Slashdot Mirror

to stop spammers.

I have an account I purchased from spamcop.net. I never used the email address onything (i've never even checked it) and it's bounsing spam every day.

Spammers hack systems to get accounts, they harvest them, they buy them (illegally) from state agencies. These people are scum and I consider it my right, duty and priviledge to take them out whenever and wherever I can find them.

I am in the process of building a snort utility specifically designed to track down the home IPs of spammers (in the US at first).

I won't go into details on what I plan to do when I get some, but rest assured it will be neither pretty nor legal.

I think its not fair to blame Asia for spam.

One of the biggest and most consistent sources of spam in the world is cn.net. So says SpamCop. So says SpamHaus. The spams may be for American and European sites, but it's a Chinese ISP that's providing the spamming services.

For resorting to spam in the first place and since their own laws are strict, they hire someone else to do the dirty work for them because the poor guy needs the money.

Sooo... spamming is okay if the spammer is poor enough?

I noticed that several portions of the map are dedicated to PMG and their spamming users. Also, as a subscriber to SpamCop, if I report email that came from PMG, the report goes to a /dev/null'ed email address called "pmg_doesnt_care".

Given just this information, I think one can logically come the conclusion that PMG is nothing more than a Spamhaus, and doesn't care about stopping spam at all.

My question is, if we know for a fact that they allow spam, and probably even encourage it so long as they get paid nicely, isn't there anything we can do about it?! Can we not bring a class-action against them, or something? Surely there must be some recourse against a company/it's users that cost ISPs and end-users money.

I use Spamcop to filter my incomming mail at the MTA level, and I've been exceedingly happy with it. Apart from one or two that 'slip through', the only spam I receive nowdays comes through MTAs I have no control over.

Quick brief on how it works. There are two portions:

- Reporting tool, that allows you to forward spam to SpamCop for analysis. This will pick apart the headers and body, find out where the spam originated from (even if it's gone through legitimate relays and aliasing systems, such as mailing lists), and will send complaints to the relevant owners of the IP block owners, MTAs and web sites. It does a VERY good job of figuring out who's responsible.

- Blocking tool that uses a RBL-style blocking list, which lists IP addresses of spam originators. If enough spam gets reported within 24 hours, the IP sending the spam gets added to the list. You can use this to block addresses where spam has originated from so you dont even receive the spam. People get their IP addresses unblocked only if spam stops being sent from that IP.

The system is very good. It relies on you and others reporting spam to SpamCop in a very workable collaberative effort.

http://spamcop.net/

My e-mail is currently hosted at SpamCop, who do a pretty good job of filtering out spam before it even reaches my mailbox. They shunt spam into a seperate folder using the excellent SpamCop blacklist, and can also optionally use additional blacklists including SPEWS, Osirusoft, ORDB, Spamhaus, Monkeys.com, etc. etc.

Combine that with POP3, IMAP, and web access, and also the ability to suck mail out of existing POP3 accounts and I think it's excellent value.

No, they're not paying me to say all that, I'm just an extremely happy customer. :)

The efforts to try and sell certain non-critical assets in order to secure sufficient cash proceeds to meet the ongoing obligations of the company have not been successful. This situation is not expected to change over the next 24 hours.

1. the The EU has just banned spam
2. Qwest is the biggest spam source on the net

Support this service

you are protected (mostly, excluding some web bugs) from the spammer getting your details without a fight.

there will need to be effective, quick, and hash penalties against ISPs that fail to block spam

