Spam Networks

In discussing the networks that spam occupies, Brunton dubs it a “shadow history, the negative space, of the concept of community online” because of spam's ability to disrupt by both its content and shear volume (33). Brunton claims spam forces us to renegotiate online spaces out of a response to establishing our voices and identity in communities we are unsure of ourselves occupying because of the dangers that spam presents (33-4). Safe navigation online comes at the price of awareness of who we are interacting with, and this sometimes turns into a question of what we are communicating with, too. The entity we are communicating with is not always a human actor, as is the case with some spam. Brunton discusses interactions with unknown others and the suspicions we carry as forceful “recursion” because internet users are unsure of both the human existence and motive of the agent on the other side of the screen (34). Spammers exploit this uncertainty by presenting a pathos of helplessness and greed in order to establish a network with hopeful targets. When either phishing or attempting to execute a “419” scam, spammers must first establish a trust in their target to set up a network of communication between them. Often, this is done by sending out bulk emails to a large number of internet users and executing the scam once a network has been established. Without first creating a one-to-one network with internet users, spammers wouldn't be able to perform an attack. This is especially evident in the majority of tools used to stop email spammers: junk mail filters. The idea of the filter is to stop networks from ever being established by halting the possibility of an initial communication between agents. If an email user isn't exposed to the original spam message, then these networks of “negative space” are never born. In an attempt to get past filters, spammers have become increasingly resourceful.