Spam darwinism

According to Reuters:During calendar 2003, AOL blocked nearly 500 billion spam messages from reaching user inboxes, an average of 40 fewer such messages per day per subscriber account. The company said it regularly blocks 75 percent to 80 percent of incoming mail as spam.That’s a whole lotta spam.

However, with the advent of better spam filters as well as legal regulations, said AOL’s Charles Stiles, the “amateurs” have been forced out of the spam business, leaving the die-hards still standing, so in a sense the increased legislative and technical pressure is “sorting out the wheat from the chaff.”

The low-hanging fruit has been picked clean, and what’s left will become tougher and tougher to fight. It’s really sad to think about all the energy, thought, and money going into the black hole of spam defense. Instead of having all those programmers creating new, interesting software, they’re down there in the trenches fighting the arms race against the vermin.