dominik@schnitzer.at, mozparty-at-subscribe@relax.ath.cx, dominik@schnitzer.at, david_markvica@web.de, johannes_richter@gmx.net, kairo@kairo.at, rossi@chello.at, markush@world-direct.com, cbiesinger@web.de, jenskager@gmx.net, jo-at-mt@gmx.net, johann.petrak@gmx.at, dviper01@gmx.net, simon@simonschwaighofer.net, dreckskerl@glump.at, wt-lists@trexler.at, dusty@strike.wu-wien.ac.at, kasparhauserjr@hotmail.com, b.schallar@gmx.net, mutato@libero.it, phil@goli.at, diddalick@gmx.net, studio@paw8.com, croco@utanet.at, petru@paler.net, jlemmerer@node.at, bigkub@time2change.at, patrick@seher-it.at, ronald@hartwig.at, mozilla_party@webterminate.com, stefan@kleinhans.it, horst.jens@gmx.at, jjan@gibts.net, mjahn@agency.at, gpoul@gnu.org, green@eggs.ham, gerhard.hipfinger@openforce.at, mailto:moz@moz.org>, florianweinwurm@yahoo.com, christian@precht-jensen.dk, Bill_Gates@microsoft.com, Tux_the_penguin@linux.rules.microsoft.sux.open.sou rce.is.the.way.to.go.net, domi@schnitzer.at, joe_ringmaster@gmx.at, sifu@isohypse.org, dk@perm.ru, nobandwidth@bigpond.com, nobandwidth@bigpond.com, luke@strangemonkey.com, mrundataker@optushome.com.au, mcgarry@tig.com.au, chris@think.net.au, Mathias.Burbach@Bigfoot.com, acuteparanoia@optushome.com.au, syzh401@cse.unsw.edu.au, maillist@jasonlim.com, ram@digitalmethod.org, jason@sydneypubguide.net, geek@digitalone.com.au, curious@ihug.com.au, bill@maidment.com.au, kristof@staesis.org, bill@microsoft.com, belle@netset.net.au, ksosez@softhome.net, jruderman@hmc.edu, andyed@surfmind.com, down8@yahoo.com, mozparty@sigkill.com, bulbul@ucla.edu, gavin-mozparty@doughtie.com, roger@digitalfountain.com, matt@linuxschooltorrance.com, mozparty@ventura.nu, rombouts@compuserve.com, ian@freenetproject.org, tristanreid@yahoo.com, groovefx@yahoo.com, jj@lacasabonita.com, gmoudry@hotmail.com, eyezero@yahoo.com, ian@primewave.net, jlawson7@adelphia.net, el_arturo@att.net, janie@freenetproject.org, 145371217@numenor.net, infinite_8_monkey@yahoo.com, charshman@divus.org, mozparty@shadowlurker.net, john@marinapacific.com, ilanterrell@yahoo.com, aafes@psu.edu, bustamam98@yahoo.com, mozparty@myunixbox.com, yaten@sbcglobal.net, joelinux@pacificnet.net, dgc@penguino.net, poserskater69@yahoo.com, lheartb@hotmail.com, ncmother@zimage.com, daniel@likeicare.com, digital.evil@lycos.com, cjeburke@yahoo.com, jblow@hotmail.com, zachary.anthony@verizon.net, boogah@23.org, mebelost@yahoo.com, nickkricheff@netscape.net, mikemcg@ucla.edu, gogomozilla@denofslack.net, mike@mm1.com, seanmcoleman@attbi.com, jsm@bigfoot.com, hoarycripple@crippl3.net, mozparty@nslu.x.myxomop.com, mozparty@camworld.com, mozpartyNYC@isoga.net, ccarlen@netscape.com, h@rediffmail.com, lefever@rcn.com, tedjackson@accounting.org, darren@ny.com, marlon@nyc.com, plui@hyperreal.org, dzeluff@zeluff.com, joel@natividads.com, ken@bigbadapple.com, treebeard@treebeard.net, florent@nyc.com, chad@macristy.com, spud@montelshow.com, gbman_of_gvill@yahoo.com, eam-mozparty@learningpatterns.com, pkrause@primavera.com, tossoffus@yahoo.com, ryan@pantz.com, nichomof@eecs.tulane.edu, billg@microsoft.com, DevilsRejection@msn.com, petergunn@hotmail.com, bagerj@sullcrom.com, isaac@structuredsystems.net, bobk@panix.com, ngellner@hotmail.com, luke@sigterm.org, vivake@yahoo.com, jon@mediavortex.com, groovefx@yahoo.com, brendan@sighup.net, jds@panix.com, bluerose@bluerose.com, chris@allermann.net, dimkal@yahoo.com, preppyl@yahoo.com, blujoker@blujoker.net, nowell_h@hotmail.com, aragorn@cs.stanford.edu, treed@cpr.com, brt204@nyu.edu, andreas@antonopoulos.com, dj@randomwalks.com, lists@pote.com, mike@mhudack.com, reliable57@yahoo.com, jared@geek-boy.com, ondadl@mac.com, floss@myrealbox.com, xod@thestonecutters.net, mozilla@sectae.net, tywonm@screamingmedia.com, Odin_NT@hotmail.com, crooney@panix.com, bg25222@binghamton.edu, eugenem@brainlink.com, dave@downneck.net, romspace@mac.com, sdaejo@yahoo.com, masseo1@yahoo.com, jim@fearandloathing.net, mike@mjoy.us, miles@openly.com, LuciferSD@hotmail.com, nsdilwor@intertechmedia.com, chrisdowden@yahoo.com, pgs10@columbia.edu, sbrennan@ovid.com, lthomiso@rcn.com, paralox@paralox.ath.cx, Jester_458@yahoo.com, jsadove@beltion.net, stuehmke@yahoo.com, mike@realfx.com, alex@risky-roosky.com, shava@efn.org, kra10@columbia.edu, saihung@ix.netcom.com, gropo@mac.com, scottnym@yahoo.com, shaas@vibe.com, roon_toon@hotmail.com, ajaygautam@yahoo.com, jhdaly@mindspring.com, manuel@sphinx.ms, very_itchy_rash@yahoo.com, emeldrum@drew.edu, jeld@mindless.com, as867@columbia.edu, slams@penguin.rutgers.edu, wassa@columbia.edu, tony@vegan.net, zilla@bibliotrack.com, zeno_lee@hotmail.com, fosh@fishnet.cx, linux@gpl.us, jblow@hotmail.com, dkrook@hotmail.com, ivesti@yahoo.com, arek@arekwyderka.com, bljoechang@yahoo.com, brian@tribrothers.com, sparky@marklife.org, charles@softwareprototypes.com, scottkundla@hotmail.com, ccharabaruk@meldstar.com, ian@pottinger.ca, netdemonz@yahoo.com, diatribe@mailcity.com, nick@tomkinet.com, shawnlin@yahoo.com, sculley@pathcom.com, herd.killing@rogers.com, dave@renouf.com, aliyamin@hotmail.com, aswitzer@ispgn.com, netm0nkey@ispgn.com, hyakugei@hotmail.com, geduggan.mozparty@peri.csclub.uwaterloo.ca, lwhite@darkfires.ca, jorel@the-wire.com, js@tap.net, davew@tap.net, tmh@whitefang.com, vid_mozillaparty@zooid.org, anon@foolswisdom.org, morris_mk@yahoo.ca, colinmc@idirect.com, marcus.brubaker@utoronto.ca, akish@kishcom.com, nconway@klamath.dyndns.org, jason@thegeekcave.com, rampaging_simian@hotmail.com, garret@sirsonic.com, piowie@myrealbox.com, m5m5m@yahoo.com, ivan.brovko@net-sweeper.com, returnofthedorks@hotmail.com, axxackall@yahoo.com, tednye@sympatico.ca, darren.fuller@bell.ca, jbailey@nisa.net, swangeo@yahoo.ca, Hercynium@yahoo.com, cinetron@passport.ca, jotaroh@hotmail.com, aghajani@principle.com, fzv@yahoo.com, rocketmail_com@rocketmail.com, foo@bar.com, wolfe@alt.net, drew@xyzzy.dhs.org, jimmiejaz@nixhelp.net, bofh@swma.net, nilesh_mehta@email.com, mslack@rogers.com, m-cahill@rogers.com, tworkowski@sympatico.ca, george@openlight.com, irina@openlight.com, ilia@lobsanov.com, rjs@tao.ca, paul-mp@it.ca, alvarolists@aycuens.com, xan@dimensis.com, ike@lab.org, miguel@asiinfo.net, marevalo@marevalo.net, iolalla@yahoo.com, peluz0n@justice.com, weeddeveloper@yahoo.com, alfonsobugs@terra.es, sgala@apache.org, z_gringo@hotmail.com, santiz@madritel.es, murphy@litio.net, fox@mozilla.gr.jp, party@mozilla.org.uk, danj@fledgeling.com, fun@thingy.apana.org.au, moz@the-allens.net, onelists@hotmail.com, joel@fysh.org, simon.mozilla-party-if-its-in-central-london@rumbl e.net, bigboyjim@excite.com, andrew.and.friends.iff.central.london@sent.freeser ve.co.uk, itwillbecentrallondon@mozilla.org.uk, noahsark2x2@tiscali.co.uk, mmm-central-london@smileyben.com, jonathan-for-central-london@peepo.com, dave-Party-in-Central-London@dgta.co.uk, DJGMOL@netscape.net, srick@europe.yahoo-inc.com, moz-party@zpok.demon.co.uk, moz-party-central-london@trickofthelight.org, marc@brosystems.com, party@budge.net, rillian@telus.net, uphillsurfer@hotmail.com, edward@debian.org, mozilla@robertbrook.com, reagan@technomoose.com, lew@saltbeefsandwich.co.uk, osama@afghanistan.com, barking@insaneworld.org.uk, john@billabong-media.com, leith@cs.bu.edu, mozparty@noseynick.org, jonasj@jonasj.dk, bugzilla@kenneth.dk, chr_damsgaard@hotmail.com, alring@email.com, hp.grondal@get2net.dk, martin@marquentein.dk, Lovechild@foolclan.com, Kim@schulz.dk, kl@vsen.dk, mbendix@dunghill.dk, schnitzer.at@tange.dk, tommy@svindel.net, moz10@pbb.dk, dezral@despammed.com, nick@tioka.com, ask@fujang.dk, gecko@c.dk, spam@deck.dk, bugzilla@gemal.dk, b@bogdan.dk, kenneth@gnu.org, jee@email.dk, daniel@rtfm.dk, umfalvo@yahoo.com, christian@ostenfeld.dk, xor@ivwnet.com, Jason@screaminweb.com, alex@spamcop.net, dustym@riseup.net, rmcgee1@earthlink.net, dr_zeus@hotmail.com, chris.lozano@myrealbox.com, looney_binn@yahoo(dot)com, apendell@attbi.com, dantrevino@wrevolution.org, fireball1244@mac.com, tommyo@hargray.com, natas@redtailboa.net, emmett_in_dallas@yahoo.com, razzbuten@yahoo.com, igdavis@truculent-telephone.org, foobar@null.net, bob@kludgebox.com, cgrimland@yahoo.com, ghamlett@swbell.net, bgood@inceptual.com, slot0k@pogox.org, kwhudson@netin.com, jimjamjoh@softhome.net, jimmys@utdallas.edu, charlesv@mfos.org chris@focus2.com