US Politicians Circulating Spam

As per the security specialist Sophos' researchers, innumerable PC users got unauthorized mails from Republican and Democratic candidates before November 7, 2006 elections.

Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant, Sophos, reported that a Sophos Spamtrap is not a legal US voter. So why did it get messages telling it to vote in mid-term polls? The spam is already clogging the net, so is it really necessary for politicians to adopt such measures to add to the existing problem by sending such messages?

The company blamed both democratic and Republican parties to add to the problem of spam with their promotional campaigns before elections. It also reports that the messages are not classified as spam as per US law because CAN-SPAM act cannot be imposed on political parties. However, the web addresses used to send mails were not of legitimate US voters and were not included in any mailing list. This made the campaign seems similar to any other mass mailing scam.

Sophos' Senior Security Analyst, Ron O'Brien, stated that political spammers are employing unknown IP addresses for dispatching spam. They are sending the messages from a non-spamming IP address. So, there is a fair chance that it will reach your inbox.

As per Cluley, it appears that some of the representatives from US political circle, who may have helped in drafting anti-spam laws, are themselves contributing to the bulk of unrequested, unwanted mails. It may also happen that these unwanted political mails irk the receivers enough to force them to vote for the opposite party.

Cluley informs that last two months has seen a huge rise in spam anounts, US being the main force of attack. He gives the credit to Stratio email worm's success, also called as Warezov and Stration. With more than 2000 variants, Stratio has proved proficient in infecting systems and transforming them into spam transmitter. This has made US the top spamming nation and widens its gap with China in second spot.

Related article: US Passes Baton to Asia in Spam Relay

» SPAMfighter News - 11/13/2006