SPAM!!!

The coveted zed.

NO SPAM!

Sounds like a great idea to me. The spam filter at work picks up most of the crap but too many still get through.

You’re asking for a combination of balls and brains that no longer exists in D.C.

Balls
Brains
Sanity — Pick ONE and only ONE.

You might as well be asking the government to land men on the frakking MOON.

Could I specify that I would still like to receive spam with word-salad/beat poetry content and/or fake senders, i.e., “Incontinentia P. Hairballs”?

I mean, where else would I find phrases like “Interact with hoopla” or “battle Tarantinos”?

I remember Bill Gates’ solution to fighting mass spammers was to impose a cost to each email which was sent.

It has negative reprecussions - We all see email as a free form of communication. Anyone can go to the local library computer, and send an email to friends and family. And this would no longer be free.

What Gates suggested was a small cost - I believe it would be less than a nickel, but forgive me for no source. Some of us would end up spending a few bucks a month in emails, which would pique those who take for granted the free service.

However, mass spammers would no longer be able to spam entire lists of email addresses - It would be TOO COSTLY for them to do such a thing. They would be shut out.

Unfortunately, this also opens the doors to stealing email addresses, and using the stolen email address as the new ‘broadcaster’ of spam. Maybe Gates’ idea isn’t so good afterall.

Ironically, I think my second comment about spam was briefly caught in the spam filter…

Amen!

As a small business owner, I have my own domain. In order not to miss any important emails, I have all of the misspelled or misdirected emails sent to my box. Each day, I have to clear out about 100 genitial enlargement, viagra, mortgage, or whatever emails. It takes three or four minutes per day. Multiply that by 500,000 small businesses doing the same thing and you get a drain on the economy. Of course, there are free speech issues, but commercial speech is already regulated….

Incontinentia P. Hairballs

I theenk I dated her leetle seester, Constipatia.

so.

TRex -

Since most spam originates from outside the United States, what guarantee does anyone have that companies that send spam (either directly from an overseas mail server or indirectly through a computer that its owner doesn’t realize is being used to relay spam) will honor an opt out list?

For more information about spam, one of many good sites to visit is http://www.spamhaus.org/

I think most spam messages are from outside the country, so I don’t know what effect a US law would have on them???

I liked ‘artichoke Scotch tape’, which was the subject line on one the other day. I don’t think I’ve sent any political stuff (except ‘Democrats for [GOoPer candidate]’) to the spam filter yet.

Then there’s the ones in non-Roman scripts…

This is probably a good time to pimp spamusement.com, which is a compendium of poorly-drawn cartoons based on actual spam subject lines (don’t bother with any of the guest cartoons except for the Dr. Gibbons advice one).

I hate to get techy on ya but so much of the SPAM is generated off shore which would be outside the jurisdiction of the Feds. I know several states that have attempted to enact SPAM legislation and found that their reach is only within their borders.

I would love it, Not to hear from that poor person in some African country who needs to move millions out and needs my help - “Dear Madame would you please be kind enough”.

The concept is great, I love it and hope that somehow we can do it technically. But one Hosting company in the Caymans with an auto email service sending SPAM would be just like Internet Gambling, only if they can grab the owners when on American soil.

In my view, there’s spam and then there’s spam. E-mail touting pharmaceutical remedies, stock tips, etc., from shady dealers who don’t identify themselves is spam. E-mail from not-legitimate e-mail servers (co-opted computers, zombies, relays) is spam. Real commercial e-mail which abides by the Can-Spam act is not, legally, spam–if you don’t want it, you can opt out and your request must be obeyed. In Europe the laws are different, more strict and less tolerant of the commercial side of the web.

I dunno, the web seems too powerful to be able to duck the dollars being flung at it. A paradox, to be sure, but we all know how entrancing this medium is. To channel that entrancement is every marketer’s dream. I don’t believe we can, or we should, legislate that away. Managing e-mail may become more complex for a while, but there’s big money in a workable solution and the odds are best when you bet with the big money.

TRex — “He greased his pole for the crowd.” !!!

i don’t believe that jefferson’s democracy can survive such slander. I’ve had it with free speech. I don’t think american soldiers in Iraq can take it anymore, being away from their wives and boyfriends.

The Teddy guy from SF always says: Bring Them Home

TRex, don’t you think you’ve gone too far? He doesn’t have a pole, ask Laura, who wouldn’t know anywhay.

If i had a choice between an hour every day deleting spam and the end of the Lieberman-McComical war, i would choose deleting Spam.

But c’mon TRex, as Alice said, there’s no pole there.