jest6r@hotmail.com steve@ncc.com, usrg@mail.utexas.edu, steve@deltos.com, alex@avengergear.com, mkoenecke@alum.haverford.edu langley@hex.net mordred@inaugust.com swapan@yahoo.com drosoph@hotmail.com, goulash1@mac.com, ean@brainfood.com, vj@vj.com lpret42@hotmail.com bugoff@hotmail.com chad@digitaltriage.net, stewart@digitaltriage.net scottvr01@yahoo.com adam@dfwuptime.com dsaint@gnumatt.org naltrexone42@yahoo.com, webmaster@bast.net, tommyo@hargray.com, ladd@kryp.to, jtaylor5@bayou.uh.edu, jgschmitz@linuxmail.org, enslaver@enslaver.com edfierro@yahoo.com, moz@photonsphere.com, rayw@fuckmicrosoft.com, rfmobile@swbell.net, kevin@unif.com trident5@bigfoot.com Erik_Osterholm@ieee.org, tmunson@houston.rr.com, alessi_brand@hotmail.com, rballa1@lsu.edu, wasted@kewlhair.com, jofficer@martinapparatus.com, idiot@mylinuxisp.com, j0sh01@ev1.net faust@wintermarket.org bouncer@hotmonkeyporn.com tk-mozparty_@perljam.net janisch@students.zcu.cz, aha@pinknet.cz kuzi@atlas.cz scat@reboot.cz, petr@dousa.cz, ruzicka@core.cz, roman@management.cz, hojan@students.zcu.cz, tille@soti.org, cas.tuyn@hetnet.nl, aeon@pandora.be, sensi_millia2000@yahoo.com, crypto@shiftat.com, jan.fabry@vsknet.be, monkeyboy@fruru.com, adulau@foo.be, johan@linux.be, karu@pobox.com, soggie@soti.org nick@tomkinet.com, why_are_you_too_lazy_to_drive_1_hour_to_toronto@yo u_lazy.com try_grammer_class_a_while@get_a_life.com john@interlynx.ca asharp@axo.cc, unionstation@ryder.ca, prade@hotmail.com, 2600@hamilton2600.ca, chris.lozano@myrealbox.com, dantrevino@wrevolution.org, jksteinhauer@netscape.net, i_love_junk_email@yahoo.com, cmiller@surfsouth.com, jan@bestbytes.de, me@phillipoertel.com, sebastian@pixelsalon.de, ccozan@andtek.com, ben@itlib.de, martin.ament@gmx.de, pulsar@highteq.net, muid@gmx.de, cedi@zooomclan.org, soapy@soapy.ch, deep_blue_ocean@gmx.ch, stamp@zooomclan.org, hans@switzerland.com, milamber@zooomclan.org, mtettea@switzerland.com, cylander@zooomclan.org, duke@zooomclan.org, pegirun@gmx.ch, pilif@pilif.ch, mlati@yahoo.com, Mozillzooom@holophrastic.com, erichiseli@yahoo.com, la_burdet@yahoo.com, rkoerber@gmx.de, dotzmasta@hotmail.com, B.Eckstein@cli.de, rtfm@linux.de, info@phosmo.de, gz@disintegrated.de, byronbay@gmx.de, stiwi@mac.com, mage@koeln.netsurf.de, mozilla@portfolio16.de, wrede@fh-aachen.de, ilikemozilla@html.de, cloud@final-fantasy.de, sfricke@sfricke.de, info@flossbau.de, no@dom.de, julian.suschlik@gmx.net, omero@m4d.sm, lapo@lapo.it, alcor78@email.it, info@fuelcat.it, mutato@libero.it, ildella@inwind.it, a.marabini@spinthehumanfactor.com, uomoman@criticalbit.com, thefl74@netscape.net, elbardo@libero.it, clem131@libero.it, t-i-e@bigfoot.com, gng74@libero.it, moz.party.20.gnes@spamgourmet.com, ema.cerqui@libero.it, ubertob@tin.it, mozparty.20.anagoor@spamgourmet.com, gianpaolo@preciso.net, ian@deepsky.com, marco@porciletto.org, planetx2100@hotmail.com, billabong@tiscalinet.it, piofree@libero.it, skunkyboy@tiscalinet.it, vincenzo@mondopiccolo.net, macmatteo@interfree.it, contreras@jce.it, hereandnow@libero.it, pza@students.cs.mu.oz.au, caedwa@students.cs.mu.oz.au, mgi@students.cs.mu.oz.au, bah@humbug.net, mfp@cs.mu.oz.au, nospamplease@indevelopment.org, peter@simplyit.screaming,net, pmj@users.sf.net, xanni@sericyb.com.au, agh@kalcium-is.com, felicityconsult@ozemail.com.au, lucas@lucaschan.com, andrewg@nopninjas.com, andym@abnormal.com, ts@meme.com.au, jasonpell@hotmail.com, syngin@gimp.org, mhammond@skippinet.com.au, szutshi@devraj.org, rmoonen@bigpond.net.au, fawad@fawad.net, ufs@softhome.net, kotrade@yahoo.com, ben@benscorp.com, stevesmith@columbus.rr.com, kkimmelosu@yahoo.com, neal.lindsay@peaofohio.com, pat@linuxcolumbus.com, chrisbaker@iname.com, hiroki2c@yahoo.com, seth@remor.com, jsohn@columbus.rr.com, ross@nanonet.net, mark@cushman.net, swinghammer.2@osu.edu, roberto.12@osu.edu, farhat@hotmail.com, pgunn@dachte.org, jwagner@gcfn.org, bp@osc.edu, joepletch@postmark.net, dsherman@iwaynet.net, glenn@uniqsys.com, bernstein.46@osu.edu, trent_reznor@nothing.com, erikniklas@bobanddoug.com, walters@gnu.org, timo@bolverk.net, annek25@aol.com, jlamb@leader.com, bart@osc.edu, jason@mcvetta.org

