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We're never amazed anymore about what clutters our electronic mailboxes daily. Only bothered.
On a typical day, Hotmail subscribers collectively receive more than 1 billion pieces of junk e-mail. Such spam accounts for 80 percent of messages received -- not including mail blocked by Hotmail's first line of filters.
Though Hotmail develops various tools for evading spam, unwanted messages keep slipping through.
"And it's increasing every day," said Parul Shah, a product manager with Microsoft Corp., which runs Hotmail. "Every time Hotmail or another e-mail service provider finds a way to detect spam, the spammer immediately has a way to get around that."
Call it an arms race: At best, the spam fighters are battling to a stalemate.
For many, spam has soured the Internet experience.
"It becomes more of a chore than a convenience," said Sarah Sourial, a student at Washington University in St. Louis.
Mostly legal unless it makes fraudulent claims, spam kills legitimate messages, wastes our valuable time and compels service providers to buy excess equipment to cope with spam-driven mail surges.
At AT&T WorldNet a year ago, about a dozen out of every 100 messages were spam. Today, it's closer to 20 or 25 -- on top of another 200 or 300 e-mails sent to invalid accounts by spammers trying to guess addresses.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/08/04/spammed.overview.ap/index.html
We're never amazed anymore about what clutters our electronic mailboxes daily. Only bothered.
On a typical day, Hotmail subscribers collectively receive more than 1 billion pieces of junk e-mail. Such spam accounts for 80 percent of messages received -- not including mail blocked by Hotmail's first line of filters.
Though Hotmail develops various tools for evading spam, unwanted messages keep slipping through.
"And it's increasing every day," said Parul Shah, a product manager with Microsoft Corp., which runs Hotmail. "Every time Hotmail or another e-mail service provider finds a way to detect spam, the spammer immediately has a way to get around that."
Call it an arms race: At best, the spam fighters are battling to a stalemate.
For many, spam has soured the Internet experience.
"It becomes more of a chore than a convenience," said Sarah Sourial, a student at Washington University in St. Louis.
Mostly legal unless it makes fraudulent claims, spam kills legitimate messages, wastes our valuable time and compels service providers to buy excess equipment to cope with spam-driven mail surges.
At AT&T WorldNet a year ago, about a dozen out of every 100 messages were spam. Today, it's closer to 20 or 25 -- on top of another 200 or 300 e-mails sent to invalid accounts by spammers trying to guess addresses.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/08/04/spammed.overview.ap/index.html