Internet Service Providers Become Involuntary Relayers of Spam
02/09/2005A new report suggests that internet service providers (ISPs) could be transformed into involuntary relayers of spam: an ironic development given that ISPs are principally charged with enforcement of the federal CAN-SPAM Act that is intended to crack down on unsolicited commercial e-mails. The Spamhaus Project, a leading anti-spam organization, reported this month that spammers have developed a technique to send massive numbers of emails through the computers of their ISPs, rather than sending them through individual machines. As a result, the so-called "blacklist" of known spamming computers is no longer effective. Further, in order for e-mail filters to block spam emanating from an ISP computer, all mail from the ISP would need to be blocked, an untenable situation that would shut down huge amounts of electronic communication. America Online (AOL) has publicly estimated that 95% of all spam directed toward its members now comes from ISP computers. This is the next evolution in spammers' practice of placing code on consumers' computers through internet viruses and spyware that turns the computers into "zombies" controlled by the spammers themselves.
