Balsam quit his job as a marketer, enrolled in law school, and then invested his time in taking spammers to court. Since this time, Balsam has cost spammers over $1 million in fines and boasts 42 wins in small claims court.

Can going to court really make an impact against spammers though?

Balsam states his case on his website, DanHatesSpam.com, “Smarter people than I have created some decent technological solutions to the spam problem – click the “Why Spam Sucks” button for more on this. I choose to attack the problem from the legal side. Why? Because judgments (or pre-trial settlements) hit spammers, or the marketers who choose to use spammers, directly in their pocketbooks.

My objective in getting into this was – and still is – to increase the spammers’ cost of doing business. Maybe then the spammers won’t falsify headers, and maybe they’ll think twice before spamming even after a recipient unsubscribes, and maybe the legitimate and “quasi-legitimate” marketers will think twice before purchasing lists of allegedly opt-in email addresses. If lots of people start suing the spammers, and the principals that benefit from spamming, maybe it’ll make a difference.”

Some don’t see Balsam as a crusader at all, but someone who’s out to make a cheap buck. Bennet Kelly, a defense lawyer said this of Balsam’s methods, “There is nothing wrong per se with being an anti-spam crusader, but Dan abuses the processes by using small claims court. A lot of people will settle with him to avoid the hassle.”

However, it makes sense that Balsam would tackle the problem with this strategy. There are a lot of spammers out there, and the lengthier he makes the process, the less time he has to hit their pocket books. So keeping everything in small claims court allows him to move quickly from target to target.

Balsam has gained a cult following in the marketing community, with many proudly supporting Balsam’s cause. Makes you wonder if he can find success, will it galvanize others to join in his fight?

So just how bad has shortened URL usage become this past month? Compared to this time last year, shortened URLs have nearly doubled in usage. During the period of June-July 2009, 9.3% of spam used shortened URLs in some fashion. During this time in 2010, it reached 18%. These two figures represent heavy spikes in spam, and don’t necessarily represent the average. When not showing spikes in usage, the average use of shortened URLs has increased. Symantec’s graph shows non-peaking use higher than the previous year as well.

All of the data taken in by Symantec shows that shortened URLs are becoming a mainstay tactic, and not one used every so often. Taking in all the data, you might be asking what the major concern is when dealing with shortened URLs. It has been shown that URL shorteners can help sneak past certain anti-spam measures.

Symantec provided a list of shortened URLs which saw the most activity during their testing period:

http://bit.ly

http://doiop.com

http://go.qb.by

http://ho.io

http://pnt.me

http://qurl.com

http://redire.ru

http://snipr.com

http://sniprurl.com

http://su.pr

http://tiny.cc

http://tinyurl.com

http://to.ly

http://u.nu

http://url.ie

Botnets were tracked, and Symantec discovered which ones were most responsible for using URL shorteners. The top known botnet was Storm, which utilized shortened URLs in nearly 12% percent of their spam. The majority of the botnets using shortened URLs were unknown.

Spammers are beginning to use shorteners more frequently, because they alleviate the problem of having to use long URL addresses that give away locations to potential victims. Another startling statistic provided by the report is the most frequently visited shortened URL spam link had 63,513 website visits. Showing that this tactic is something which needs to be met head on, because it isn’t going away.

Here are a list of various functions these programs carry out:

Junk Mail Reporting Program:

- A free service to provide reports on junk e-mail issues reported by Windows Live Hotmail users

- Returns the full message with headers of any e-mail marked as “junk” or “phishing”

- Provides senders an opportunity to clean their e-mail lists and improve the quality of their content

- Helps improve sender reputation by removing unwanted subscribers from lists

Smart Network Data Services:

- A free service that provides high-level insight on how users are rating the e-mail they receive and the health of your IP space as viewed by the Windows Live Hotmail system

- Provides easy online registration and access to data

- Reveals how many users complained about your e-mail

The lawsuit being brought forth by Microsoft, claims that the defendants created millions of accounts in order to have their messages sent through as legitimate mail instead of spam. Then the defendants would contact Microsoft in order to have their company removed from the spam list. Upon catching the culprits, Microsoft claimed they violated federal law; the CAN-SPAM act.

This story will be interesting to keep an eye on for those who keep up with anti-spam information. The defendant, Boriz Mizhen, and Microsoft have butted heads before. In 2003, Microsoft sued the company for spamming and settled for a $2 million payment. Can Microsoft win round 2?

Robert Kao, CEO of SmrtGuard said this of the new services, “Our goal is to provide the most comprehensive mobile security solutions for businesses and individuals, while making it as easy to manage as possible. anti-virus and anti-spam protection was the next logical step for SmrtGuard as smartphones, like PCs, have increasingly become an essential part of our business and personal lives.”

The new anti-spam feature has already been launched for the i-Guard security suite, which is specifically designed for Indosat. The only mobile phone carrier in Indonesia.

Guntur Siboro, chief marketing officer of Indosat said this of the new features, “We’re extremely excited to be able to offer our BlackBerry users these additional protection services. Virus and malware threats to smartphones are becoming increasingly prevalent and SmrtGuard’s innovation allows us to be on the cutting edge of mobile security.”