Gang, I am going up to lay down for a moment, but I will be back for Late Nite. Jordan Barab will be along in a bit to amuse and inform you. Hooray!

exhuming mccarthy @ 13

I think most spam messages are from outside the country, so I don’t know what effect a US law would have on them???

Probably about as much effect as capital punishment has on crime. That doesn’t stop capital punishment from being a popular notion, both here and elsewhere. Even if it mostly has symbolic value, I think a statute limiting spam and allowing ISPs some latitude in using blacklists for known spam locations would be welcome.

Sounds good to me, in theory. The implementation is the tricky part. The reason it’s not as simple to outlaw spam as is it is to outlaw unwanted telemarketing calls is that the source of spam is anonymous. The technical solutions, as I understand them (though I haven’t followed it in depth) involve verifying the source so they have to take responsibility for it, but the cost is that it also eliminates the ability of individuals to send emails anonymously. A solution somewhat like caller ID, which allows anonymous emails to be sent, but allows you to refuse to accept any anonmyous mail might address the user problem, but it doesn’t address the traffic problem. Hmm.

(I seem to recall reading that there was a joint project several years ago between Microsoft and a number of security groups to deal with this. It was making good progress, and MS seemed to be working in good faith, and then some Microsoft bozo made the mistake of wanting to own some part of the process, and the whole thing collapsed.)

Cujo359 @ 20

exhuming mccarthy @ 13

I think most spam messages are from outside the country, so I don’t know what effect a US law would have on them???

Probably about as much effect as capital punishment has on crime. That doesn’t stop capital punishment from being a popular notion, both here and elsewhere. Even if it mostly has symbolic value, I think a statute limiting spam and allowing ISPs some latitude in using blacklists for known spam locations would be welcome.

Hm. Capital punishment and spam.

Can we combine these two ideas in some way?

Fork, EPU’d again, and this time by the pole host! Ahhh holidays.

Did someone say SPAM? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmz_FD-YxUo

spew a spam, go to prison

Redshift @ 21

I seem to recall reading that there was a joint project several years ago between Microsoft and a number of security groups to deal with this.

Was this when Bill Gates was circulating that e-mail to test the e-mail system and promised to send five dollars to everyone who forwarded it to all their friends?

Stephen Parrish, CPA @
12

TRex -

Since most spam originates from outside the United States, what guarantee does anyone have that companies that send spam (either directly from an overseas mail server or indirectly through a computer that its owner doesn’t realize is being used to relay spam) will honor an opt out list?

For more information about spam, one of many good sites to visit is http://www.spamhaus.org/

I think Stephen CPA is right. Most spam if not originting outside the US now could easily shift there and I don’t know how it could be enforced unless there was a) an international treaty, b) no country with internet access that was not a signatory and c) some agency with the funds and political will to enforce it. While any of those three is possible, the probability of getting all of them is within rounding error of zero. I think better spam filters is the only answer.

BTW I use gmail and Google’s spam filter works really well and seems to learn from experience, I get very few spams slip through and very few real emails caught in the filters.

katymine @ 16

I hate to get techy on ya but so much of the SPAM is generated off shore which would be outside the jurisdiction of the Feds. I know several states that have attempted to enact SPAM legislation and found that their reach is only within their borders.

I would love it, Not to hear from that poor person in some African country who needs to move millions out and needs my help - “Dear Madame would you please be kind enough”.

The concept is great, I love it and hope that somehow we can do it technically. But one Hosting company in the Caymans with an auto email service sending SPAM would be just like Internet Gambling, only if they can grab the owners when on American soil.

I think giving ISPs some legal lattitude in maintaining blacklists of spammers might help. That part would have to be carefully written, I think, but there are blacklists of spam sites that are fairly well accepted out there. Being able to use them without legal repurcussions would help some ISPs, I’m sure.

I support the idea as montag presents it but have many concerns as to what might happen with the idea in the congressional sausage factory.
The timing of this idea (if presented now) with net neutrality and it’s huge army of corporate PR firms and lobbyists standing at the ready for attack, we might be better off putting this aside until NN is secure.
Craft strong NN, no spam and strong privacy legislation and I’m on board. (no water please, dear MR Cheney).

Until that day gmail is an amazingly spam free spot. Six months and not one bit of spam.

Eli @ 22

Hm. Capital punishment and spam.

Can we combine these two ideas in some way?

Companies that actually solicit such spam might be given the corporate “death penalty”, but that’s about as far as I’d go. ;)

OT hey punaise, when was the last time you were in France?

