An Analysis of Internet Spam

An Analysis of Internet SpamI am plagued by spam more than the average individual as I started the daisy. co. uk web site in about 1991. In those days, I naively put a lot of e mail addresses into the web pages, using the mailto: link. It was very much a mistake as spammers from all over the world harvested the addresses and then started to send me rubbish of all sorts. At first it was amusing, but as time went on it got more and more annoying. It started with cess pit emptying,

I am plagued by spam more than the average individual as I started the daisy.co.uk web site in about 1991. In those days, I naively put a lot of e-mail addresses into the web pages, using the mailto: link.

It was very much a mistake as spammers from all over the world harvested the addresses and then started to send me rubbish of all sorts. At first it was amusing, but as time went on it got more and more annoying. It started with cess pit emptying, drugs of all sorts, replica watches and other luxury goods, pornography and rubbish shares and has since moved on to attempts at fraud and virus distribution.

I now get upwards of thirty thousand spam messages a day!

That is a downright nuisance, but it also gives me a unique opportunity to collect, sort and analyse all of those annoying messages.

This note is an attempt to put some figures, conclusions and thoughts to everything.

James Miller
June 1st, 2008