Pertingo Computer Support

I'm often asked by my Indianapolis small business computer services customers about the incredible abundance of spam. Their questions always come in a form like, "How is it possible for these guys to make any money doing this?" Thanks to researchers at UC San Diego, I can present a single example of how it happens. A research team highjacked a botnet and replaced the destination link with one of their own so they could see how many people clicked on the link to take advantage of the fabulous deal. In this example, the spammers would have generated about $7,000 per day selling fake Viagra at $70 - $225 per bottle. The true yield could be much more since the spammer now has valid credit card information on each of his victims.

It seems incredible doesn't it? The reality is that we're all gullible to some type of scam. When the cost to send billions of emails per day is virtually zero, one can take advantage of the extremely small number of people (in the extremely small number of people who will even get the email) who will seek the offer. And the numbers are very small, but look at how much spam gets thru all of the filtering you have in place. Should one of those pander to your penchant for discount dar chocolate truffles, you'll be hard pressed to stop that impulse to check it out.

I recently read a book by John Verdon called Think of a Number. In it the killer selects his victim using a smaller version of this same scam. By sending out a (relatively) large number of letters to potential victims in which he includes a sealed envelope with a number on it. In the accompanying letter, he tells his victim to think of a number, then open the envelope. Some percentage of the recipients will choose the number in the envelope. A smaller percentage of those will believe the sender has some sort of psychic connection and will follow his additional instructions. In the world of spam, the starting number is staggeringly huge.

My answer to the questions about spam that I receive frequently from my computer outsourcing customers is this, "We are the problem and spam won't stop until we all stop taking the bait."