Do you think Segolene has a better chance than Hillary with the powerful thighs? (I can say that after TRex talked about greased poles, though i do think that Poland will eventually contribute much to the EU.)

Fat chance getting the GOP on board this..those spammers are potential campaign contributors (bribers) so we wouldn’t want to get in the way of “free enterprise” now would we? “Are you some kinda commie terrist, boy?”

every day I receive an identical hot! stock! tip! from 10 - 20 different “people”. I am truly blessed with this special insider knowledge.

It can’t be done with legislation. The legitimate email advertising companies generally do have opt-out that they respect. The majority of spam, however, comes from illegitimate purveyors—spammers who buy PC software that blasts tens of thousands of email addresses using open mail servers. Legislation won’t stop those, since they point of origin is murky. To make matters worse, the internet is an international commons and US laws can’t effectively control behavior outside of our borders. Most importantly, we don’t need another useless nanny government role. This is as bad an idea as Hillary Clinton’s pandering over violent video games.

The solution to spam has to be technological. The standard email protocol, SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), was created in a time when the only people using the internet were scientists. It never occurred to them to build in safeguards against forged email. We’ve seen a lot of techniques for fighting spam from Bayesian filtering to greylisting. A big problem is bad email server administrators who don’t realize they’re conduits for spam.

But the real problem is SMTP and it needs to be replaced with a protocol that puts the burden on the sender, not the receiver. Passing laws that maybe address spam is a really, really bad idea (I’m not sure the do-not-call registry really works). Especially when being done by politicians who don’t know much about technology. Remember Senator Stevens’ “the internet is a series of tubes”? Keep those fools away from the internet, thank you.

Jay @ 32

Fat chance getting the GOP on board this..those spammers are potential campaign contributors (bribers) so we wouldn’t want to get in the way of “free enterprise” now would we? “Are you some kinda commie terrist, boy?”

It’s a potential source for Democratic politicians as well. I haven’t noticed them being terribly reluctant to accept money from the intellectual property-mongers like Disney. I see no reason to think they’d be any more reluctant to accept spammers’ money, as long as they could plausibly deny they knew where it came from later.

punaise @ 33

every day I receive an identical hot! stock! tip! from 10 - 20 different “people”. I am truly blessed with this special insider knowledge.

How inside could it be when twenty people with e-mail addresses that don’t match their names know about it?

Crazy Horse @ 31

OT hey punaise, when was the last time you were in France?

Do you think Segolene has a better chance than Hillary…

hey there. it’s been 1.5 years (going back this summer). I haven’t followed it too closely, but Segolene Royal appears to be a credible candidate for the left. Nicolas Sarkozy on the right is one bad dude (tough love, law ‘n order type).

Wonderful Spam.

-GSD

How timely.
I just checked my e-mail, 618 messages. How many did I retain? 12. I would love to be able to collect 600 or so and return them all at once to one of these bastards.Unfortunately, their return address invariably comes up as non existent.
I recently recieved exactly 100 of the same e-mail from the same sender. That sonofabitch should be publicly horsewhipped.

Oh, come on. Are people really this naive? Some of you who are reading this comment own a PC that is sending spam, and you don’t even know it. You might notice that your machine seems slow, and the disk seems to be chugging away when you aren’t doing anything. That’s a sign that some jerk has taken over your machine, making it part of a “bot network”. Almost all spam these days is sent by machines that the spammer does not own and has no legal right to use.

Most spam today is sent by zombie PCs, taken over by viruses and other malware. The people sending spam are scofflaws and criminals. Do you really think that an opt-out law will stop spammers?

If you want to take a bite out of spam, you can either stop running Windows altogether (in favor of Linux or MacOS), or, if you must run Windows, be absolutely certain that your machine remains virus-free: keep anti-virus software up to date, investigate any symptoms of odd behavior and if you suspect that your machine has been taken over, get the thing purged of malware.

I get no spam whatsoever. Nothing, none, zilch, zip. But I don’t feel unloved though.

Dr. Bush’s Big Bottle of Testicular Extract: Good For What Ails You
by Steven Laffoley

Do you feel anxious about the Civil War in Iraq? Does your heart ache when yet another American is killed in Anbar province? Does your stomach feel queasy when more bodies turn up in Baghdad with gruesome signs of torture? Well, worry no more. The good Dr. Bush has a specially made salve at hand: Dr. Bush’s Big Bottle of Testicular Extract - good for what ails you.

Sounds silly? Well, maybe not.

Hey, I got some spam from a “George Walker Bush” asking for money…

Cujo359 @ 36

punaise @ 33

every day I receive an identical hot! stock! tip! from 10 - 20 different “people”. I am truly blessed with this special insider knowledge.

