Nine out of ten e-mails are now spam

Are you really surprised? I'm not. Over half the emails I get everyday are spam, and that's only because I have a spam filter; and guard my mail address- not putting it into every form I come across on the Internet!

Apart from the usual suspects, like American-based sellers of 'performance enhancing' products, the Nigerian scammers who want a small amount of money to rescue their fortune which they will then share with you (now joined by similar Arab scammers); I am disturbed by the growth of local spammers.

For a while, it seemed that local advertisers were benefiting from email advertising, as users where still responsive to it. However, it appears this is changing now as the amount of promotional emails we get is reaching massive proportions.

In any case, what started this conversation, is the latest report from Postini in the US, which shows that spam has tripled since June and now accounts for as many as nine out of 10 e-mails sent worldwide, according to U.S. email security company

Apparently, the company detected 7 billion spam e-mails worldwide in November compared to 2.5 billion in June. A Postini spokesperson went as far as saying that "E-mail systems are overloaded or melting down trying to keep up with all the spam".

A particular example stands out, in Britain where spam has risen by 50 percent in the last two months alone, according to another study by SurfControl.

Research suggest that the United States, China and Poland are the top sources of spam. It is being run by crime organizations. About 200 illegal gangs are behind 80 percent of unwanted e-mails, according to Spamhaus, a body that tracks the problem.
What has allowed this phenomena to grow exponentially is the hijacking of millions of home computers to send e-mails.

These "zombie networks", also called "botnets", and can link 100,000 home computers without their owners' knowledge. Fast broadband Internet connections, which are always connected, help the spammers.
They are leased to gangs who use their huge "free" computing power to send millions of e-mails with relative anonymity.

The costs of dealing with spam is the reason why its become a crime. It costs $1,000 a year per employee in lost productivity and higher computing bills, according to research published last year.

The latest programs mutate to avoid detection and send fewer e-mails from each machine. The gangs send millions of e-mails, so they only need a fraction of people to reply to make a profit.

It’s a constant game of cat and mouse, trying to stop the spammers, by tracking down their servers. But they don’t stay still long enough.

Now, they’re taking things further with ‘phishing’ but that’s a whole other story.

For now, don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution. Use regularly updated anti-virus and anti-spam software and don’t visit untrusted sites, or download code which could turn your PC into a ‘Zombie’.

zanasser@gmail.com

Another Skype virtue: Free video phoning!

All the talk about Skype being blocked, then unblocked, during the past month has opened up the eyes of thousands of new users to the value of this service; and every time I use Skype now I appreciate it more.

Typically, people use Skype for voice communication, but the chat/messenger part of the service is probably the best in its class too (surpassing, in my opinion, MSN), but things really get interesting when you consider the Video Phoning service!

Although I haven't tried it yet, as the service is still being developed and is yet to properly take off in the US, it looks very promising.

Video chat has been around for some time, offered by most instant message/chat services, but Skype does it differently.

Skype's software is a free download; add a Web camera and a reasonably fast broadband connection (ADSL), and you can make video calls for free to any other Skype user.

Apperantly, even when bandwidth drops, or goes week for a short period, you keep the voice channel of your video chat, until the video reappears.

It's not high definition video, in fact, it can be grainy, blurry and slow; but these video chats are good enough for most everyday uses, like actually seeing that family and friends look fine and happy!

The real advantages of Skype over its competitors lie in compatibility, reliability and simplicity.

The software downloaded to run the service works fine on both Macs and PCs. It also provides Linux and Windows Mobile versions, but those are voice- and text-only, without video support.

According to tests by reviewers and bloggers, all versions recognize webcams quite efficiently, then allow video-conferencing between both sides of a call without any further setup. That's simple enough!

