Tech Friday: Spam shows sudden slide

Somebody writes I Wish This Was Good News. Worldwide spam levels have mysteriously dropped off over the past week, according to managed e-mail provider SoftScan, possibly as a result of a major botnet going out of service.

Spam levels continued to rise in December, but crashed by 30 percent in the first week of January, SoftScan said on Tuesday. The company has seen nothing similar in the past, but believes the most likely explanation is that a botnet — a network of compromised machines — has temporarily lost control of its client systems.”