I thought it was just me receiving hundreds of e-mail messages over the past few weeks featuring the subject line "It's me, xxxx" that featured information about some yet-to-be-discovered stock but it turns out I'm just being caught up in the new spam onslaught hitting inboxes around the world. According to spam-filtering firm Ironport, the amount of spam has doubled over the past year, and it now accounts for more than 90% of e-mail messages.

Clearly, something needs to be done because all the efforts to filter out spam and shut down spammers isn't doing the job any more - if it was doing the job at all. So what needs to be done? Is there an effective way to pursue spammers other than convincing different governments around the world to make it illegal? One of the many challenges in shutting down spammers is the tools they're using to deliver their payloads, which include using other people's computers through downloaded viruses, malware or spyware.

If spam (including splogs and comment spam) continues to proliferate, it could choke the Internet and threaten innovation. After all, it's difficult to drive a Porsche down the super-highway if most of the lanes are bogged down by slow-moving jalopies, right?