A report from Ipswitch indicates that spammers don't like the heat; spam has fallen 20% since March. Whether it's the heat from the prosecuters attempting to make good on their CAN-SPAM threats, or heat from the good ol' sun, is yet to be determined. Ipswitch isn't calling the war "won," though - they're worried about the rise in phishing, from 9% to 12.5% of all emails. Mortgage and loan spam is still popular, but it's falling as an overall percentage of spam.

You're just going to have to follow the link and go see. It's spam (Viagra, Cialis, the usual) made like they used to do ASCII art. It's quite brilliant, and best of all - totally fools the filter. The letters from "I miss you I hope you are doing well have a nice day I hope you still remember me" are arranged to spell "Cialis $28" and other pharmaceutical-pushing (and filter-avoiding) messages.

In news that shows the true hazards of always-on internet connections, MX Logic reports that 56% of all spam was sent from zombie computers in July; the third straight month that the majority of spam has originated with zombies. In June, the number was a whopping 62%. Zombies are PCs infected with a Trojan horse that sends spam from an unwitting user's personal account.

Food columnist Nancy King has been judging the Spam competition at the Indiana state fair for over 20 years, and she says she's never needed an antacid or had stomach troubles from ingesting various strange and wonderful Spam preparations. Co-judge, 71-year-old Max Fitzpatrick, says Spam is in his blood thanks to the long history of the food in his hometown, Franklin, Indiana. "..oh, I know my Spam… Franklin is the city of Spam and RC Cola."

In this year's competition, the delicious Green Tomato Spam Fritters won first place - and was a whole lot more palatable than a bunch of "cheapset Extra time pills without psrceription" emails. Spam, the meat product, again demonstrates its superiority to spam, the email.

Starting today, AOL is giving away over $100,000 of deliciously gangster-esque booty seized from spammers to its users. The goodies include 33 one-ounce gold bars, nine gold coins, $75,000 in cash, and a tricked-out 2003 Hummer H2. It's also so Snoop Dogg, isn't it? The spammer in question caused as many as 10,000 complaints a day, and was taken down with help of AOL users. They're also donating seized computer equipment to schools in Northern Virginia, where AOL is based.

Microsoft won $7 million in damages from Spam King Scott Richter - so what? you ask. They can't possibly need that pocket change. Fortunately, they're not just divvying it up among the company's shareholders (or hotmail members, which would have been sweet). Microsoft has pledged to give $1 million to the state of New York to help community centers teach technology skills, and $5 million to invest in its partnerships with governmental agencies that are fighting spam and other "computer-related crimes." They don't say what the other $1 million will go to, and it could be no more than a fancy accounting trick; according to general counsel Brad Smith, "We'll increase our own Internet enforcement efforts and expand technical and investigative support to help law enforcement address computer-related crimes." Maybe the $1 million unaccounted for will go to pay Smith's salary?

Just weeks after his reformation was made official, once-upon-a-time Spam King Scott Richter has agreed to pay $7 million in damages to Microsoft (the original suit was filed in New York by Microsoft and aggressive consumer advocate and NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer). Richter and his company, OptInRealBig, have also agreed to comply with all state and federal laws regarding spam. The settlement is conditioned on Richter and the company dismissing their bankruptcy petitions pending before U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Denver.

Boy, we really love our V1@GRA and C1al1s, don't we? Prescription drugs and other medications are a whopping 41% of all spam for 2005 so far, according to internet security firm Sophos. Mortgages come in at a distant second (but first in our hearts, natch) at 11%. Adult content (9.5%), stock scams (8.5%) and product (8.3%) rounded out the top five. Sophos is most worried about the stock scams, or "pump-and-dump" schemes, which have been increasing 10% each month this year. That's one heck of a compound growth rate.

My husband's a good man with a too-generous soul. You see, his brother, who's lived with us on and off for the past two years, had a habit of using my laptop late at night to look at porn and other unsavory things. He must have unknowingly downloaded some self-installing spyware and adware. And while that wasn't the only reason we finally made him go live with another relative, it was certainly a contributing factor.

Anyway, I figured out how to delete the insidious self-installing "Communicator Toolbar" after a diligent review of my Task Manager/Processes. (That will be a story for another day.) But I still had that nasty Aurora, a.k.a. ABI, a.k.a. ABetterInternet, and I was out of patience. We lived with it for weeks, until my dear hubby took matters in his own hands.

He started googling like crazy, learning (for instance) that Revenue Direct, the company that created the yucky self-installing, self-propagating, always-popping-up Aurora, has come under fire for their practices. But they insist they get the user's permission before installing (yeah, right, if you believe that I have stock tipp for u get riche kwik). Of course they obscure, as much as possible, the way to remove said software.