How inside could it be when twenty people with e-mail addresses that don’t match their names know about it?

gosh, are you suggesting that liquidating my IRA to purchase OTC penny stocks was a bad move? :~)

Great idea! Let’s roll!

cujo359 @ 36

Not to mention the ‘hot stock tip’ faxes and the ‘cheap loans’ faxes and the ‘cheap vacation’ faxes (some of those try to look like corporate memos: the company I work at uses e-mail to distribute 95% of its stuff!). After you’ve seen the same one three or four times (with different phone numbers) in a week, you wonder if they ever have to pay for any of the things they’re so generously sending.

Spybot, Search and Destroy is free. It looks through your computer for adware and spyware and malware and deletes that shit. Run a google search for it. Then run it once a week. it is updateable also.

punaise @ 43

gosh, are you suggesting that liquidating my IRA to purchase OTC penny stocks was a bad move? :~)

Maybe, maybe not. One of the fun things about some of this stock “advice” is that it’s as random as the lottery. They can just pick different stocks, keep track of which ones actually improved, and then e-mail to those marks who happen to have gotten mostly good advice offering to consult for them, or whatever.

Defining spam is more difficult than defining telemarketing calls. Spam is a little like pornography, you know it when you see it.

What would really kill spam dead is if the credit card companies refused to give merchant accounts to known spammers. It is just a matter of tweaking their terms of service and we could be done with this.

Not counting Eli’s comment trapped by an over zealous filter, the FDL spam filters have trapped over 40 gibberish comments since TRex’s post went up.

RBG @ 49

Not counting Eli’s comment trapped by an over zealous filter, the FDL spam filters have trapped over 40 gibberish comments since TRex’s post went up.

It just got one of mine also.

You got that right punaise. Segolene is the real Hillary, and the young people of Frankreich have a joke: “She shreds!” And Sarkoszy is Rumsfeld.

I guess I don’t have it so bad. I get maybe two or three spams a day that are stopped by AOL.

punaise @ 43

gosh, are you suggesting that liquidating my IRA to purchase OTC penny stocks was a bad move? :~)

Absolutely, if you had any sense you would have responded to that poor chap in Nigeria trying to get his uncle’s millions out of the country and willing to pay you for the use of your bank account.

RBG @ 48

Not counting Eli’s comment trapped by an over zealous filter, the FDL spam filters have trapped over 40 gibberish comments since TRex’s post went up.

Comment spam offends me far, far more than e-mail spam. It’s more of an invasion, and, if anything, an even bigger insult to the intelligence. I once briefly turned off comment verification on my blog, and this one wanker hit it 250 times in a matter of minutes.

Assholes.

It’s a World Wide Web, so spam comes not only from domestic sources. New laws will be ineffective or not applicable. Keep the Web open and create better spam filters.

Once upon a time long ago when I actually had a lazy Saturday I did a little detective work on the origins of spam.

Here — from Herbalife scams to Russian spiders to Texas server farms — is more than anyone would ever want to know about the lard in the arteries of the intertubes :-)

Fear and Loathing on the Spam Pain Trail — Part 1

Fear and Loathing on the Spam Pain Trail — Part 2

Forget opt-out, what is needed is opt-in. If one wants spam (some would call it advertising), they should have to ask for it. I can see there being different categories to choose from. The system would be simple. An e-dress would request being on the list (we already have lists servers), a reply/confirmation would be mailed to that e-dress & a counter reply would activate it. No muss, no fuss & no spam for those of us who have no need for any ‘advertising’..

True, other methods will be needed to prevent spam from other countries.. Domain blocking w/ white lists for mail you want comes to mind. Certainly no big deal.. Technically, anyway..

Of course, a Congress run by big business will never go for this. And that, in a nut shell, is the problem. All laws today are to benefit business, not we, the people. Looks like Thoreau was right.. civil disobedience is the only way.

I would never give my email address to an opt-out list.

The problem with opt-out lists is that they provide the spammers with verified, real email addresses. Using the headers, trace back the spam you receive and you will see that it comes from Korea or Russia or China or other location which cares little about the problem. If it does come from the United States, then almost invariably it comes from a machine that has been taken over and is being controlled elsewhere.

Often the spam messages hype some penny stock, so there is no product they are selling. The stock will rise a penny or two and the spammers will make a nice profit from selling their 1 million shares.

Often the spam messages hype porn sites which are controlled overseas, out of our jurisdiction.

Often the spam messages come from “associates” who get paid for referrals; the “legitimate” company has no control over what these independent contractors do.

