First letter of email address determines spam load
London, Sep 2 : How much spam you get depends on the first letter in your e-mail address, a Cambridge study reveals.
Analysis of more than 500 million junk messages has found that addresses that began with more common letters were likely to receive 40 per cent of their mail from spammers. Those starting with less common letters, by contrast, would receive less than a fifth of their mail as spam.
According to the study, if the first part of an email address (that part before the '@' symbol) starts with a J, A, U, I, R, P, M, or S, then it is likely to get proportionately twice as much junk email sent to it than an email address beginning with Q, Z, W, Y or F.
Dr. Richard Clayton, a computer scientist at Cambridge University who carried out the study, said he believed the difference could be explained by the first set of letters being more likely to appear at the start of names than the second set.
The study did not draw a conclusion as to the exact cause of this phenomenon. However, Dr Clayton said there was some evidence to suggest that it could be due in part to the way some spammers launch 'Rumpelstiltskin' attacks. This is where the spammers use dictionary words and proper names in ascending alphabetical order in front of large numbers of domain names to generate their junk lists.
Using this spam generation technique, junk emailers would, over time, email more addresses that started with letters in the first half of the alphabet than the second half.
The research looked at 550 million email messages sent to customers of the Demon Internet service, one of the UK's largest ISPs, between February 1 and March 27 this year, according to The Telegraph.
Dr. Clayton, who presented his findings at a conference on email and anti-spam in Mountain View, California last month, concluded: "Measuring incoming email has shown that the first letter of email addresses makes a difference to the proportion of incoming spam." He said the results could help in the development of anti-spam measures.
--IANS
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Rating: This article has not been rated yet. Rate:
|
||
Jackson's Moonwalk Glove Sells For USD 350,000
Miley Cyrus' Driver Had Cardiac Arrest - Report
Bon Jovi And Sgwen Tefani Suing Bars
Noel Gallagher Attacker Pleads Guilty
Berry Gordy Honoured At Motown 50th Anniversary
Kelly Carlson's Fat Trauma
Joe Francis Too Sick For Court Appearance
John Travolta Thrilled With Street Honour
Courteney Cox Puts Cougar Town On Hold
Nicole Kidman And Kate Hudson Honour Everyday Heroes
Jackson's Moonwalk Glove For Sale
Sore Jordin Sparks Struggling To Enjoy New Number One
Stars Come Out For The Deftones
Family Issue Prompts The Cranberries To Cancel Concert
Fight Promoters Sue DMX
Judge Dismisses Assault Charges Against John Rich
John Travolta'S Family Day Out To Raise Charity Cash
Cole Slams Marriage Split Rumours
West Wing Star To Support Lopez In Dog Lawsuit
Second Autopsy Requested In Jewell Death
Lindsay Lohan Slammed By Store Over Freebie Demands
Shilpa Shetty ties the knot with Raj Kundra
7 killed, 60 injured in Assam twin blast
2 CRPF killed in Jharkhand mine blast
Gavaskar, not Sachin Tendulkar, a true Maharashtrian: Sena
Jayawardena replaces Sangakkara as No. 1 Test batsman
Sachin Tendulkar plays for BCCI, not India: Sena
Manmohan Singh arrives in Washington
'Playing Paa to Big B is difficult' : Abhishek Bachchan
'Man-woman relationship is too complicated' : Mahesh Bhatt
'70pc of my films is reality' : Madhur Bhandarkar
Jail came at the right time: Arya Babbar
'I' m only concentrating on films' : Mukesh Tyagi
'I am working on my Hindi' : Jacqueline Fernandez
'I share same energy with Ranbir': Katrina Kaif
'Don't call me 90-yr-old' : Manna Dey
'Kiss is lucky for my films': Emraan Hashmi
Manufacturing sector showing stronger signs of recovery due to stimulus: CII
Iran's Revolutionary Guards start military manoeuvres
New York man kills fellow commuter over train seat