This really is on topic, in the sense that because of the bulk of spam coming in, there should be some consideration for it in how mail is stored. Maybe even by creating a special bit of meta-data for handling things just like this (so spamassassin wouldn't have to modify the actual message body) - or anything else for that matter. Personally, I'd try to stay away from any mail storage format that doesn't let me get at the ORIGINAL email source so I can report the spam to spamcop and/or the WA State Attorney General (being that some suggestions mentioned splitting off the attachments/etc - this is something that the CLIENT should do, not the MDA/server). Personally, I really like Maildir. It works great for IMAP, and with the file system improvements mentioned before (and maybe some db-type improvements like indexing, caching, etc) it does its job well.. but NEVER take away my email source. Heck, with drive space so cheap lately, you could easily store both the source AND (a cache of) the extracted pieces..

Best money I've ever spent...

I'm using spamcop.net and it's cut down on my spam by about 85%. Cost is $30/year for having your email filtered. Some spam (15%) still gets through but you can submit that to them to ensure others don't get the same spam as well.

(I have no affiliation with spamcop.net except as a satisfied customer.)

What I do is include on every web page I produce an invisible 1x1 gif with a mailto: to a special e-mail address. My goal is not to prevent SPAMBOTS or even try to confuse them. I want them to scarf up the special e-mail address. When SPAM is sent to this address, I have scripts on my Mac OS X system that downloads the e-mail and scans it for headers, subject and body message. Once it collects this information, it sends a copy to SpamCop and then it sends the info to my postfix e-mail server to scan other accounts for the same message and then updates my postfix configuration to block further e-mails. I give my "special e-mail address" a name that will alphabetically sort before any other e-mail addresses in my domain. I have noticed SPAMMERS tend to send SPAMs out in alphabetical order to my domain so this works fairly well. I have never had a false positive with this method.

The great thing about this system is that 90% of the time I report SPAM to SpamCop, it says its a fresh SPAM. So not only am I helping to prevent SPAM to my users, I am hopefully helping others that are using SpamCop's RBL.

Try Spamcop it can be set up to use with Outlook (not sure about other clients) so that you just click the little magic 8-ball button on your toolbar and your spam is reported.

For example, if you know what to listen for (hard 'edges' to notes on vocals) you can hear it all over Britney's music. It's also being used as a vocoder-type effect (synth filtered by voice) on some recordings. The song on Kid Rock's hit CD that he sang on (it was country sounding) used it extensively.

• Cher - Believe (but boycott Cher because she supports perpetual copyright)
• Kid Rock - Only God Knows Why (country-ish rock)
• Eiffel 65 - Blue (the song rumored to be about homosexuality: "I'm in need of a guy, I'm in need of a guy")

However, use of the vocoder on some other songs is more subtle. Sometimes, the vocoder's pitch is set halfway between the pitch the slut is actually singing and the pitch that her producers want her to sing, which produces a much less synthetic perception. (Following a single voice's pitch is straightforward: square-root the signal to restore the fundamental, apply a 4th order low pass filter to remove harmonics, and count sign changes. If you want to know more, mail me.)

Oops! I did it again. I just described how to do something that probably infringes a dozen patents worldwide.

Given What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org), I don't think submitting it to Slashdot as an article is even worth the e-mail.

I'll post it here just for reader enjoyment. I think it's better than many of the stories which WERE posted!

______

Spam "protection" - a modest proposal

by Seth Finkelstein
April 1 2002

The problem of Spam, i.e. junk e-mail, has been plaguing the net for years. This article makes a modest proposal for spam "protection", in terms of a novel economic analysis leading to the benefit of all concerned.