Often the spam messages hype pirated software, which is already illegal, but difficult to control because it’s overseas.

Any spam you get for legitimate products is so far removed from the producers of that product that those producers cannot be held accountable. And if they are held accountable, hyping a competitor’s product is a great way to hurt a rival’s bottom line.

Spam lists are readily available to anybody ready to pay a small amount of money. These people don’t care whether or not the U.S. has penalties for sending spam; it’s almost impossible to trace the spam back to the originator. An Opt-out list would just be a free avenue for spammers to get verified addresses.

Nope. An opt-out list won’t work. Bill Gates’s proposal does have merit in that it would finally cost the spammers to send that email; of course I doubt we will see the world’s internet users wanting to switch over to a paid system.

There are plenty of techie proposals floating around out there. I would like to see the Democrats pull together the big names in the geek world to come up with a new mail protocol or a spam blocking protocol or other technical solution to the problem. It’s not something that can be solved without financial expenditures, and in this case, I think it would be money well-spent.

BTW - I just checked my spam filter and found an email with the quoted surreal content. Can some one tell me why they even bothered to send this? Are they just testing for valid addresses or what?

Think are shadowed all timespears, wait stuffed.
From days up until now they happy change. Guess my food, must have been really.
To, do see following, yes.
Completely anonymous treasure simply done milk? Mtv very humorous watch new jessica simpson nick. Did decide actually rehearsals wasnt? Never before kissed woman and would again unless?
How did decide actually? Mall washington dc soon.
Cool overseas can escape little bitcarlson went there give.
Overseas can escape, little bitcarlson went there give chronology.
Security alert issued, million credit. Made me think are shadowed all timespears. Technology science amp space health travel education special. Alert issued million credit, cards bin laden, deputy. Can escape little bitcarlson went there give chronology how.
Said lets just feel.
Flawed cnnmoney, tvs most popular dads. And would, again unless is madonnathe.

If there are more than forty FDL spam flters active, then i would like to give an old guy shout out to the FDL mods, for trying to keep a semblance of thread continuance…

And TRex, when you wake up again, Erstmal Vielen Dank, und you are still guilty of the greased pole “metaphor.”

Jim in AZ @ 57

I would like to see the Democrats pull together the big names in the geek world to come up with a new mail protocol or a spam blocking protocol or other technical solution to the problem. It’s not something that can be solved without financial expenditures, and in this case, I think it would be money well-spent.

We need a Spamhattan Project.

RBG - I just saw that! we’ve been virtually spam free throughout the holiday and then kapow!

When I was running my Mac Powerbook (rip) and used the mac mail system, I found the spam filters to be exceptionally good and with my .mac account I find the same. At the moment, I am using my work laptop fulltime and it’s windows but with serious security/spam filter/etc and I rarely have a problem.

I am not ready to give up my Spam. There is a woman in Nigeria who has seven million dollars she wants to deposit in my bank account, and I want to be sure I hear from her.

Just caught the headline “Bush goes to Texas to think about Iraq” and I was reminded of his first term when he went to Texas to “contemplate” his decision about stem cells. Really it was just an excuse to hang out, play GTA on his Playstation and surf p*rn on his computer. Why couldn’t he have stayed there?

P J Evans @ 45

cujo359 @ 36

Not to mention the ‘hot stock tip’ faxes and the ‘cheap loans’ faxes and the ‘cheap vacation’ faxes (some of those try to look like corporate memos: the company I work at uses e-mail to distribute 95% of its stuff!). After you’ve seen the same one three or four times (with different phone numbers) in a week, you wonder if they ever have to pay for any of the things they’re so generously sending.

Arizona isn’t as backward as ya think…
1. Clean Election Law that was upheld by AZ Supreme Court and kicked a candidate out of office when he violated the law (Rethug of course) and…
2. Against the law to SPAM Fax …

Of course we have
a. The only Sheriff with his own Tank
b. McCain
c. Unemployed JD Hayworth
d. Minute idiots at the border

neurophius @ 62

I am not ready to give up my Spam. There is a woman in Nigeria who has seven million dollars she wants to deposit in my bank account, and I want to be sure I hear from her.

And she’ll want you to have plenty of V1@gr@ on hand too.

[Mod Note; nicely done.]

d r i f t g l a s s :

in the house!! woo hoo

(although i seem to recall trying to understand your above-listed posts - way the hell over my head)(but welcome anyway)!!

petedownunder @ 65

neurophius @ 62

I am not ready to give up my Spam. There is a woman in Nigeria who has seven million dollars she wants to deposit in my bank account, and I want to be sure I hear from her.

