First spam, then spim, now spit

2004-09-29 14:35

Paris - You immediately hated spam when it started to clog up your e-mail box.

You have an unusual loathing for spim, the unsolicited text messages that now pop up on your cellphone.

So how are you going to feel about... spit?

Spit - Spam on Internet Telephony - is the term for voicemail sollicitations that, within the next couple of years, are likely to deluge web-based phone networks, the British weekly New Scientist reports in next Saturday's issue.

Internet telephony, also known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), enables users to make cheap phone calls by sending voice data to addresses on the net instead of routing them via fixed phone lines.

The number of VoIP users in the United States is touted to rise from 131 000 to 17.5 million by 2008, driven by the expansion of broadband connections which can carry the huge datastream needed to carry conversations.

With that surge in subscribers, spammers are bound to follow, because VoIP messages - as in e-mail - can be splashed out to thousands of subscribers in one go.

VoIP voicemail boxes "will become clogged with salacious spit messages, while denial-of-service attacks, launched by armies of spitbots dumped on innocent computers, could block phone lines", the report says, quoting Qovia, a US firm that has begun marketing an early "spit filter".

- AFP