Let's just assume that my porn-crazy brother-in-law DID fail to un-check a box that said, "also download ABetterInternet! and 1,000 other things that will drive your sister-in-law crazy!" He's lazy that way. I'll give Revenue Direct the benefit of the doubt there. But I will say this: I don't like their insidious adware, never would have downloaded it myself, and I want it gone. And my husband was finally successful by downloading the uninstaller from http://www.mypctuneup.com/evaluate.php, in combination with Spybot (which removed a bunch of other stuff, and continues to remove the adware that self-reinstalls).

And, oh yes, lest you think I judge my in-laws too harshly, I must put in a good word for my brother-in-law-in-law (my husband's sister's husband), who turned us on to Spybot and installed it for us, on his vacation. We love you, Steve.

1. If they spell "pharmaceutical" wrong, I'm supposed to believe their drug knowledge is legit?

2. If they can't even spell "hello" correctly… why would anyone give them money? Who's to say they won't spell your street name wrong, too, when they ship out your "VlÁGRRA"?

3. Who's the idiot who looks at a From: name like "Absenteeism A. Neighborhoods" and thinks, "oh, don't I know an Absenteeism? What's his last name again… it's definitely not 'Boroughs'... that MUST be him!"

4. Forget the drug stuff, clearly, people are just looking for a bargain. What I really want to know, is: who is dumb enough to take a stock tip from the genius who writes a sentence like, "We Told last week at 1.20 and now its $2.10 and we think it goes to $4.00 on expected news this week." They can't even speak English and they have inside information? Riii-ight.

5. I've said it before, I'll say it again: it's a good thing spammers are so terrible, 'cause if they were good… they'd be billionaires, all of 'em.

In one more attempt to take advantage of the contingent who is always being sent to the dictionary to see if "gullible" has, indeed, been removed - an email making the rounds in London insists that you can dial the emergency number 112 instead of 999 (the European, and British, equivalents of 911, respectively) on your cell phone if you can't get a signal.

Untrue, says the London Underground - sure, that European 112 number is routed to 999 operators in London. But not if your cell phone doesn't have a signal.

Have you heard this one? Blogs, and RSS feeds, will replace email and then we won't have spam! Whee! Or, um, not so likely. I was pointed to a post on OnlyOnce about the subject. This one is the fourth in a series and discusses the "blogs will replace email" topic. He brings up some excellent points, e.g., just because blogs/RSS feeds are new media - doesn't mean they will make older media go away (for instance, radio has never gone away despite the invention of the "superior" TV and subsequent creation of streaming audio).

His other points are well taken. Just because spam makes email harder, doesn't mean email will disappear - and, if it did, d'ya think the "bad guys" would leave blogs and RSS feeds alone? Not for a second. And if you can hijack a VOIP call, ("spip") it seems likely that just about anything can be turned into unwanted marketing. It's a good myth-busting read. [via Feld Thoughts]

The honeypot strategy that internet firm Blue Security is planning to employ with its Blue Frog technology is "questionably legal, and completely unethical," according to Anne Mitchell, CEO of the Institute for Spam and Internet Policy. She pooh-poohs the idea that the company can prevent DOS attacks for "good" companies unwittingly caught in Blue Frog's honey trap by having human checkers to review antispam attacks. "Either they're not going to automate it, in which case it's never going to grow, or they are going to automate it, in which case it's going to start making mistakes," she says. How did this business plan even scoot through the gut check at company strategy meetings? No one knows. "'How the heck he got funding for this is a mystery to me," Mitchell wonders.

Well, it's not clear that Benchmark Capital, the VC firm who gave Blue Security $4 million, knew about the Blue Frog product when they funded the company. The company has plenty of products, and Blue Frog is still in beta. My verdict's still out - I have determined, however, that the logo is devilishly cute.

Coming to a theatre near you in 2006: Spamfather. It's the story of an anti-spam mafia that systematically kills the heads of spam rings worldwide. Sounds far-fetched, hmmm? No, more like ripped from the headlines. Bigtime spammer Vardan Kushnir was bludgeoned to death and left in his Moscow apartment, where he was found yesterday. The culprit is rumored to be an angry recipient of Kushnir's spam (or group thereof); death threats had recently been issued. Kushnir was particularly disliked because his spam ran the gamut from email to forum spam, blog comment spam, and ICQ channel spam.

Here I am, spam blogger, tech savvy marketing girl and I got hooked by the simplest trick. The subject line: "Complimentary Year Supply of Pringles, take the survey." And I almost downloaded the pictures, I almost clicked through. And commenced kicking myself. I couldn't believe it - I nearly got reeled in by the offer of free potato flakes pressed into not-found-in-nature shapes. If I had clicked through, I think I would have had to turn in my spam blogging credentials. It would have been the right thing to do. I don't even eat Pringles.

My behavior exposes an interesting lesson, though (and if you spammers are reading, please cover your eyes): if spammers would only appeal to us honestly and through straightforward means, we'd be all theirs for the taking. Would I click on an unsolicited email with the subject, "complimentary designer knitting patterns and handpainted yarn"? Or, "year's supply of Fuji 200-speed film"? You bet I would. We're lucky that spammers - up until now - are so bad.