Comments on: China vies with U.S. for spam title, report says

Overall, computers in Asia relay more junk e-mail than those in any other continent, according to Sophos research.

a normal article with a misleading racist headline

A title like this, similar to all other titles that are used to attract western readers' eye balls, will leave a negtive image of Asia and Asian people into those reader's brains, subconciously and eventually lead to hate between races.

I hope this is just one author's biased view, not representing what cnet standards for.

Otherwise, with CNET's influence in the online tech news readers, CNET itself will become the real public enemy!

You can say the fact as it is!

[iradi8]

Overreacting a little aren't we?

I am in no way trying to devalue your opinions, you are welcome to them. But I think you are over reacting to the headline of the article. I seriously doubt that anyone is going to take a dislike to Asian's and Asian decendants just because we say that "Asia is public enemy #1 for spam". I mean we can all read the full text of the headline. As an american I am personally a little offended that you think I am that stupid and gullible that I would be turned into a Asian hater just because of an article headline.

Yes I will give you that they could have worded it better, perhaps "Asia #1 Spam Source" granted it isn't as exciting, but you are right that it is less inflamitory.

The thing is that here in the states saying that something is "Public enemy #1" is so common place that it is of little meaning anymore when seen in a headline. Just my little opinion.

[Jon Skillings]

Headline changed

While I would hardly characterize the headline as racist, it could have been more nuanced. It's been changed to this:

China vies with U.S. for spam title, report says

[iradi8]

Users do care, but are ignorant

The article states that computer users don't care about viruses and other "infections" on their computers. As an IT professional I can say unequivically that this is NOT the case. It's not that users don't care, it's that they are ignorant. Not only of proper security practices, but also of what is actually going on with their computers. I can't count the number of times that I have had my users come to me and ask if I can take a look at their old computer, thinking that it is just old and broken down and needs to be replaced. When in fact the real problem is that it is so loaded down with adware, spyware and viruses, that it can barely open up and e-mail or word doc. After going through it with a fine toothed comb and removing all the junk, adding protections and doing some basic maintinance, they are beyond shocked that the system runs just like it used to when they first got it.

It is the old problem of people not being aware and not being knowledgable about their equipment, I am sure that car mechanics get the same kind of behavior. So saying that users don't care, is not only misleading, it misdirects us from the real problem. At least with cars people have to be licensed to get on the road, too bad the same isn't true of the Information Superhighway!

[tppp]

Meanwhile US businesses are still the #1 source of spam

The spam might be sent using trojaned computers in Asia (and elsewhere), but it's still, mainly, advertising business located in the US.

[umbrae]

This is old news...

I have run my own mail server for many years and can tell you that Asia has always been the public enemy #1 for spam. Most US spam follows the legal restrictions set, so it is easy to filter and block. The US may GENERATE more spam, but very, very little makes it through the default filters set in more mail "server" software.

However, Asia has MANY open relays for spammers all over the world to take advantage of, and more likely to use illegal tactics to forge email headers. Language issues also make if difficult or impossible to help administration close holes or resolve issues. Most other countries at least use Google translators to try and respond: where as I get back stuff from Asia that requires special international fonts.

I only get about 1 or 2 messages a week that make it through my filter. 98% of the time this is an IP handled by APNIC (which is Asia's IP registry like ARIN). I block the ENTIRE subnet owned by APNIC and I never see anything from there again. After about 5 years, I had almost all of Asia blocked and only got 1 or 2 spam messages a month, but my server crashed, so I have been building up my block list again.

Asia = Bad Spam Country

[Lerra]

3rd party software to fight spam

"McAfee and Sophos agreed that spam was unlikely to disappear, and called for Internet service providers, businesses and home users to run antispam software."

I have purchased Spam Bully to fight spam. I'm so glad to have control of my Inbox again. This is a great product!

[hadaso]

harder for hackers to break into Windows???

> Windows has made it harder for hackers to break
> into Windows systems, because a rudimentary
> firewall and automatic updates are enabled by
> default

Windows is still set by default to give anything admin privilges, incuding whatever you children download from the web, whatever you get by email from unknown sources, whatever you click on when surfing the web, whatever is automatically installed by any CD you put in your CD drive...

The kind of "security" built into Windows (even the "security-themed" WINXP SP2) is the kind of security that lets everything in and every once in a while finds that something got through. An antivirus program would only protect you against known viruses, and only after the virus can be scanned (so it's already in your system). The same with "anti spyware". They don't prevent the things. They just try to remove them once they are already there.

I only use a non-admin account except for software updates, and a few retarded programs (like the one that came with my video capture card that insists on writing to c: and not to a folder). I use a limited account for any access to the web (expept "Windows update"). I have a dedicated old machine used only as a firewall (Smoothwall). I have my email scanned for viruses on the server. I never had a virus. Never had any kind of spyware. I scan for them every few months but they're never there!

Now to spam: I only get spam on email addresses that were published on the web. I don't get spam on any address used normally and haven't put openly in a public place. People get spam because they ask for it. People who take care not to publish the addresses they need to keep in public places don't get spam (well... unless they use a very common usename in a very common domain...). Email addresses are as cheap as dirt. People suffer from spam because they are led by their ISPs to believe that the email address they got from their ISP is indispensible, just like a phone number. That's wrong. Phone numbers are scarce. Email addresses are not. Your ISP could let you have more email addresses than all the phone numbers in the world, and it would cost the same (i.e., it would cost absolutely nothing to the ISP).