By comparison, Yahoo and AOL's instant-messaging software doesn't auto-detect cameras, while Microsoft's Live Messenger fails to sustain more than momentary video chats. Also, the view you get while video chatting is different, it's not full of advertisements, just a simple window listing the people in your address book, plus a separate one for the current call or videoconference Skype's video window will display a thumbnail view of what your own camera sees, which can be enlarged.

The services now free inside the US and Canada, and soon could be free across the world. So how can Skype afford to give away all these services?

First, it's owned by eBay, which brings in enough cash. Second, Skype sells a variety of add-on services, such as international calling (at about 2 cents a minute out of the US) and the ability to receive incoming calls from land-line phones. Third, it doesn't have to run a massive centralized network to orchestrate all this communication. Skype relies on the same peer-to-peer networking technology used to run most file-sharing services. Brilliant.

I have literally 'seen' the future, and it is video telephony driven by Skype!

(Published in The Star)
zanasser@gmail.com

Washington Post: New Clicks in Arab World

A growing wave of young Arabs have turned to blogging to bypass the restrictions on free expression in a predominantly authoritarian, conservative and Muslim region.

By Faiza Saleh Ambah -- The Washington Post

Read here.

55% of the world's 100 million websites are blogs!

Technorati claims to be monitoring 55 million blogs. If Netcraft's newly announced figure of 100 million websites is correct, then 55% of Internet websites are blogs.

Read more here.

Next generation browsers: IE7 & Firefox 2.0

Both sides of the Internet browser world are undergoing a shift into the next generation. Microsoft and the Mozilla foundation are launching new versions of the Internet browsers which serve over 95 percent of the world's users- the remaining 5 percent are Apple Safari, Opera and Netscape Navigator users.

Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) is Microsoft's great new hope, or at least users were hoping it would be!

The browser has not received a completely new version since the millennium. All we've had are updates, fixes and some new features. Why Microsoft took so much time is not clear, but the weight of expectation in itself is already contributing to the disappointment of users and critics.

IE 7 requires that Windows XP users upgrade to XP SP2 (Service Pack 2), and focuses on security features that, obviously, are related to the security provided by the underlying operating system. Critics are saying that the XP version of IE 7 is not that much more secure than IE 6, in part because of its reuse of old IE 6 code.
Until Windows Vista arrives in 2007, IE7 will not be immune to security breaches caused by the current flaw-ridden, hole-punctured Windows XP.

Moving away from security, there are many other functionality features in IE7 that will please users.

There's a redesigned user interface, tabbed browsing, a built-in RSS feed reader and a new Favorites Center.

A unique feature in IE 7 is the RSS feed engine, that renders web feeds as a readable page, and a reboot installs this engine in the system kernel. Built in RSS reading is now necessary, as Opera includes a newsgroups-like RSS reader, while Firefox allows you to associate RSS feeds with third-party readers.

IE 7 can be downloaded free from Microsoft's website, but beware that part of completing the installation is allowing Microsoft to scan your PC for unlicensed products. This is part of the Microsoft Genuine Advantage program, by which the company's new policy is to offer free products or upgrades based on user's owning legitimate copies of the non-free products; like the Windows operating system or Office suite.

What happens if you agree to a 'license check' and you've got unlicensed software? Probably nothing, other than the fact that Microsoft will know what you've got. Will Microsoft have the time to review the license data of every one of the tens of millions of home or small office users? Doubtful, but you never know!

For now, many software analysts and specialized websites and magazines are recommending that users get Firefox 2.0, and wait for the Windows Vista version of IE7. Although this may seem biased, or anti-Microsoft, the fact is that IE7 for Windows XP only provides marginally better security, and does not deliver other features not available in the new Firefox 2.0.

So, Firefox continues to be a worthy competitor and Microsoft continues its quest to re-take its lost market share. What will happen next year is anyone's guess. In the meantime, I recommend you try both IE7 and Firefox 2.0. Whichever best handles the websites that you use everyday should be the one you stick with; at least, until the next updates of Internet browsers emerge.

(Published in TheStar)
zanasser@gmail.com