Our friends over at SpamShield have come up with a really nifty use for Google maps – they have created a spam map – they call it “Spam World” – which maps where all the spam is coming from – around the world – in real time (well, updated every fifteen minutes).

If you are looking for a good free anti spam spamfighter – a free spam blocker or free spam filter – to help you deal with spam email, here are a couple of free spam filters and free spam blockers – including free anti spam software – that you may not have heard about! Now you can deal with your spam mail with your choice of a free Internet spam filter or free anti spam software! There is even free anti spam software for World of Warcraft users (SpamMeNot and one version of SpamSentry).

A rash of virus-laden spam has been going around posing as Hallmark e-cards or other e-cards. “You’ve received a greeting ecard from a friend” says the subject. Variations include “You’ve received a greeting card from a partner”, “You’ve received a greeting postcard from a class-mate”, and “You’ve received a greeting ecard from a class mate”. The “ecard” appears to come from such legitimate sounding addresses as hallmark.com, MyPostcards.com, postcards.org, e-cards.com, NetFunCards.com, FunnyPostcards.com, Greeting-Cards.com, and VintagePostcards.com.
Whatever the variation, it’s not only spam, it’s almost certainly carrying a virus or a trojan which will turn your computer into a spam- and virus-sending robot.

The trio that brought us Blue Security and their Blue Frog, the DOSing service that planned to DOS spammers, and that went belly up after a spammer instead DOSed them (well, duh), has apparently decided that spamming is more lucrative (again, well, duh), and founded a new company called Collative to do just that.

Talk about the latest detailed news on botnets! The ultimate of an inside look at botnets – it is the real, first-hand account of what happened this week when a zombie botnet woke up, based on some unseen signal triggered or programmed by the botnet owner, and took over hundreds of customer computers at a large US broadband ISP.

MySpace has announced that it has filed a lawsuit against the once (and future?) King of Spam, Sanford Wallace. MySpace says that Wallace “implemented a phishing scheme to falsely gain access to MySpace user profiles.

Recently I started getting invitations to join Flixster from complete strangers. Obviously, this was spam, but why were these complete strangers sending it to me? And why were they always from AOL and Hotmail? Now people are asking – is Flixstr accessing your AOL and Hotmail contacts list and spamming them in your name?

There is a rather bizarre bit of spam going around this week. It appears to be aimed at anti-spammers, but others are getting it too. It’s a very short email, which says, in toto, anti-spammers are lamers subj, regards, spammer.

“Greetings from Iraq,” the subject line says. Who wouldn’t at least give that a glance the first time they see that in their inbox? And that’s exactly what scammer “Merrill Melvin Hansley”, a supposed security manager of STE,CCPLUS STORAGE SARL storage company in Iraq, is counting on.

While complaints continue to roll in about cell phone spam from SMS text message spammers Mblox and their partners Dada Mobile, new complaints are starting to surface about new SMS spammers FunMobile, Freeze Mobile (a/k/a FreezeMob), Free Mobile and My Lifestyle. FunMobile may come through with the short code 99621, and Freezemob as short code 36726.

mBlox, the company that bills itself as “The World’s Largest Mobile Transaction Network”, has just issued a press release exclaiming “mBlox Publishes Record Off-Portal SMS Transactions in 2006.” Of course, as Internet Patrol readers know, countless people have received phone spam from mBlox and their partners DadaMobile and Nevis. In fact, there are more than 180 comments right here on the Internet Patrol complaining about mBlox, DadaMobile, and Nevis Mobile.

It was the oddest collecton of spam-related searches I’d ever seen: print_silk_test print spam_silk_test spam loading, print_silk_test print, spam_silk_test spam, print spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test, spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test delete loading, spam_silk_test spam, delete_silk_test delete loading yahoo, print_silk_test print spam_silk_test spam loading yahoo beta, spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test delete, print spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test yahoo loading, and print spam_silk_test spam delete_silk_test yahoo. What, I wondered, did it all mean? What is a silk test? Is this some bizarre new spammer lingo? Perhaps a spamming program?

When you are thinking “Oh, how much I hate spam” (does anybody ever actually think “I want spam”?), and you want to exact some of your own spam revenge, your thoughts may turn to becoming a spam killer. But others vent through more gentile avenues, such as spam haiku, spam poetry or, this, penning the ultimate junk email.

Spam laden with trojan viruses are running high this month – primarily the Small.DAM Trojan – so be extra careful. Common subject lines include those about “Storm Batters Europe”, updates on Condoleeza Rice, and claims that Putin is dead and Hussein is alive. The subject lines vary, but the Trojan payload remains the same: executable files surreptitiously installed on your computer, with file names such as “Full Story.exe”, “Full Text.exe”, “Full Video.exe”, “Video.exe”, “Full Clip.exe” or “Read More.exe”, or such.

“Coca-Cola End Of Year Bonanza,” the email subject screams. It then goes on to tell you that you have won a prize – this is the official prize notification – for the year end bonanza held by Coca-Cola in conjunction with the Netherlands American Tobacco company. In case you’re in any doubt, this is a scam.