There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to the same species; and it was strange to think that but a little while before they had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed - W. Somerset Maugham
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US tops lead in spam generation
AV FIRM Sophos released figures which it said showed the USA was the biggest culprit in spam generation.
Nearly one in three spam messages were generated there, Sophos said. [Yeah, thanks to our readers. We originally said one in 20. Sorry Ed.]
Carole Theriault, a security consultant at Sophos, said: "The problem is there are thousands of spammers using many thousands of compromised zombie computers in the U.S. The only way we're going to reduce the problem is if U.S. authorities invest a lot more in educating computer users of the dangers, while ensuring ISPs step up their monitoring efforts to identify these compromised machines as early as possible."
Goodie two shoes Canada, she said, only generates 0.8 per cent of spam and emals.
Here are the Sophos figures:
1. United States 28.4% 2. South Korea 5.2% 3. China (inc. Hong Kong) 4.9% 4. Russia 4.4% 5. Brazil 3.7% 6. France 3.6% 7. Germany 3.4% 8. Turkey 3.2% 9. Poland 2.7% 10. United Kingdom 2.4% 11. Romania 2.3% 12. Mexico 1.9% Other 33.9%
In all, North America accounts for 32.3 per cent of spam relay, Asia 31.1 per cent, Europe 24.8 per cent, South America 9.1 per cent and Africa 2.1 per cent. Other - that would include Antarctica we presume - accounts for 0.6 per cent. µ
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So yet another reason to dislike americans. [Er, we like Americans. At the INQ we like every country in the world. We even Antarcticans from the planet Zabubbletrubble. Ed.]
It's between 1 in 3 or 4, not 5 or 20. Other Continents mentioned contain many countries and nations, USA is "One Nation .....".
The table shows 28% of spam coming from the US, while earlier in the article it says it's 1 in 20. 

28% is closer to 1 in 5. I can't do the exact maths :)
Now what to do about it? Support systems like Blue Frog more? Force vendors to be more responsible in designing their products? Automatically start kicking bots off the net?

I'm sorry so many users are clueless, but the last one seems to be the best option. The only other real choice is a Blue Frog style approach to make it less profitable or a liability to spam.

One should not necessarily believe what one sees - especially on the internet and especially when it concerns statistics.

I wonder what the numbers would be if Sophos (after learning simple math - good catch Kip)factored into the statistics the number of computers in each of those countries.

Also, I wonder what "authorities" are responsible for teaching computers users the "dangers"? The government? The schools? The police? LOL - ignorant statment, if you ask me.
In the US when someone uses a plain old telephone to spam in a big way, they get fined, roasted in front of the press, and sent on their way. But, the Feds don't seem to care about what happens online as it's not hurting the well heeled interests. Er... lobbyists. And while we are on the topic, how much money are Microsoft and Symantec making off of protecting us from spam?

If the US government took 1% of the resources it put into the DMCA and applied it to spam control, we'd see a lot less spam coming from the US.

ScottJ