During a late-night session of the World Economic Forum in 2004, Bill Gates said the Internet spam problem would be solved within two years. “We all maybe cringed a little bit when Bill made that statement,” said Ryan Hamlin, who heads anti-spam activities for Microsoft as general manager for Technology Care and Safety.

“I would go so far as to say that, not only is Microsoft wrong about the reduction of spam, but they are actually part of the problem,” said Richard Cox, chief information officer of the Spamhaus Project…”Microsoft could, for example, more aggressively attack spammers operating off Microsoft-owned Hotmail accounts.”

Spamhaus estimates that the total amount of spam on the Internet has more than doubled since Gates made his statement two years ago, and Cox added that any measure of spam reaching a user’s desktop misses the point. “Even when spam doesn’t get to your inbox, it uses up bandwidth,” Cox said. “The necessary increased filtering also risks blocking genuine e-mails.”

Trying to predict what the bad guys are gonna do next — doesn’t always work.