Ryan's Journal

In answer to my own facetious question as to lessening spam and the going-ons of April 8th and 9th, there does in fact seem to be a criminal involved. The most relevant event appears to be Jeremy Jaynes' sentencing to nine years in prison on felony spam charges. The judge upheld the jury's recommended sentence on the eighth, and news of the sentencing went out more broadly on Saturday the ninth. According to Spamhaus, Jaynes was the eighth most prolific spammer in the world at the time.

Sentencing just one sent the statistics into a downward trend for six months (July having more days than June, it appears to be less per day based on the rough cut). It's unlikely that subsequent convictions will have the same magnitude of effect, though. As Spamhaus notes, approximately 200 'spam gangs' are responsible for 80% of the world's spam. To get another four-fold reduction and make it last means disarming all 200 of those and making sure nobody takes their place.

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