Along with Blackberry devices, SmrtGuard is available through Android. Along with those platforms, Symbian will be getting its version of SmrtGuard soon as well.

It’s funny how we have to start worrying about virus and spam problems on our mobile devices. Traditionally, our desktop and notebooks were all we had to concern ourselves with in regards to spam. I guess it’s time we shifted our focus to our mobile devices as well.

If you would like to find out more about SmrtGuard, you can find information about their services here. Unfortunately, their anti-spam feature isn’t available with their free service, so you will have to upgrade to SmrtGuard Pro.

Alison Southwick, BBB spokesperson warns of the scam, “What’s past is prologue and it was inevitable that scammers would take advantage of the excitement over the iPad to rip people off, just like they did with the iPod and the iPhone.Bogus offers most commonly claim you can become a tester or researcher and get an iPad for free. This is a deal that sounds, and definitely is, too good to be true.”

One of the first spam e-mails to circulate requested testers for the iPad, which led victims to Testitandkeepit.com. Upon entering the site users were told iPads would be sent out for testing, and they would be able to keep them as compensation. All you have to do is give up your email address and password, so your friends can know about it.

The iPad scams aren’t just surfacing through emails, but social networks are having problems as well. A Facebook page, ‘iPad Researchers Wanted—Get an iPad Early and Keep It’ popped up which tried to get users to sign up for a cell phone service charging $10/month. Facebook was alerted of the scam, and the page went down. Not before receiving 3,500 fans though. Proof that there were plenty of desperate consumers out there.

Along with the first two scams, the tried and true “buy items and receive free iPad” method is circulating through email as well. The scam has purchasers buy items in order to receive a free iPad as a gift. The only method to pay for the items is a credit card; you can imagine where things go from there.

The BBB recommends that consumers purchase their iPads through Apple directly, or an authorized retailer. If shoppers are too anxious, then a safer option would be to make a purchase through a secondary market; sites like Craigslist or eBay. Secondary retailers aren’t without problems, but they’re certainly safer than suspicious emails and ‘too good to be true’ Facebook pages.

The BBB has provided a guide available where online shoppers can get tips on how to shop safe: http://www.bbb.org/us/consumer-tips-technology/

There were fifteen pieces of software tested, and two new types of spam were added to the fold. First, image spam which tested emails containing at least one image. Second, ‘large spam’ which consisted of emails exceeding 50,000 bytes. The large spam emails have been notorious for slipping through the cracks.

Virus Bulletin included a statement in the online publication, concerning Sunbelt, “Over the past few years, Sunbelt has become a big name in the world of computer security…the product certainly has a good spam catch rate and won a VBSpam award with relative ease.”

It’s rather impressive that a newcomer to the review was able to walk away with top honors, especially going up against fourteen other competitors. Here’s what Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software had to say, “According to Virus Bulletin, the past decade has been defined by the emergence of spam as a malicious criminal activity that is showing no signs of dissipating, thus validating the industry’s need for superior products that combat this growing threat.” He continues, “VIPRE’s superb results in its first Virus Bulletin anti-spam test validate the product’s reliability and performance in protecting end users’ inboxes.”

VIPRE Email Security retails for $40.69 for a 1 year subscription, and provides a slew of options to its users. They claim the software acts as a comprehensive package which monitors various aspects of malicious spam. If you’re an Exchange user, there’s options available to integrate VIPRE Email Security directly into your Exchange network. You can find further details on it’s product page. It will be interesting to see if they can defend their award the next time a review surfaces.

At the end of 2008, the study showed one of the highest rates of spam at 94.2 percent. The good news is that the percentage of spam has decreased marginally in 2009. The first quarter of 09 showed 90.4 percent, and the number dropped even further in Q2 with 89 percent.

The numbers of the report conflict slightly with other spam researchers, Symantec, McAfee, and Cisco. Symantec is reporting a higher number of spam emails in Q2, then the ISPs. These companies also have provided stats that suggest botnets are the primary provider of spam.

Jerry Upton, executive director of MAAWG discusses the ISPs report, “And this doesn’t mean you are still not seeing spam or unwanted email getting to your inbox” because these numbers represent traffic caught before it hits users inboxes”

He continues, discussing the apparent drop in spam, “At times, we’re doing better, and at times we’re holding our own. This shows the bad guys aren’t winning, but neither are we.”

Upton also believes the dip in Q2 might simply be a matter of timing. Therefore, it isn’t safe to read too much into the spam decline, “This may be a somewhat seasonal pattern — it may go up”

A fact that many might not know is how much spam is blocked by ISPs before even hitting email inboxes. Couple that with the amount of email, and the costs of blocking spam mail significantly increases. Michael O’Reirdan, chairman of MAAWG, “ISP’s are stopping spam a lot at the front door using sophisticated techniques. But that involves significant cost”

In a few weeks, the Q3 numbers of the quarterly study will be released. Symantec has already produced their numbers which state that spam mails increased going into Q3.