Spam? Does Anyone Actually Make Money on It?

[Elspode]

"Enlarge your penis with discount Canadian drugs and discount cigarettes at home in your spare time to earn big money and a free Ipod by helping Nigerian bank officers move millions of dollars into penny stocks for Bill Gates' email research project!"

I can't wait to get that one. But I really don't understand why there's so much of it around. Spam. I run *two* spam filters, one at my mail server and one on my email client, and still two or three a day slip through, even after months of filter training. I estimate that I receive about four to five hundred spam emails per week, or about eight times the legitimate email I get.

What I want to know is this: Is someone actually making money off of this crap? Are there any statistics out there that tell us how much is earned by spammers moving their crap "products"?

The vast majority of people I know filter or simply delete spam without so much as a glance. The only benefit to it has been a marked decrease in the amount of junk snail mail I get.

How many people will have to go to prison before this stops...or at least slows down? Will it help if I volunteer to drive them to Leavenworth?