On 7/27/06, Eric S. Johansson <esj@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John Honan wrote: > Link: > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5219554.stm > > Some statistics from a report by 'email security firm' Return Path; > > - 95% of all email is junk (spam, viruses, error messages) > - Less than 4% is legitimate traffic > - 99% of the computers they 'monitor' have been taken over by spammers > - Only 1% of net addresses could be regarded as legitimate sources of > mail. The rest are hijacked computers, or bots, used by spammers to send > e-mail > > Another company 'Ironport' claims that 80% of email comes from > compromised hosts.
you know, percentage numbers are pretty much useless without a reference enabling you to turn it into real numbers. For example, 80 percent of e-mail coming from compromised hosts means what? How much e-mail over what period? good Lord, this is the very statistic we need to get a handle on the zombie problem with respect proof of work puzzles.
I agree. Also, this appears to be a commercial whitepaper (which is why I called out the two company names) - So I'd love to find out more about their research methods, but I was unable to find any background papers on either of their websites.
The very fact they are 'email security' firms could mean the data results are skewed (i.e. the hosts they are monitoring could be more prone to being compromised) - So, if anyone comes across any references which use more reliable research methods, I'm all ears!