And she’ll want you to have plenty of V1@gr@ on hand too.

So she can thank you properly.

That 4 hour erection might come in handy!

katymine @ 64

Of course we have
a. The only Sheriff with his own Tank

Part of me is unable to accept that this is anything but cool…

The vast majority of these emails come from either the RIPE network in Amsterdam, or APNIC, out of Queensland, Australia.

If the IP address or IP address block for a spammer got wiped out, you betcha the assholes that run RIPE and APNIC would quickly shut these people down. Right now they have no reason to do so, but if legitimate users in these IP blocks couldn’t email out, both these blocks and the ISPs using them would go out of business. Legitimate ISPs would raise holy hell for their legit customers.

Up thread, someone talked about the penny stock tip people. They are coming both through RIPE and APNIC. None of this shit is originating in the USA.

All you need to do is stop email into the US from an IP or block of IPs for 30 days, and holy hell with break loose.

Eli @ 69

katymine @ 64

Of course we have
a. The only Sheriff with his own Tank

Part of me is unable to accept that this is anything but cool…

You’d be well advised to not let that part of you do much of your thinking for you …

Off T:

‘America’s wondering
how we got here
Harry, all we get is lies
We’re gettin’ safer cars
Rocket ships to mars
From men who’d sell us out
To get themselves a piece of power‘

And on:

F*ck spam

;>)

driftglass in da house!

Spam is the dark side of Internet anonymity.
While the Do Not Call registry mostly works, there is a simple one to one relationship between caller and called, throug a fairly clearly defined network.
The internet is more chaotic.
And, I for one, do not want to give the Federal government permission to filter international traffic. Even if they could stop spam, I would be more worried about stopping the free flow of information.
Without the internet I would be unable to cross check the US media against the rest of the world.
And it would not be hard to block Mark from Ireland
(who has not been seen around these parts of late)
Actually, there is a certain poetry to spam evasion.

Eli @ 70

katymine @ 64

Of course we have
a. The only Sheriff with his own Tank

Part of me is unable to accept that this is anything but cool…

Ask my co-worker who had the house across the street burnt to the ground, the family dog shot and all the cars in the street run into by THE tank by a bad anonymous tip that the family living in the house were terrorists! Too bad too because it was a cool 1/2 million dollar home that the county now needs to pay for!

Every hear of Sheriff Joe?
Thought having Lord McCain as your senator was bad enough?
Having JD Hayworth as your Rep was bad enough?
Try a 70 yr old gun slinger who is a media hog as the country Sheriff…

didn’t read most of the responses so I don’t know if this is already said

sorry to pour water on the spam fire, but spam control already exists even for off shore hosts, just most people don’t take advantage

once you report spam the ip of the server is flagged and they get put into a spam no fly list.

then any spam control won’t let the mail through.

most hosts won’t allow spammers becuase they don’t want their ip’s flagged

the spam issue is already resolved and everyone should just include the spam filters in their email program

this policy bird has already flown and very successfully at that

sorry guys

petedownunder @ 53

punaise @ 43

gosh, are you suggesting that liquidating my IRA to purchase OTC penny stocks was a bad move? :~)

Absolutely, if you had any sense you would have responded to that poor chap in Nigeria trying to get his uncle’s millions out of the country and willing to pay you for the use of your bank account.

did that, of course - it should pay off soon. afraid neurophius is in for a rude surprise. how shall I break it to him?

neurophius @ 63

I am not ready to give up my Spam. There is a woman in Nigeria who has seven million dollars she wants to deposit in my bank account, and I want to be sure I hear from her.

Mozilla Thunderbird is a great e-mail client, it’s “intelligent” and trains well on spam handling. And best of all, it’s free

in order to avoid being put in the mo fly list, a host usually requires double opt in.

this means not only do you have to request specific mail you then have to respond positively for it to be considered valid mass mail

Mack - I’m with you … it’s bad enough the feds are reading everything, I don’t want to make it easy for them to block everything too!

and FYI, MfI does not visit here these days but has been very busy helping a team of Iraqi bloggers get up to speed with html and all … he’s providing a great platform for them to speak to the world about their experiences day-to-day under the occupation. MfI’s site will be moving shortly off of blogspot to wordpress and the new design is really nicely done. MfI is travelling at the moment and 13 of his friends from the Red Crescent are still missing after the kidnapping.

katymine @ 75

Ask my co-worker who had the house across the street burnt to the ground, the family dog shot and all the cars in the street run into by THE tank by a bad anonymous tip that the family living in the house were terrorists! Too bad too because it was a cool 1/2 million dollar home that the county now needs to pay for!