In economic terms, let's consider why there's profit in spamming (sending large numbers of unsolicited emails). This is due to the "cost-shifting" nature of the spam process. It takes very little effort to send a large number of e-mails. But e-mail is not free (as in beer). In effect, the spammer shifts the expense of the advertising campaign, from the seller, onto ISPs and users:

1. The ISP must pay (in resources) to distribute the spammer's ads
2. The user must pay (in time) to delete the spammer's ads

But what does this sorting organization do? Its only task is to try to identify spam from real mail. That is, it is paid to try to identify mail sent from spammers. However, since it is in an adversary relationship to the spammers, the spam-gangs have every reason to try to avoid such identification.

There have been some proposals to facilitate identification of spam by legally requiring labels. But that involves government and law. In fact, it's compelled speech! Instead, since the free market is the solution to all problems, the only proper course of action is to provide spammers with an economic incentive to identify themselves. After all, spam identification is the exact product being sold by third parties, so why pay a middle-man? If one is going to pay, for maximum market efficiency, why not pay the source?

In this scheme, the user pays a mailbox "protection fee" to an umbrella group, let's call it the "Spamafia". In return for this "protection", the "Spamafia" provides the user with a simple mailbox checking system which can be run over mail messages. Because this system works in a manner akin to passing items over a net barrier, it might be termed a "racket". So, the "racket" tests each piece of mail. Those mail messages which originate from members of the Spamafia each contain a certification token. In the process of testing the mail, this token is sent back to the Spamafia, and so redeemed to the individual spammer for a small fee, say a penny or so. In return, the user is given assurance that this message is certified as spam, and so can be automatically deleted without fear of losing legitimate mail. In essence, the spammer is given an incentive to also obtain a small amount of money from each smart user by being straightforward, rather than only trying to obtain a larger amount of money by fooling just a few suckers (and annoying everyone else).

The beauty of the system is that everyone has an incentive to participate. The spammers get more money, as the spams can generate income now from both the suckers, and the nonsuckers paying mailbox protection fees. There's no reason to evade spam-detection, in fact the opposite. The more people signed up to the protection racket, the more certification tokens are redeemed. The smart users get to have a workable mailbox, rather than one filled with junk. And they have the "peace of mind" that the mail being deleted is not important. It's the magic of the market at work.

She says she is tired digging through 40 junk emails to find the 1 email from her sister.

I don't understand. How can people get that amount of spam? Do spammers hold you americans as special targets?

I get about 1 email per month that is spam. I never give my real email to the sites I frequent—I have a yahoo account for that; see my address. I send every spam email I get to SpamCop. I never reply to spam.

(Maybe you are special targets...)

How can you people get so much spam?

Sure, this is a funny little skit Jon has going on, and I understand that this particular Slashdot story is just for shits and giggles.

But if all of us reported every single piece of unsolicited email that we got to SpamCop (or a similar service if you know of one), the whole world'd be a lot better off.

We need to be kind of harsh toward these spammers who take advantage of open relays in China and such while clogging our mailboxes. Rather than just replying with hateful words, or deleting the messages, let's all take steps to end this crap for real (because the legislation to make spam illegal certainly isn't moving very quickly).

mono

The short answer - NO. Don't use them. If you recieve mail you're sure you didn't opt in to, you can't trust their remove link, so don't even try. Go to SpamCop and report the crap. The best way to remove yourself from a spam list is to shut the fsckers down.

Cheers,
Backov

Spamassassin is great! I've never had large problems with spam (4-5 per week at most), but using Spamassassin, Vipul's Razor and reporting everything to both Razor and SpamCop has drastically reduced the amount of spam I recieve. I still keep a copy of every spam I recieve for statistical purposes (and a highscore list with Spamassassin :-) ), and so far everything has been fully automated using procmail rules and spamassassin.

So far, my spamassassin high score is 25,2 -- and 5 is enough to trigger the spam filters.

(Disclaimer: not directly relevant, but I thought I'd share.) My email address is scannable from Usenet posts made when I was young and foolish, so there is no hope of it not being available to spammers. But, since using Spamcop, my spam levels decreased, and today at 9 AM MST, for the first time in years I checked my mail and it was spam free. I'm starting to suspect that spammers now keep lists of email addresses of people who are vigilant in reporting spam, and deleting them from their lists. (My hope is, that the CDs in which my email address resides, are now considered "no good," not just my address.) So, there is hope.

Filtering spam does absolutely no good. Even if it prevents you from seeing it, the sender remains at large and no action is taken towards removing the "spam threat."

You can register at SpamCop for a free reporting account. This simple tool parses the header from your spam, gathers information about hosts, admins, and open relays, and reports said information to said admins. All you have to do is forward your spam to the email address they give you, then follow the link they send back. It's very easy, if you know what you're doing (ie, you know a bit about mail).

How does it work? By reporting open relays to router admins, business solicitating sites on personal web hosts to server admins, and provider-specific (AOL, etc.) TOS violations.

