Are Spammers Hiding Behind Students?

from the subletting-to-spammers dept

People in college will do almost anything for a little extra cash. Now, reports are coming out that students are "subletting" their network access to spammers. Spammers like it because it's a cheap way to hide where they're coming from. Students like it because they get extra cash. Everyone else gets screwed. At this point, there are only a very small documented cases of this happening, but it gives you an idea of the lengths spammers are willing to go through to hide their tracks. As someone in the article points out, it's sort of a "poor man's grid computing". Instead of getting kids to download software to work on SETI@Home or folding proteins, they're downloading apps to help spammers... and getting paid in the process.
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