I just… like tanks. But they should always be used responsibly, and it’s hard to think of very many law enforcement scenarios where they make a lot of sense.

Perris - all too true! we lost back in the early green card days when no one outside usenet understood the problem … and now there’s no going back.

Good spam filters are available as are good virus and adware filters but ya gotta use them.

Needless to say, I’ve been reading articles on this subject since the thread started. Here’s an interesting quote from answers.com on spamhauses:

Since prosecution of spammers became routine under the junk-fax laws and statues specifically targeting spam, spamhausen have declined in relative importance; today, hit-and-run attacks by spammers using relay rape and throwaway accounts on reputable ISPs seem to account for most of the flow.

Making them harder to track down or blacklist. Of course, this supports something that Joe Buck wrote earlier - a big part of the problem is unsecured Windows computers that are either directly connected to the Internet or have not been kept up to date with virus and adware protection.

punaise @ 78

petedownunder @ 53

punaise @ 43

Absolutely, if you had any sense you would have responded to that poor chap in Nigeria trying to get his uncle’s millions out of the country and willing to pay you for the use of your bank account.

did that, of course - it should pay off soon. afraid neurophius is in for a rude surprise. how shall I break it to him?

neurophius @ 63

I am not ready to give up my Spam. There is a woman in Nigeria who has seven million dollars she wants to deposit in my bank account, and I want to be sure I hear from her.

punaise–in honor of enjoyable wordplays past, why don’t you and I just split the money?

I want net neutrality. I want corporations or government legally obligated to keep any info on me private. I want the ability to see what anyone who keeps info on me has on file, including Dept. of Homeland Security.

neurophius @ 85

punaise–in honor of enjoyable wordplays past, why don’t you and I just split the money?

that seems eminently fair to me.

Bush a Texan? NOT @ 78

Mozilla Thunderbird is a great e-mail client, it’s “intelligent” and trains well on spam handling. And best of all, it’s free

Evolution is good at this, as well. You can tell it to use various spam filters. I don’t know how easy it would be to use on a Windows system, but it ought to be possible on either a Mac or Unix/Linux system. It is also free, in both senses of the word.

bebimbob @ 70

The vast majority of these emails come from either the RIPE network in Amsterdam, or APNIC, out of Queensland, Australia.

If the IP address or IP address block for a spammer got wiped out, you betcha the assholes that run RIPE and APNIC would quickly shut these people down. Right now they have no reason to do so, but if legitimate users in these IP blocks couldn’t email out, both these blocks and the ISPs using them would go out of business. Legitimate ISPs would raise holy hell for their legit customers.

Up thread, someone talked about the penny stock tip people. They are coming both through RIPE and APNIC. None of this shit is originating in the USA.

All you need to do is stop email into the US from an IP or block of IPs for 30 days, and holy hell with break loose.

Look in the late-night thread from last night on that. It’s a matter of each country policing its own–that’s appealing to each country’s legitimate self-interest. It’s not that difficult to nail down where it’s coming from, and, my notion of this is simply to notify the country that xxxx is in violation of US law and every bit of traffic going out of that country gets dumped in 30 days if they don’t fix it.

Most countries know that most commerce today grinds to a halt without electronic communications. Their self-interest then becomes a matter of putting legitimate commerce ahead of illegitimate commerce. Opt-out law here would induce other countries to create similar laws, and as that happens, the spammers gradually get crowded out.

My whole point in suggesting it is that it is an idea the time for which is overdue, and it can be done simply–as compared to, say, completing a major appropriations bill.

Such would also strengthen the position of smaller ISPs in the market–and they’re the guys that are in the sights of the big operators in the net neutrality argument.

And, clearing out junk frees up bandwidth, and takes away (to some degree) one of the arguments for net non-neutrality.

Cheers.

punaise @
43

Cujo359 @ 36

punaise @ 33

How inside could it be when twenty people with e-mail addresses that don’t match their names know about it?

gosh, are you suggesting that liquidating my IRA to purchase OTC penny stocks was a bad move? :~)

Only if you’re planning on actually retiring someday.

burnspbesq @ 90

every day I receive an identical hot! stock! tip! from 10 - 20 different “people”. I am truly blessed with this special insider knowledge.

