The Open Road

For those who regularly use instant-messaging services like Yahoo Instant Messenger and Microsoft's MSN Messenger, you know that IM spam arrived long ago and shows no signs of leaving. Tuesday, however, I received my first Skype spam. Lucky me.

Unfortunately, I'm not alone. Skype spam is on the rise. It was just a matter of time, and I can't really complain, given all the value that I and my company derive from Skype.

However, the problem that I have with this spam business is that these dirty spammers keep confusing me with a mindless Windows sheep! (See right.)

Now, I can accept many things, but being confused with a Windows user? Unconscionable. :-)

More seriously, when are we going to start seeing spam filtering software and such, much like we have in spades for e-mail? Is there not enough corporate dollars in instant messaging to justify worrying about spam? Today, probably not, but that will likely change. Oracle, IBM, and others seem to think there's lots of money in collaboration tools.

This activity is all in corporate communication tools, but perhaps this will eventually lead to more protection of this sort of communication on the public chat networks, as well.

News recently broke that Russia is requiring registration for Wi-Fi use. I had forgotten until I checked into my hotel in Moscow tonight, and had the bother of having to go to a special desk in the lobby to sign up.

Reading the agreement, it sounds like this is an antispam measure? Seems a bit like the guns debate in the U.S. I doubt many of the spam kings and criminals that would be affected by it are going to register...

Russian Wi-Fi Agreement

(Credit: Matt Asay)

It's just a scam (see below), but I might have been duped into clicking had they promised me tickets to Arsenal's next Champions League match in Milan.

Clearly spammers need to tailor their messages to their audience a bit better. Promise me football (soccer) tickets and I'll be happy to send my firstborn. :-)

Wow. Who knew that Nigerians were actually behind those Nigerian spam attacks (at least some of them)? Nigeria should certify and trademark its spam the way Florida does its orange juice.

The US Department of Justice has actually wrung confessions out of two Nigerian men and one Senegalese man (who maybe thought he was Nigerian).

I love their aliases:

I just read this research paper from HP Labs, in which the report notes that 43% of all Facebook messages are spam. This was a bit surprising to me since until today I had never received a spam message through Facebook. I have been waiting for a "feisti_vixen" most of my life - who knew it would take Facebook to bring us together?

She seems so lonely. Maybe she should get some new "friends" on Facebook. After all, even though I've yet to receive much mail from the likes of feisti_vixen, I get all sorts of worthless noise through Facebook. It's impossible to log in without being hounded by all sorts of glittering, vapid communication:

(Credit: Barracuda Networks)

There was a time--2004 to be precise--when spam "only" consumed 70 percent of all e-mail. Those were the good old days. Today, as Barracuda Networks' annual spam report shows, upwards of 95 percent of all e-mail is spam. In 2001, the number was 5 percent.

We've come a long way, baby.

Ironically (or not), the United States' Can-Spam Act has done absolutely nothing (zip!) to stop the spam onslaught. It has come to the point that, as a separate Barracuda survey of 261 business professionals shows, we increasingly prefer telemarketing to e-mail spam. (I find that I'm much more willing to give my home address and phone number than my e-mail address these days. You?)

Some salient numbers from the reports:

(Credit: BusinessWeek)

I spent some time last week talking with Dean Drako, CEO of Barracuda Networks. I'd wanted to talk with Dean for some time, as I've been an admirer of the company for many years. Barracuda recognized the strength of open source, and capitalized on it, well before most people were willing to even give open source a chance.

The conversation was particularly interesting because of Barracuda's announced intention to join the Open Invention Network, as well as some research it had done on perceived customer value for open source.

I started by asking Dean, Why do you care about open source?