It’s finally here! Talking spam!

This morning Commtouch Software Ltd., the Israeli antispam service vendor, announced that its Commtouch Detection Center has identified a huge outbreak of MP3 spam. Other antispam vendors have also detected it. These messages come with MP3 attachments that, when opened, play voice messages promoting stocks.

To hear an edited version of one of these messages, click here: click here

That distorted voice is creepy. It sounds like a female version of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Commtouch says it hasn’t detected a virus threat in the spam yet and the files are larger than standard spam, averaging around 85 KB, and reaching up to 147 KB. The message contents are mostly empty. The MP3 files carry the marketing message.

According to Commtouch, these messages have accounted for 7% to 10% of all global spam over the last day or so.

The spammers have of course given names to these MP3 files that are supposed to induce you to open them. Sample file names include dadsong.mp3, oursong.mp3, weddingsong.mp3, smashingpumpkins.mp3, bspears.mp3, gloariaestefan.mp3, beatles.mp3 and coolringtone.mp3. Would anyone really want to open an MP3 from Britney Spears these days?

The federal government is really cracking down on spammers. Here’s a video of the feds processing spam complaints:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjarLbD9r30

The federal government hopes its criminal prosecution of spammers will act as some sort of deterrent. On Friday, two men who were convicted of spamming millions with pornographic emails were sentenced to five to six years in prison.

I suppose prison time is a sharp deterrent to just about any crime, from murder to shoplifting. But read the details of that story. Jeffrey A. Kilbride and James R. Schaffer, who were convicted in June, earned $1 million in just over a year in 2003. That’s a lot of money for a business that requires very little overhead.

These two men were charged in part under the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act, which bans false and misleading header information and subject lines, requires opt-out methods for recipients of spam (for those of us who are stupid enough to click on anything in a spam message), and mandates that commercial email be clearly identified as an advertisement.

I don’t know about you, but a few dozen spam messages have gotten through the filters on my various email addresses today, and absolutely none of the senders of those messages adhered to any of these requirements.

Hence, the video of Charlie Chaplin above.

But the feds will continue to fight the good fight. Last week, the FTC ordered a halt to spam messages from a company called eHealthylife.com, which was offering “Hoodia” weight loss products and human growth hormone. The FTC is planning to prosecute the company and its owners for violating the CAN-SPAM act.

It’s good that the federal government is making an effort here, but this strategy is similar to building a moat around a sandcastle at the beach. Digging a hole in the sand won’t stop the ocean from washing over it. The vast majority of email traffic across the globe is made up of spam. Prosecuting one case at a time might deter some potential spammers, but it won’t stop all of them.

Analysts have repeatedly told me that Internet service providers (ISP) are the key here. They have to step up their efforts to monitor how their networks are used. They should be policing their own IP addresses for spam abuse. Unfortunately, so many spammers rely on ISPs based in the developing world, where the regulatory environment is pretty loose. The FTC could require better policing by every U.S.-based ISP, and spam would still be flooding our inboxes.

On the same day that Shamus had a close call with a spammer, the Feds arrested one of the most prolific (alleged) spammers in the world.

According to wire reports, Robert Soloway, a.k.a. “Spam King,” was arrested in Seattle on Wednesday, days after being indicted by a federal grand jury on numerous charges, including email fraud and identity theft. 

What caught my eye in the AP report, though, was the contention by the government that “computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk email,” thanks to Soloway’s apprehension.

While catching and prosecuting Soloway is undoubtedly a good thing, I find this claim highly dubious, to say the least. 

It appears that either the government is wildly exaggerating the significance of Soloway’s arrest, or it is completely and utterly ignorant of the extent of spamming. My guess is the former. The numbers are well-known and documented: According to a recent report by MessageLabs, one in every 1.31 emails worldwide is spam.

In other words, while taking Soloway off the cyberstreets is a step in the right direction, don’t expect to see a downtick in the amount of spam inundating your inbox. No matter how prolific, Soloway is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to spam. As Forrester analyst Jonathan Penn told me, “One down … 87,963 to go!”

This morning my email in-box contained an innocuous-looking message that informed me someone had sent me an online postcard. To read it, I needed only to click on a link.

At first glance I thought this was a legitimate email. I’ve received such postcards in the past. My first inclination was to click on the link. But I looked more closely at the email and saw that it contained a portion of the message on this so-called postcard.

“Hy [sic] my dear friend. Take this postcard from me until i will come home and be happy because i will come to you soon! I’ve just found out about this service from my cousin, who also told me that this is the best postcard [sic] …”

OK, it’s fairly obvious to me that this is a fake message. It’s fairly obvious to almost anyone. But the fact remains, I was quite close to falling for this. Imagine if some sort of malware successfully attacked a friend or colleague’s computer and then sent a similar message to me. Only this time, the message told me that the postcard was from said friend or colleague. Now I might be even more tempted to click on the link. And what would be waiting for me when I did? I don’t want to know.

A survey released this month (PDF) by the Pew Internet & American Life Project asked 1,405 email users about their experiences with spam. Twenty-nine percent said they are getting more spam in their work email inboxes, up from 21% two years ago and 18% three years ago.

Despite these numbers, email users said spam bothers them less than it used to. In 2003, 25% of users said spam was a big problem for them. This year, only 18% said it was a big problem. Meanwhile, the percentage of users who said spam is not a problem at all has risen from 16% in 2003 to 28% this year.

The survey report offered two reasons why spam is less of a problem for email users, despite its growing volume. First, it found that the volume of offensive spam (specifically porn) has decreased. Fifty-two percent of survey respondents said they had received pornographic spam, down from 63% two years ago and 71% three years ago. Also, the survey found that users are simply getting better at recognizing spam and know how to handle it more easily.

Still, the danger is that spam can always grow more sophisticated and pernicious. I consider myself very good at catching spam, but I almost fell for this one. And I can imagine ways that spammers could fool me in the future. That makes me nervous.

Perhaps that’s why IDC made the bold statement that email will struggle to hold onto its status as the leading form of business communication technology.

In research released last month, Mark Levitt, program vice president for IDC’s Collaborative Computing and Enterprise Workplace research, said rising levels of spam combined with the growing popularity of instant messaging (IM) and free and low-cost IP telephony will slow the growth of business email.

Judging from my own experience, I can see why that’s the case. I certainly use IM for a lot of communication that previously would have been conducted over email. But I don’t think the annoyance of spam is influencing my tendency to communicate more over IM. IM just provides more immediate, conversational communication. Email remains best for more formal business communication.

Do you plan your vacation spots around where you can check your email? Do you send yourself email just to get some during a slow period? If so, you are an email addict. But never fear, there’s now a 12-step program available just for you, designed by an executive coach in Pennsylvania.

The first step? Like most other 12-step programs, it’s admitting you have a problem.

Some other steps to email management success include “commit to keeping your in-box empty,” “establish regular times to review your email” and “deal immediately with any email that can be handled in two minutes or less, but create a file for mails that will take longer.”

We’ve been covering email for much of this month, so for more help, check out our most recent tips, guides and news on the subject.

Oh, and there won’t be face-to-face meetings in the 12-step program, but participants will be in communication with their leader … by phone.