Testimonial: I have an account that I use for personal correspondence that used to be spammed about 1-2 times per week. I also have a Yahoo! account that I give to the public at large... that used to be spammed 5-10 times per DAY, OVER AND ABOVE what Yahoo! filters automatically into the Bulk Mail folder. I've been using SpamCop for about three months now, and I'm down to 1-2 spams per MONTH on my personal account, and 1-2 spams per day on my Yahoo! account. Not bad, eh?

So it takes some effort and some time, but it's far worth it. Filtering is the wrong way to go.

Thanks for your time. =)

Step on too many people's toes, and someone will kill/hurt you whenever they can, for whatever they can.

Perhaps there is something to be learnt from this.

However, I DO think that good, semi-automated, responsible services like Spamcop will prevail. The owner has no bad attitude and is friendly, the system works very well, and the RBL rarely rarely blocks legitimate email, unlike other lists that block most/all of Asia and Europe.

If you produce counterfeit bills and try to spend them at my store, and I ask you to leave saying "your fake money's no good here", would you really want to try to sue me into accepting your funny money?

E-mail advertising, which is relatively inexpensive, is one of the few forms of Internet advertising that is thriving, and has become a key area of focus at DoubleClick.

I love the spin they put on this. They make spam out to sound like the latest & greatest form of advertising.
It's SPAM. Not advertising, SPAM. Just because it is "thriving" does not give them the right to spam us.

In addition to helping advertisers segment their customer data to launch more targeted ads, DartMail 3.5 also helps track customer transactions in more detail, recording such information as the value of a given purchase and whether it was made in direct response to an e-mail transaction.

Invasion of Privacy becomes "Track Customer Transactions in Detail". Amazing.

After all, that's JUST what we want...for people to be able to track us even more. When did invading our privacy become a good thing??

The internet is NOT Television, and these marketers need to stop trying to treat it like that. They can NOT force us to look at ads, no matter what they do. And dumping unsolicited emails on us isn't the solution.

Until these guys get it, I suggest 2 things:
1) Block doubleclick (wildcarded, of course) on your router/firewall.
2) Make use of SpamCop.net.

You really think Hotmail don't have anything to detect multiple, fast, repeat postings through the same account?? Even the slashcode has that :-)

Spammers use standalone client software which hooks up to an open relay and batters it into submission. If anyone was actually watching said SMTP server they'd be sure to notice the load and shut the connection off. The thing is no one is watching...Hotmail doesn't fit into this category.

Want evidence - take a look here. These stats from spamcop show that Hotmail don't even make it into their weekly statistics as sources of spam. I rest my case.

Pacific rim hosts dominate the SpamCop statistics.

Well, there's always this tactic...

Have you ever looked at the headers from a spam? There's a good chance it was bounced off an open relay in China. Take a look at the Spamcop weekly open relay statistics.

These are very hard to get fixed, mostly because of the language barrier. Still, if you're particularly evil, you can always email the administrator thanking them for providing such a valuable resource for Falun Gong/Free Tibet.

You are.

Across my various accounts, I've dealt with over 2400 spams in the last TWO WEEKS. That's more than 170 a day. This is from accounts where I don't post to usenet & don't subscribe to anything. If you do, it'll be worse.

I highly recommend www.spamcop.net. Everything I get goes through there, so at least a -few- of the spammers are getting their butts smacked.

Oh, and your 10? Note in the article where they say that spam is increasing by a factor of SIX per year. That'll be 60 per day next year. I'll vouch for the increase, a couple of months back I was 'only' dealing with about a hundred spams a day.

When I get spam, I report it on spamcop. It is a free service [with pay options, please pay and keep it going!] that will analyze your e-mail and headers looking for legitimate source IPs, open relays and websites mentioned in the spam and then look up the e-mail addresses to send anonymous reports on your behalf. You can also sign up for spam-free e-mail and buy a paid subscription to spamcop reporting. I can't say whether it has worked or not, but I feel better knowing open relays are being noted and that sysadmins are being notified! Link.

adam.

I'll second the endorsement for spamcop. Turning spammers in to spamcop seems to be the way to get on the real "don't send" lists.

http://www.sneakemail.com

I am VERY satisfied user.

Oh, and for some annoyances http://www.spamcop.net do the job really well.

I personally like SpamCop.Net. It has a dynamic black list based on ip. If people report spam from a specific ip address, it will (after a certain threshhold) get added to the black list. Once the spam stops being reported, the ip address becomes open again.

Apparently, comcast is currently blacklisted with spamcop.

details here.

On second glance, it seems they've had a long history of being blacklisted.

spamcop can help automate the tracing and reporting process.

Reporting spam is free and you can pay for a filtered e-mail account.

Plus, I remember when getting a piece of SPAM was actually funny because it was so rare. Now the SPAM to wanted email is about 1:10. It's just...wrong.

I used to think people were making up the entire SPAM phenomenon just because I never got any. Now, though... Ugh. Spamcop is my friend now.

