According to this article - http://www.informationweek.com/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=1935 01739 the recent sharp increase of spam is due to a couple of new trojans, one of which uses a peer-to-peer mechanism for it's bots.
My guess is that if the bulk of spam is being sent by bot-controlled PCs, then in all likelihood, the prime-time will coincide when most people are checking their email, surfing the web, etc. The bots then get turned on and do their thing. Regards, Martin Martin Visser Technology Consultant Consulting & Integration Technology Solutions Group - HP Services 410 Concord Road Rhodes NSW 2138 Australia Mobile: +61-411-254-513 Fax: +61-2-9022-1800 E-mail: martin.visserAThp.com This email (including any attachments) is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above and may contain information that is confidential, proprietary or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify HP immediately by return email and then delete the email, destroy any printed copy and do not disclose or use the information in it. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Thorsby Sent: Monday, 6 November 2006 10:56 AM To: slug@slug.org.au Subject: [SLUG] Some Thoughts Regarding Spam I'm sure everybody has noticed the massive upsurge in spam over the last two-three weeks. This increase in volume seems to have begun at about the end of the NSW school holidays, but I think that their ending may be more-or-less coincidental. Just watching the spam arrive, it seems to hit in waves: 1. start up time in USA (say 8.30 a.m.-ish on East Coast) continues for some hours (start up time on West Coast?) 2. start up time in Oz (East Coast) 3. go home time for Oz kids (say 4 p.m.) Mind you, these "waves" continue for hours. Could it be that there is so much "phone home" activity on the average Window$ machine at boot time that USERs (who don't have a clue anyway) and MSCE types don't realise that something's amiss? Of course, there are conspiracy theorists who claim that reducing the level of spam is not in the interests of those ISPs and phone providers that charge for traffic in both directions [no names, no pack drill]. But that surely can't be right :-) BTW, I've posted to SLUG-main rather than SLUG-chat because spam can never be OT on a list that itself is so heavily hammered. Robert Thorsby -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
