End of spam predicted (Ogg Theora stream at 23:00)

[Ben Finney]

On 22-Jun-2005, s. keeling wrote:
> Incoming from Chris Fortune:
> > > That's an accuracy of 99.87% and growing.
> > 
> > could this be the end of spam as we know it?
> 
> Poor assumption: spam doesn't get through, therefore spammers will
> stop.  You wish!  This assumes spammers have more than two brain
> cells to rub together.

Poor assumption: all spammers are stupid. Understandable; *most*
spammers are stupid. But the ones responsible for the vast majority of
spam are quite clever and adaptable: they get stupid people to do
their dirty work.


The reason this isn't the end of spam is simple: there's no
disincentive to the spammer for simply increasing the amount of spam
volume output indefinitely.

If you improve the filter so that its accuracy improves from 99.5% to
99.95% -- a ten-fold improvement -- this is fine until the total
volume of spam also increses ten-fold. Then your hard-won gain is
eliminated: you're getting the same amount of spam you were before the
improvement, and it's still increasing.

It's currently an arms race. Bogofilter is a particularly effective
weapon, and I'm very pleased that it's part of an ever-improving
arsenal, but don't think that there will ever be a point where we can
stop fighting if the present situation continues.


Spamming is profitable. It's becoming more dangerous to do, but that
just increases the price charged by the spammer. Since there's no
effective limit to the amount of raw spam a single person can produce,
then it doesn't matter how much of a niche it becomes, spam will
continue to increase as long as that connection holds true.

Spamming brings in more money than it costs to produce. We won't see
an end to spam until that's no longer true, for *anyone on the net*.


Until then, keep hacking bogofilter and improving it! We need to buy
all the time we can.

-- 
 \      "There is more to life than increasing its speed."  -- Mahatma |
  `\                                                            Gandhi |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney <ben at benfinney.id.au>
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