And I do agree that the whole BS-affair is way overplayed. At some point, he'd go away if we'd just ignore him.

and I keep dreaming...

The correct technical solution is to filter your e-mail. No laws to sneak up and get us later, and we can improve the filter to our likeing at any point. I find www.spamcop.net to work wonders for my inbox. Not only does it block the unwanted mail very accuratly, but it simplifies the complain-to-the-system-admin's process.

The electronic mail message referenced in this report was transmitted to a user or users of an electronic mail service based in the state of Tennessee, USA, in direct violation of Tennessee Code Title 47, Chapter 18, Part 25: "Unsolicited Advertising by Electronic Means." See http://www.spamlaws.com/state/tn.html for the complete text of this law.

Another thing I just noticed: Qwest hosts the most "spamvertized" websites. http://spamcop.net/stats/www.shtml

After running spam through SpamCop, I've noticed that the address globalipx_doesnt_care@devnull.spamcop.net coming up quite often.

BTW, qwest is currently third at spamcop. Combined, AT&T is still kicking Qwest's ass is number of spam complaints.

What we need is some kind of clearing house of opt-out info, a la SpamCop, that would allow us to look up all the companies that we do business with and see what their real policies are. A nice feature would be the ability to generate legally binding letters of notification that we could send to those companies, preemptively opting out of all possible dissemination of our data.

Is this already available, or is someone working on it? If not, I'll get busy. Comments and suggestions welcome!

I just did a quick calculation on the 4 months of spam I have saved. I get about 1530 pieces of spam a year. Even at that rate, I'm debating using the service by SpamCop.net. Although, you have to wonder if it is worth $50 per year just to get rid of those messages...

To report spam, the _easiest_ way is through spamcop.net. You signup (free) and they will send you an email address to forward your emails. So all you do is forward the email as an attachment which preserves all the headers. Spamcop will do the tedious work of hunging down the headers adn open relays abused and send a report to those automatically.

I have been using it for a week now, and absolutely love it. Give it a try. You'll be glad you did.

LinuxLover

With the last article about spam that ran on Slashdot. I saw someone mention spamcop. I knew of the service, but never really checked it out before.

After reading most everything on their site, I figured I'd sign up for their pay filter service. Not really to stop the spam (that is just a nice added benifit), but just for ease of reporting the spammers.

Since signing up spamcop has probally stopped around 50 spams to me a day. Still about 5 a day slip through (and perhaps 1 false positive a day). I have reported all of the spam. I think I've recieved about 8 responces total to my reports, and I keep getting spam from the same places.

I'm pretty impressed with the service. At $0.50 a megabyte it isn't too expencive (but I shouldn't have to pay to not recieve e-mail). They are planning on going to a flat rate of $3 a month (which will be good for me as they estimate I'll be paying about $7 a month at my current rate).

Anyway, check it out if you haven't before, www.spamcop.net. At least report some of the spam you get using their free service to help build a bigger data base of open relays and other bad Internet company.

Use spamcop. Use it for a while, and your spamcount will shrink.

You can forward spam messages to SpamCop, but in order to do that, you need to register for their service. However, I like to look at the statistics page of spam I am about to report, to make sure that I'm not sending spam report mail to anyone who doesn't deserve to get it (such as legitimate people who were unlucky enough to be involved in the headers somehow). That way, only the people who need to know about the spam get the SpamCop mail.

You can forward spam messages to SpamCop, but in order to do that, you need to register for their service. However, I like to look at the statistics page of spam I am about to report, to make sure that I'm not sending spam report mail to anyone who doesn't deserve to get it (such as legitimate people who were unlucky enough to be involved in the headers somehow). That way, only the people who need to know about the spam get the SpamCop mail.

You can forward spam messages to SpamCop, but in order to do that, you need to register for their service. However, I like to look at the statistics page of spam I am about to report, to make sure that I'm not sending spam report mail to anyone who doesn't deserve to get it (such as legitimate people who were unlucky enough to be involved in the headers somehow). That way, only the people who need to know about the spam get the SpamCop mail.

I realize that most of you probably already know about this, but I am going to mention it anyways: if you're having problems with spam, you should go to SpamCop. They have a free service that you can use to report spam to the necessary network administrators via parsing the headers of the spam mail. Simply save a bookmark that they give you, and when you receive spam mail, go to that book mark, paste in the whole text of the spam mail (including headers) and click a button.

I know that it's hard to keep spammers from doing what they're doing due to their using different email addresses and hosts each time they send out some spam mail. But I have found that by using SpamCop regularly, the spam mails eventually stop coming to my inbox. And whether this means that they've been taken out of business or they're removed me from their spam list due to my being a thorn in their side - well, either is good enough for me.

All my spam now seems to be coming from China according to SPAMCOP. What is the deal with this? Are the Chinese so clueless that the entire country runs as an open relay? Since I don't access any resources in China, feel free to pull the plug on them.