Re: Research: "95% of email is junk"

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.

(just being a pain in the ass today which is not much different from 
yesterday or tomorrow)

---eric