Like all great events, I remember the day I learned that spam was, if not dead, gravely wounded. It was November 17th, 2008. The story was that an investigation by internet service providers (ISPs) Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing into McColo, a notorious hosting service responsible for housing as many as 70% of the spam email operations on the Web, led to the plug being pulled on McColo’s operations by their ISPs. The end of McColo killed 70% of the spam on the Web, but as predicted, the spammers are back. Gourmet Spam You would have to imagine that the death of McColo last November was a serious wake-up call to the spam industry—yes, there really is such a thing—and you would be right. While the experts are still working on where all this is coming from now, that is less important than the changes that the spam has undergone. It is more sophisticated and better designed than before. According to Dermot Harnett, principal anal... [Read Full Article]

Government and Economy Obama Argues for Stimulus Before House Expecting easy House approval of an $816 billion stimulus plan, President Obama said the nation is at a "perilous moment" that requires swift and decisive action from government. Fed to Use Every Tool to Help Economy The Federal Reserve has signaled that it will continue with the “unconventional tools” they have used so far to cushion the pain of the recession, including keeping interest rates at record lows. [Read Full Article]