RSSThe Hype Over Spim
By By Brian McWilliams, Guest Columnist | Published February 24, 2005, 8:52 AM
PERSPECTIVE A number of news reports, helped along by media-savvy prosecutors, are positioning the recent arrest of teenage spammer Tony Greco as a significant milestone in "spim," or instant message spam. Many of the articles suggest IM spam is about to flare out of control.
This pegs my hype-meter. First, to be precise, Greco was sending "private messages" (PMs) from within the MySpace.com system to registered members. He was not using a public IM service like AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger. PM spam (pspam?) is one of the least annoying types, since you often don't even know you've received it. Greco's became obvious only because MySpace.com sends a notification email to members whenever they receive a PM.
Second, I doubt the federal government would try to bring criminal charges against anyone for sending PM spam. The reason this case received attention from the feds was because Greco allegedly tried to extort money out of MySpace.
Third, all this hand wringing about the rise of spim seems unwarranted. IM spam has been around for roughly seven years, and all along "experts" have predicted spim is about to rage out of control. It hasn't, and it probably never will.
Compared to e-mail spam, spim is easier to control because instant messages must travel through a limited number of centralized servers. As a result, IM service providers can implement server-based rate limiting, content filtering, and other mitigation techniques to greater effect.
Yahoo, for example, reportedly operates software that watches for IM spam "bots" and disables their Yahoo IDs, rendering them harmless.
SMTP -- the protocol underlying e-mail -- is built on an open architecture that's easily exploitable by spammers. IM systems, on the other hand, are proprietary. Over the years, IM spamware programs -- such as ICQ MultiPager and ICQ Interest Search -- have been repelled by operators of public instant messaging systems through minor protocol tweaks.
The centralized nature of IM systems also makes filing spam complaints easier. Version 9 of America Online's software, for example, includes a "Report IM Spam" button that can notify AOL about the sender.
What's more, IM users can easily configure their software to accept messages only from certain people. Such "white listing" is also available on some e-mail systems, but it's not widely used because most people need to receive email from a broader population than their instant message buddies.
MSN Messenger goes even further with a "reverse list" feature that lets users know when someone puts them on a buddy list and enables users to proactively block messages from the person.
In the past five years, I've received a total of maybe 15 spims. I get that many e-mail spams in an hour most days. That ratio may change in the future, but let's not lose sight of the real spam problem.
Brian McWilliams is a journalist and author of Spam Kings: The real story behind the high-rolling hucksters pushing porn, pills, and @*#?% enlargements.
I've never gotten SpIM, but then - all my IM services are set to ask me permission before someone is added to my list - furthermore, several are set to block messages from any user NOT on my list so personally, I don't see how SpIM will become an issue. Unless there's some kind of bug/trojan or malware which runs on someones PC to potentially disable these authentication processes, I'd say the SpIM issue for now is definately hype.
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Brian McWilliams definitely made a good point in this story. I have yet to personally receive any spim on any of my instant messaging. Given how few people I have ever heard being spimmed I definitely feel that this is simply an effort by the media to create a news story. If Tony Greco hadn't been so foolish to try extort money out of Myspace he would probably still being annoying people like the majority of spammers out there.
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Jail all the darn spammers and hackers!!! Spam is a waste of my time. What really ticks me off are the darn programs that they use to watch mail servers. People who run mail servers know exactly what I mean, these spammers create so much traffic in some cases that the server running mail services sometimes comes to a crawl. Spammers aren't too bright though... I've not seen one yet who could spell (laugh... no need to comment on that folks I am quite aware of the reason that they are mis-spelling). I'd really like to see it come to a complete end.
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The reasons the spammers dont spell right is because it gets around the filters. If you block the word "Viagra" they will simply spell it "Vaigra" or any other combination of letters to get around spam filters, etc. The reason why spammers spam is because it works. If you send out 1,000,000 emails and get a 1/2 of 1% to respond at $10.00 a pop you just mad $50,000 and it didnt cost you a dime.
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I understand why people spam. Yes they will make money even if a portion of a percent respond to the emails. What I don't understand is why there are SO MANY STUPID people out there that respond to spam. They are the reason that it keeps going.
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100% Totally Agree!!! Bad Bad People... Bad! And you can tell the same people 10 times not to click on things... and they gotta... they just can't stop. And to have to explain the same thing 10 times to them, you just wanna wack em one up side the nogin! hehehe
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Very good point. These people have to be the apitamy of lazyness. It's bad enough they can't get up off the couch and go out and shop but now their to lazy to even surf the web to find good deals. They have to buy from what is delivered to them by spammers. This just amazes the bejesus out of me. And I don't even know what a bejesus is.... :()
STOP BUYING FROM SPAM!!!!
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All I have to say.
Jail? Reminds me of the song by "System of the Down" on their Toxicity CD, Song 1 - "Prison Song"
:-D
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This is old news. Bots in im land have been there for years. Yahoo messenger, AOl instant messenger, and MSN messenger have had spim bots which troll and put out spim. It's called press the block or iggy button. So I don't know why all the press is going insane about this. Bottom line, if you go online you will be spimed and spamed, and soon you will be jamed!
LOL
Mikee
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Because somewhere out there...some guy wants a bigger p****....
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