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Beware Of Spimmers!
spim n. Unsolicited commercial messages sent via an instant messaging system. Also: spIM.
spimming pp.
spimmer n.
antispim adj.
Whatever form of communication we use, it always makes a good opportunity for marketers to start exploiting it. So it is that spam has come to instant messaging-yielding IM spam, or spim. It’s been around a few years, but only in the past few months has it reached the threshold of disruption.
Officials at America Online, which runs the popular Instant Messenger service, and Microsoft, which runs MSN Messenger, say they’ve seen an increase in the amount of IM spam. Messaging and collaboration research firm Ferris Research estimates that the quantity of such solicitations doubled from 2002 to 2003. The volume of so-called spim is set triple in 2004, according to a new report from the Radicati Group, a technology market research firm from California.
IM software allows users to swap text messages and files in real time from a computer or cell phone, with Microsoft, Yahoo or AOL programs being the most popular. Spim is more insidious than spam because messages pop up automatically when a user is logged in, making them harder to ignore. However, users of IM programs commonly use a “buddy list” of invited friends to limit who can send messages to them. The buddy lists can be switched off, but their widespread use makes it more difficult for spimmers to message a stranger’s computer. Faced with these challenges, spimmers have developed new tools. Some resemble common virus writing techniques, such as devising a malicious piece of code that exploits vulnerabilities in IM programs. Spimmers bury the code in a link or file and send it to an IM user. If the user activates the code, the spimmer can then message people on the user’s buddy list by borrowing their identity. Although spimmers must initially find users whose “buddy list” setting is switched off, getting that user to then click on a link or download a file is often easier than it is via email.
As posted at Pew Internet and America Life Project’s PIP comments series by Lee Rainie, in the The Advent Of Spim , 30% of American adult instant messaging users (which makes some 17 million adults) have gotten spim. Their latest nationwide telephone pool (taken between January 13 and February 9) show that younger internet users (who are more likely to use IM) are the most likely internet users to get spim.
In the USA, the first arrest over spim already took place. A 18-years old boy was arrested for sending 1.5 million messages, advertising pornography and mortgages. Quite scary, huh?
So, now we’ll have to worry about how not to get spimmed or what? Considering that I tend to use IM every day, I am getting quite nervous here, only thinking about the possibility of dealing with it.
Leave us alone, you intrusive sellers, marketers, advertisers, and who ever may fall into this category!
By Nana | February 22, 2005 | Topics: Tech |