Want to get rich? Do spam!

from www.computerweekly.com

Spammers are making profit even though they are only getting one response for every 12.5 million e-mails they send, researchers who hacked into the infamous Storm spam network have found.

The spam study was carried out by computer scientists from University of California Berkeley and University of California San Diego.

For the month-long study the computer scientists infiltrated the Storm network, which uses hijacked home computers as relays for junk mail.

At its height, Storm is believed to have had more than one million machines under its control.

The researchers created several "proxy bots" on the Storm network to send out their own spam.

The team used these machines to control a total of 75,869 hijacked machines on the network and routed their own fake spam campaigns through them.

Linked to the spam e-mails they sent out, the team created a legitimate looking pharmacy site selling "male enhancement herbal remedies".

The fake pharmacy site was made to resemble those run by Storm's real owners, but it always returned an error message when potential buyers clicked a button to submit their credit card details.

The researchers sent about 350 million email messages over 26 days, which resulted in only 28 sales.

The response rate for the campaign was less than 0.00001%. Direct mail campaigns aim for 2.15%.

Even though the experiment saw a poor conversion rate, the researchers said that by sending out many more messages, the owners of the Storm network could be earning £4,500 a day, or £1.6m a year.

Why yoga? Choose solat instead

Wikipedia refers to yoga as traditional physical and mental disciplines originating in India; to the goal achieved by those disciplines; and to one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy.
It is intimately connected to the religious beliefs and practices of the Indian religions. The influence of yoga is also visible in Buddhism.
Practising yoga won’t cause a Muslim to deviate and become a Hindu but copying or adding elements which are clearly from other religions is not acceptable in Islam. The reminder was given in Surah Al Kafirun.
By practising the act which is endorsed by the Hindu and Buddhism religions, one indirectly permits these religions although the faith in the heart remains unchanged.
Muslims who feel offended need to take this issue seriously. In Islam, there are so many healthy activities well known to be good for the health, physically and mentally.
One such activity is Solat, which is to be performed five times a day. Solat dictates a sequence of movements which is good for the body.
There are some health benefits in performing the prayer as it has been proven to increase concentration and refine memory, provide a calming effect and regulate stress, and make the body healthy and active.
Studies have shown that the act of sujud, or prostrating, in solat, encourages blood circulation to several nerves in the brain which do not receive regular blood flow in normal positions. The hearts and spines of pious Muslims are healthy as they receive constant stimulation.

So why look far for such stuff for a healthy lifestyle when you can find alternatives so close to you?
I AGREE!

TENGKU AZLAN SULAIMAN,
Sri Kembangan.