Noticed a melancholy longing in recent weeks for more random emails asking you to buy products that increase the size of your manhood?
You’re not alone. According to a story in today’s New York Times, global spam has dropped by 20% in the last month, a reduction of about 50 billion emails.
The change is attributed to Russia’s investigation of Igor Gusev, an allged spam kingpin who acted as a middleman between the products being advertised and the hackers who conscripted armies of zombified computers to send the spam.
Police action on the part of Russia is a welcome change from its typical laissez-faire attitude toward cyber-crime. But the NYT doesn’t pass up this opportunity to cast aspersion on the dark world of soviet hackers.
If the loss of a single Russian had such a great effect on spam, imagine what a full scale investigation of a half dozen Nigerian princes could accomplish.