How inside could it be when twenty people with e-mail addresses that don’t match their names know about it?

gosh, are you suggesting that liquidating my IRA to purchase OTC penny stocks was a bad move? :~)

Only if you’re planning on actually retiring someday.

gotta go - incoming call from Nigeria on Toob #2…

Cujo359 @ 88

Bush a Texan? NOT @ 78

Mozilla Thunderbird is a great e-mail client, it’s “intelligent” and trains well on spam handling. And best of all, it’s free

Evolution is good at this, as well. You can tell it to use various spam filters. I don’t know how easy it would be to use on a Windows system, but it ought to be possible on either a Mac or Unix/Linux system. It is also free, in both senses of the word.

Too late to update this comment, I found that there is, indeed, a Windows implementation of Evolution:

http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome......evolution

There’s a whole lot of other stuff you have to install to support it, but that environment is in the same directory as the README file.

I was up half the night replying to my spam messages.

This is just silly. Most spam originates from people already doing illegal things. Why would a new law stop them?

I’ve spent close to 10 years up close and personal with the technical details of email, including how to game the protocol for various reasons. More time preventing spam. The problems are code, not law.

- The protocol (from IPv4 on up) is inherently busted, when given bad actors like the current zombie farms and the network operators who have no financial incentive to stop them. There is simply no way short of refactoring the global network to stop it.
- Legal solutions to protocol problems are bad. It might seem like a good idea now, but it might well be a bad idea later, after technology has changed. Think about the companies that grow up around every other example of this sort of thing we’ve seen: pr0n filterers, defense contractors, etc. They will then lobby to keep the law even after it isn’t useful anymore.
- Even if the argument is to do something symbolic for a populist pull, damn, this is really a dumb one. Why not more tax rebate checks? Just as self-harming, and much more popular.

Veteran anti-spammer here:

Opt-out lists have one simple problem: They are effectively 100% reliable email lists. The first person to hack in has a gold mine. He won’t spam with it, because he knows what it is, but he will sell it as “x million guaranteed clean emails” to some sucker who will.

The other problem is that the volume of spam is sufficient that it hugely taxes the infrastructure, and an opt-out list has very little to offer, since the spam can still be sent once, or repeatedly from an offshore company in a country where the law doesn’t apply. How bad is it? A few years ago, AOL admitted that they spent $1 million a month fending off spam. It’s extra hardware The USENET newsgroups dedicated to fighting spam have years-long archives of testimonials from people whose servers were used to send spam until they crashed. The only solution, and the solution endorsed by anti-spam coalition CAUCE, whose members include most ISPs, is to require opt-in lists.

I can hear the complaints from the marketing types, but it doesn’t matter. The economics of sending mass email encourage abuse, because everyone but the sender bears the cost. (In the case of bulk postal mail, the Post Office makes a killing on it, which both subsidizes the price of the plain stamp and strongly discourages frivolous or redundant mailings.) The only solution is to make it so that lists grow organically. That will keep the sizes down. It still doesn’t solve the problem of middleman servers getting overwhelmed between sender and recipient in the case of large lists (Amazon is guilty of this) but that’s a much thornier problem.

An opt-out list? Bah. I don’t even think the opt-out phone list works all that well. I opted out as soon as I heard about it and I still get sales calls. Require opt-in, make it clear to other countries (preferably with carrots, as our foreign policy is far too liberal with the sticks) that we’d like them to have similar laws so that the spammers don’t continue to carpet bomb our email boxes from offshore.

well..

It ain’t spammish but still the irony of having to be ‘fair and balanced’ to have credibility.
(not not them…MSN/MSNBC)

http://news.moneycentral.msn.c.....ID=6301941

Security flaw found in Microsoft’s Vista
Microsoft’s security experts had an uneasy Christmas after a security flaw was discovered in Windows Vista, the software company’s new operating system - the first since its official release four weeks ago.

The flaw is a symbolic blow to Microsoft, which has spent five and a half years developing Vista. The software, which was launched two years later than originally planned, is the biggest upgrade to the operating system since the release of Windows 95 and Microsoft focused heavily on improving security.

dead last: Each day, I have to clear out about 100 genitial enlargement…

Yeah, and none of those things work either, trust me.

BTW, when I mentioned earlier about legal issues that a carefully written federal law might protect ISPs from, hear’s a link about the sort of thing I’m talking about:

http://www.spamhaus.org/legal/answer.lasso?ref=3

Spamhaus is an organization set up in the U.K. to track spam IP addresses and spammers. It was hit with a SLAPP suit in Illinois District Court by a domestic spammer. The spammer won, but thankfully this is being ignored by the U.K. and, apparently, the EU. This decision also seems counter to established U.S. law, but that’s no reason for a U.S. court to rule against some do-gooder furin entity, now is it?