The Pitcairn Islands have suffered a bit in the PR stakes over the years: mutinous rebellions, systematic sexual assaults... you know, the usual.
The latest to stick the boot in is security firm Sophos, which has decided that Pitcairn is the home of the world's worst spammers: measured by spam sent per capita, rather than by total volume, the 50 residents of the island (who share a single, government-licensed connection to the internet) come out as the planet's most productive spam kings.
The top 10 list pumped out by the public relations team at Sophos included a number of small nations like Tokelau, Monaco and Bermuda. But most interestingly, it also listed North Korea (population 23 million) at No7.
That would mean that the notoriously underdeveloped Pyongyang would certainly rank as the world's happiest haven for spammers, and perhaps provide North Korea with a valuable stream of income which it could then spend on the military.
Except it turns out that apparently Sophos got it wrong: this morning a correction appeared in my inbox, simply saying that "North Korea is no longer in seventh position in the chart".
No news on what caused the mistake, but apparently rumours that Kim Jong-Il personally phoned up to complain are wide of the mark.
