Lisa Minter (lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com) Thu, 9 Dec 2004 22:13:23 EST

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By Paul Majendie LONDON (Reuters) - Internet users praying for salvation from junk mail face a new torment -- "Spiritual Spam." Along with the flood of messages offering everything from mortgages to miracle cures, they are now being asked to repent and pray. "We are seeing more and more of it. It appears to be on the rise," said Martin Lee of e-mail security company MessageLabs. "The God-botherers are using the techniques of the 21st century. It's Spiritual Spam and almost all of it is Christian," he told Reuters. The prayers appear mostly to originate from native English speakers in the United States. "They are very good at hiding where they are. A lot of the stuff is relayed through China," Lee said. He said it is easier to act against the electronic evangelists in Europe than it is in the U.S. "The United States 'Can Spam' Act only applies to commercial e-mail. If you are trying to save their souls, then it is exempt from the U.S. Act. But it is illegal under European Union law because it is unsolicited," Lee said. The spiritual spammers are after souls rather than cash. "These are old-style evangelicals wanting to spread the message," Lee said. In one typical example, recipients are warned: "Eternity is a really long time. If you or someone close to you has not accepted God, please do so today." Then came the prayer: "Deliver me from all my sinful habits. Set me free!" Neil Hammerton, managing director of computer security company Email Systems, said: "This does not come from mass spam companies. It's people with requests they want to put out. He said they use a database of well known e-mail addresses and spam software they can buy for as little as 25 pounds ($48). "They sit at the end of a Broadband connection and send out thousands of e-mails overnight," he told Reuters. But he reckoned that spiritual spam still makes up less than one percent of the unwanted traffic that pours onto the Internet every day. The latest review by Email Systems showed that medical content made up 48 percent of all spam. Next came pornography with 15 percent followed by gambling with 11 percent and mortgages with nine percent. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . New articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

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