Botnets Enlarging, Again

There must still be a few idiots opening those unsolicited emails. Apart from the facts that my wife would leave me if I took up all those 'enlarging' offers and I'm too honest to steal money from 'dead' African bank accounts, I just don't have the time to read them [I've just been 'told' what they're like].

On a personal level, I admit it's probably a good thing for me because I'm sitting here with what I believe is the only practical cure. Of course I'm not planning to give it way, but spam isn't like cancer, it won't kill you but it may make you sick occasionally and it will certainly cost you money to alleviate the symptoms.

As I write this I apologise on behalf of my anti-virus vendor if my machine is unknowingly contributing to the great 'kraken' or some other looming botnet and spewing forth emails to the world.  Botnets can actually be beneficial if they are directed at some effort to raise humanity and not just the third member.

I'm sure there are plenty of scientific researchers who'd love the resources of all those PCs dedicated to their own 'scientific botnet' - they'd probably come up with a cure for impotence and baldness in no time [and could then immediately spread the message].

What's the cure? 

The cure is for people to stop opening 'not-authenticated' email. We can't ignore 'un-solicited' email, that would defeat the purpose of all the marketing we spend our money on. We just need to ignore 'not-authenticated' email.
Unless we can 'educate' the consumer to develop mental telepathy then it's up to us to provide an answer.

We'll always have 'krakens' but they'll diminish if they are starved of profit, and who has the best opportunity to make 'authenticated' email the only source of profit? Financial institutions are really missing out on the opportunity email provides and I have to wonder how they ever let it get to this. As an industry they must want a cure. 

Email is just like everything else - the 'free' version comes with it's shorfalls which are unfortunately fatal to a banking relationship - so it's probably going to cost you, a penny or two per message, to restore email as a communication channel for FIs. That's still very good value. Remember that you also want the email connection with consumers and not just the customers you already have a relationship with, so a flexible and ubiquitous solution is the ideal.

It would be too much to imagine that the banking industry would come forward like a knight in shining armour with a cure for everyone, nice image though - regaining lost ground in style - if you knew how to pull it off.

Asked whom they trust as a source of reliable information on digital security, Banks scored a distant third with 7.6 percent judging them as a trusted information source. 

Banking is built on TRUST and it's an ongoing task to preserve that in the minds of consumers.

I think it'll take a revolution in real world thinking to see that the answer is more than than a patchwork quilt of inadequate gadgets.

I'm looking forward to trusting a message from my bank, how about it?