Yesterday, peering to McColo, an ISP accused of providing the transit for 75% of the world’s spam, was shut off. VNUNet and The Washington Post both talk about where the figures come from. I’d like to explain what this can potentially mean to the advertising world, and some realities that need to be checked first.
Connectivity
With 75% less email travelling through the pipes that make up the Internet, there is a huge amount of space freed up for people visiting legitimate sites, chatting on IM services, or sending legitimate email, amongst all the other things that happen on the Internet. That means potentially faster connections to websites that are located elsewhere around the world.
Email advertising
With less spam being sent, emails sent for legitimate marketing purposes will slowly get better and better spam ratings as less spam means it will be easier to spot the rogues coming through. This means more flexibility with email content, and therefore a greater ability to be creative in email campaigns.
Realities
This is great news. One problem though. Botnet owners (the people who “own” the networks that send the spam out) are a bit like parasites. They’ll quickly enough find another ISP to latch on to and reconnect with their zombie machines.
On the other hand, one email provider kindly gave me a graph from their spam filter over the last 7 days. It clearly shows a massive reduction in spam coming through the system in the last couple of days – the time in which McColo has been off-line:
How spam works
Spam is one of the very reasons why spyware (malicious software that sits on your machine) exists. Often, it turns your computer into a zombie machine. Ever found that your downloads are stupidly slow or you just can’t access websites? That may be because you’ve installed something and one of the botnets now controls part of your machine. They call home, and await instructions. When someone gives out those instructions, every zombie connected goes and sends mail out. This reduces the workload of the botnet owners and the requirement for them to have a whole host of computers for sending spam out. They just use us, like a virus uses us.
Can we expect change?
Maybe. If peering providers (the major ISPs that provide backbone services to the Internet) are quick enough to notify each other of the botnets, and they’re cut off at the source. However, if this particular set of botnets have lasted this long, how long would they last with a new provider. I guess we’ll find out soon enough, if spam levels return to normal in the next few weeks.
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