Summary
A widely used technique of spammers is to hide the destination of sites mentioned in their spam emails by using confusing, obfuscated URLs. These are almost impossible for the human eye to comprehend, yet still work in most web browsers. It is time for web browser software developers to deny spammers of visitors to their masked and disguised sites by refusing recognition of obfuscated URLs.
Furthermore, tracing features need to become a standard function of web browsers, so that visitors to a site have easy access to URL or IP traceroute, whois and other such information about sites they visit. This will make the task for spam victims wanting to report spammers to their connection and hosting providers much easier, increasing the risks of termination to spammers.
In recent times, spammers have been making greater use of viruses and trojans, sometimes infecting end-user computers when they visit certain websites, to create "back-door" mechanisms for sending spam from innocent persons machines. Web Browser developers should increase the security features of browsers to block suspicious or surreptitious downloads onto end-user machines from websites visited.
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