Subject: [Asrg] 1c. Analysis of Spam - biological approach

From: Eugene Crosser <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:59:50 +0300

Gentlemen,

I was wondering if it could be useful to take a somewhat unorthodox view
at the problem of spam (for a change).

Consider the multipliciy of Internet email users ("email system") as a
biological organism.  Look at spammers as parasites (or bacteria, or
cancer cells).  Like parasites/bacteria, spammers support their life by
sucking resources from the hosting organizm, and possibly poison it with
toxic output.

Now, in the biological world, there can be several scenarios of
relationship between the host and parasites:

A. parasites have negligible or positive effect on the host's health. 
(in this case, they are called symbionts).

B. parasites have negative impact on the host's health (the host suffers
from a desease).

B.1. The host gets active defense against parasites and eliminates them
(gets well himself, or thanks to medical treatment).  Parasites die.

B.2. The host gets passive defense against parasites and do not suffer
anymore, while the parasites stay alive (scenario turns to 'A').

B.3. The host continues to suffer but stays alive, feeding parasytes
(chronic disease).

B.4. The host eventually dies, bringing parasites to death as well
(terminal desease).

Now, it could be interesting to learn which conditions define the choice
of scenario in the biological world, and try to translate them to the
"world of email".  This way, we can hope to get:

- prognosis for the further development of spam "desease" 
- estimation of potential effect of various proposed "medecines"
- clues on where to look for the best remedies

Anyone with a degree in bioscience here?  Or willing to bring in someone
knowledgeble?  Any previous works in this area?

Eugene

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From: "Kurt Magnusson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 16:13:03 -0300

>Yakov wrote:
>>Greg Wittel wrote:
>>knowledgeble? Any previous works in this area.
>
>I do not think this view has been taken before with spam (in
......
>I would add to this that this is similar in many ways to the analogies 
>drawn between real-world viruses/worms and computers viruses. Perhaps this 
>can be extended to spam.

Would oppose to that. Mainly because that viruses have a self-interest in 
expand to get control over it's environment, like an automata. I.e. the 
basic biological survival process. Som digital viruses and worms have the 
same functions, but a spam is totaly devoid of it. Spam simply can't 
"self-propagation" as a virus. It is dependent on the "work-order" of its 
creator. The virus doesn't care.

Spam is basically a economic function, i.e. to earn money to it's sender, 
not to dominate a ecological niche. Therefore spam in itself have today 
(except as a DoS function) no own interest or any internal function to take 
over the environment it thrives on, while the virus have. It is just a 
distributed "paper", with a content. Even if economy may look like viruses 
at times, there is significant differences. No, I would look at basic 
economic drivers as a model, something that is supported by those articles 
and interviews we have seen with spammers the last year.

The virus mutates to counteract environmental changes, while spam don't.  
All spams are still the same "paper" as on Spamfords time, a sellable 
content (a hoax is to sell something that don't exist :-) and a 
communication interface (usually a url/phone no). OK, we might persive them 
as changed over time because they are camouflaged nowerdays, but it is still 
the same active package in the center. A virus can change to something 
completely different, change ecological niches and so on.

Regards
Kurt Magnusson

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