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It might seem unusual that an Editor of a Journal about
Internet and banking would have - as the Australians say- a
good winge about Spam. However I believe it is not security
or authentication or privacy that is the biggest threat to
Internet Banking and Commerce - it is Spam. Spam is in your
mailbox right now - more than likely the first thing you do
on your business day is clear out the Spam mail that ingeniously
found its way into the sanctity of your mailbox.
There are a number of aspects to this insidious invasion.
First we all ignored it - Spam was a nuisance that had to be put up with. Some of those Nigerian Spam mails were at first quite funny! Then they started to slow down not just you as a nuisance - but also your ISP. And for that matter the whole Internet infrastructure. Next we found we could not buy software to effectively defend us against Spam. We were defenseless. Then we found our ISPs did not give a damn - every time I complained to my large phone utility ISP about it, I was logged "as a service call". Only reluctantly have ISPs put in anti- Spam software for their clients, and than it is not that effective. Then, in an ironic twist, the legitimate users - such as the Email edition of this Journal, were marked as Spam by an "outsourced anti-Spam enforcer" of another large phone utility which boasts the zero tolerance policy but does little to cut the real Spam U.S. government departments and soon other governments and businesses and - yes even the pillars of banking - such as SWIFT and Identrus will be not receiving Spam -of course not - but will be feeling the effects of this Internet infection.
In short Spam is the AIDS of the Internet - overlooked - denied by some as "not a problem " but just as serious and insidious as AIDS. Spam is the killer application - killer of Internet banking and killer of Internet commerce. May be as Editor I should suggest we change "Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce" to "Journal of Spam" - at least I would not have to worry about "distribution numbers".
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