Is spam a threat to National Defense?

THIS WEEK the US Justice Department announced a major crackdown on cyber criminals with the arrests of a good chunk of spammers. This is the same Justice Department that has a good couple of hands full trying to keep Al Queda from doing a repeat of 9/11 between now and the end of the year. Why has bit-crime suddenly hopped up the priority list of Attorney General John Ashcroft and his gang?

There are many potential reasons, ranging from the practical to the highly cynical. I'd like to start at the practical and work my way up (or down).

PRACTICAL REASON #1: Spam is not only a pain in the ass, it interferes with the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies to sift through data streams and pluck out the interesting bits. A small number of spammers crank out up to 65 percent of e-mail, with about 43 percent of the spam traffic coming from the United States, according to Sophos and written about here by Nick Farrell. No matter how you slice it, that's a lot of noise to "signal" (i.e. e-mail you would really LIKE the government to read). Cut out some spammers, and the process of skimming bits by whatever means necessary (Carnivore, Echelon, other tools) becomes a lot easier. Pop media and many people attribute the National Security Agency and other government agencies with an efficiency to suck in the global data stream and select out just what they need that would truly be frightening -- if true. Having all that spam around can't be easy to work with.

PRACTICAL REASON #2/CYNICAL #1: Making an example of a few will scare the others. I suppose it all goes back to the old-fashioned custom of public executions. Taking out a few spammers in a big show of force will most likely make anyone else in the spam business think twice about sending out the next Viagra ads. Is jail time really worth that (heretofore) easy loot?

CYNICAL REASON #2: Sending a "message" to anarchists that keep running their mouths about shutting down the Republican National Convention in New York City next week along with web sites run by the GOP and any "supporting" companies. Wired News and other outlets have been giving CrimethInc and his so-called "Black Hat Hacker Bloc" a lot of coverage. Don't these guys know that Big Brother also goes to the DEFCON and HOPE hacker talks? About the only crime that might take place would be if the GOP and various corporate websites had NOT taken precautions to prevent and disrupt attacks on their sites. (Or maybe it's some sort of psychological ploy to get the GOP to spend a ton of money on security measures so they don't spend it on otherwise exploiting the masses, but I don't think so…) Bottom line: If you hack in a such a public fashion whereby you list your targets and how you are going to attack them, Attorney General Ashcroft has a nice cell waiting for you if you go through with your plan.

CYNICAL REASON #3: Bucking down on cyber crime is an election year ploy since the United States is still in Iraq, nobody got excited about going to Mars, the U.S. economy is still wobbly, and there's nothing better to try since the election may be as close in 2004 as it was in 2000. As absurdly silly as it sounds, there are some voters that would be happy to consider re-electing an administration that successfully waged a war against spam and phishers. Would it be enough to forgive all other sins? Not likely, but stranger things have happened. µ