammers in the world, Soloway was charged with 35 criminal counts, including mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud , aggravated identity theft, and money laundering. Prosecutors allege that Soloway used millions of "zombie" computers to distribute spam during 2003. This
7216-481: The volume of email spam. According to "2014 Internet Security Threat Report, Volume 19" published by Symantec Corporation , spam volume dropped to 66% of all email traffic. An industry of email address harvesting is dedicated to collecting email addresses and selling compiled databases. Some of these address-harvesting approaches rely on users not reading the fine print of agreements, resulting in their agreeing to send messages indiscriminately to their contacts. This
7304-457: Was a message advertising the availability of a new model of Digital Equipment Corporation computers sent by Gary Thuerk to 393 recipients on ARPANET on May 3, 1978. Rather than send a separate message to each person, which was the standard practice at the time, he had an assistant, Carl Gartley, write a single mass email. Reaction from the net community was fiercely negative, but the spam did generate some sales. Spamming had been practiced as
7392-469: Was also used to prevent members of rival groups from chatting—for instance, Star Wars fans often invaded Star Trek chat rooms, filling the space with blocks of text until the Star Trek fans left. It later came to be used on Usenet to mean excessive multiple posting—the repeated posting of the same message. The unwanted message would appear in many, if not all newsgroups, just as Spam appeared in all
7480-443: Was developed as a network between government research laboratories and participating departments of universities. Other companies and organizations joined by direct connection to the backbone , or by arrangements through other connected companies, sometimes using dialup tools such as UUCP . By the late 1980s, a process was set in place towards public, commercial use of the Internet. Some restrictions were removed by 1991, shortly after
7568-490: Was disbarred by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1997 for sending prodigious amounts of spam advertising his immigration law practice. In 2005, Jason Smathers , a former America Online employee, pleaded guilty to charges of violating the CAN-SPAM Act . In 2003, he sold a list of approximately 93 million AOL subscriber e-mail addresses to Sean Dunaway who sold the list to spammers. In 2007, Robert Soloway lost
7656-464: Was sentenced to six years in prison, and James R. Schaffer, 41, of Paradise Valley, Arizona , was sentenced to 63 months. In addition, the two were fined $ 100,000, ordered to pay $ 77,500 in restitution to AOL , and ordered to forfeit more than $ 1.1 million, the amount of illegal proceeds from their spamming operation. The charges included conspiracy , fraud , money laundering , and transportation of obscene materials. The trial, which began on June 5,
7744-699: Was the first to include charges under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 , according to a release from the Department of Justice . The specific law that prosecutors used under the CAN-Spam Act was designed to crack down on the transmission of pornography in spam. In 2005, Scott J. Filary and Donald E. Townsend of Tampa, Florida were sued by Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist for violating the Florida Electronic Mail Communications Act. The two spammers were required to pay $ 50,000 USD to cover
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