Spammers Make $200M A Year, Costs U.S. $20B

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Researchers are claiming that spammers make roughly $200 million a year at a cost to the U.S. of $20 billion. :eek:

We estimate that American firms and consumers experience costs of almost $20 billion annually due to spam. Our figure is more conservative than the $50 billion figure often cited by other authors, and we also note that the figure would be much higher if it were not for private investment in anti-spam technology by firms, which we detail further on.
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isn't there a conspiracy somewhere where spammers and virus writers are in cahoots with anti-spam and anti-malware industries to keep them in business?

/tin foil hat
 
holy fuck
I want to be a successful spammer. Where can I learn the tricks of the trade?
 
dr.kevin said:
holy fuck
I want to be a successful spammer. Where can I learn the tricks of the trade?
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can you spell viagra and penis enhancement pills in a way that spam filters won't pick it up? You're well on your way.
 
I haven't seen spam in years. Aside from one listing on Craigslist, occasionally... none in my email or anywhere else..
 
How do they even make money, is there actually that many people stupid enough to click on the links? /facepalm
 
I wonder if there will be more online courses in spamming? Seems a pretty lucrative career...:p
 
Azhar said:
can you spell viagra and penis enhancement pills in a way that spam filters won't pick it up? You're well on your way.
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PM me one if you know already with how to get paid for it.

screw school i'm have to google a way to by pass spam filters.
 
Red Squirrel said:
How do they even make money, is there actually that many people stupid enough to click on the links? /facepalm
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Those spam links are usually scams anyways. The second someone orders something they have your credit card number and you are screwed. They order shit with your card and send to a man in middle who ships it to them. They turn around and sell the stolen merchandise.
 
Spammers: you mean the government? Oh, you mean the shit I haven't seen in years, never mind.
I'm sure every bad thing costs the government billions. I mean, toilet seats cost the government billions.
 
Damn you spammers, feel my wrath!!!

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RGMBill said:
Sounds like we need to start marking "Spamming" a capital offense.
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Electricity is cheap anti-spam software isn't. After the first dozen spammers get the electric chair, I'm betting spam goes down significantly.
 
Affiliate marketing is basically legalized spamming although it doesn't fall under the banner of email spam, it's spamming nonetheless :)
 
I have an idea: Maybe we should do a study on how much criminals make versus how much the criminal justice system costs each year too? Think that would be worthy of making into a big thing?

This whole story is plain stupid. I bet we 'the taxpayers' paid (wasted) a huge sum of cash for some overpaid research group to come up with this.
 
Where does the 20bill $$ cost come from. That # sounds heavily exaggerated. It sounds like that is where the real crooks are.
 
Azhar said:
isn't there a conspiracy somewhere where spammers and virus writers are in cahoots with anti-spam and anti-malware industries to keep them in business?

/tin foil hat
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I doubt it, as the risk is far too great for the anti-malware companies, and there is plenty of reason for them to have legitimate business since the virus/malware tools tend to serve a purpose or make the writer money by spying on traffic, releasing private info, etc.

I wish we'd pull out of Afghanistan and whatever troops are left in Iraq and deploy our military resources to lining up and shooting domestic terrorists like telemarketers, people that litter by putting stupid pamphlets on my door and every car in the Krogers parking lot, and perhaps send some navy jets over to Africa and get all those Nigerian scammers to stand on a particular sand dune one day and drop a MOAB on em.
 
BladeVenom said:
Electricity is cheap anti-spam software isn't. After the first dozen spammers get the electric chair, I'm betting spam goes down significantly.
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I'm all for that. In fact the chair should be installed inside a wind turbine so the body can be grinded up by the gears and spread across the field for fertilizing the lawn. Capital Punishment goes green! :D
 
Actually cut off accounts until the problem is fixed. Compromised machines get fixed when people dont have internet access, etc.. Same with companies and ISPs, they are going to deal with problems more effectively if it starts costing them connection uptime.
 
Yeah I think ISPs should also start playing a role with this. It would actually be in their best interest as it would save them bandwidth so the legit customers get more.
 
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