Another reason to hate spammers

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This morning I posted on Twitter and Facebook a link to a ZDNet article (“Spammers go multilingual, use automatic translation services,” http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=3813) about how spammers are using automatic translation services to go multilingual. Globally, about 95% of spam is in English. Now, with automatic translation services, spammers can produce their spam in English and then translate it into German (46.5% of spam in Germany is in German) or French (53% of spam in France is in French). The ZDNet article shows how spammers are aware that non-English speakers are more likely to respond if the pitch is in their first language rather than in English. Give them credit for a global awareness that is only recently being shown by a lot of others who want to play on the global stage.

The writer of the article made an interesting observation. He said, “Despite the easy [sic] of use and free nature of automatic translation services, their use is prone to decline due to the questionable quality of the translated messages, which could potentially undermine the efforts the spammers are putting in the first place. Cultural diversity cannot be achieved automatically….” I am not too sure about the probability of decline due to concerns about quality. “Phishers” seem more attuned to quality issues. After all, their game depends on the quality being good enough to snare unwary victims. Spammers, on the other hand, seem more focused on quantity. If you can pump out enough of the stuff, someone is bound to click on a link.

I particularly appreciate the last comment of the writer: “Cultural diversity cannot be achieved automatically.” I’ll add, neither can it be achieved easily. It requires hard work and a commitment to keep working at it. It can also be exciting, a little scary at times, and lots and lots of fun. In the end, however, it is all worthwhile.