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If you want to know the day of September 1993, go to : http://www.stopspam.org/faqs/endlesssept.html

And they called us vigilantes ...!

The Usenet Death Penalty is just that people will stop every posting appearing on USENET originating from an ISP that misbehaves too much (i.e. wanton spammage)

No need for DDoS anything for that, some well programmed cancelbots on key places will do that trick quite nicely. And yes, it is an effective tool to twist an ISP's arm into cooperating/complying.

The real beef on the Usenet Death Penalty is here. Read it before you spout off about something you don't know anything about.

Your analogy is quite flawed tho. You can't just call the police to arrest the spammer because spamming isn't illegal in a lot of places, whilst selling crack is.

This compares maybe something more to the tune of people going around door to door, asking for money. It's not illegal, but it can be annoying, but it's not that bad as I only see maybe 1 person a month. But if you apply this to spam, the cost for "going to door to door" is really cheap, so you can get hundreds of "visits" a day. So how do you stop them? You can't arrest them, it's not illegal (in most states). If you can think of a better way to convince "spam friendly" ISP to not allow spammers, I'm all ears.

This kind of blocking has been done in the past (but with warnings first), and has been met with similar outlash. usenet udp. I'm up in the air about the issue. I hate spam friendly ISP's with a passsion, but on the other hand, if there was only one high-speed ISP in town and they were spam friendly, then I'd be screwed.

SOMETHING needs to be done, no doubt about it. Spam Assassin works to an extent, but it's more of a hack, and doesn't actually directly address the problem at it's source, where it needs to be addressed.

is there a good document on figuring out what all the headers mean? I've always wondered where my spam comes from.

Try this one. There are tons of others, just search for "read full email headers" or some similar phrase in your search engine du jour.

There are tons of howto-type documents out there, though IMO the best advice is to take a week or so and get to know SMTP somewhat; once you do that the headers make a lot of sense.

Cheers

That begs the question: what has been the most long-lived virus/worm/trojan so far?

That's easy -- MAKE MONEY FAST!

The folks at StopSpam.org have a good overview on Reading Email Headers.

The folks at StopSpam.org have a good overview on Reading Email Headers.

So have you read the mail headers and determined that these spams indeed came from Yahoo or Hotmail? The From: address means nothing. The only thing you can trust are the headers. Most all of the spam that claims to come from these services is sent from somewhere else. Think about it. How long would it take to send 100,000 spams through a Web interface when you're limited to something like 25-50 addresses at a time? Not to mention that each and every one is going to be tagged with the spammer's computer's IP. Hotmail even uses a header called X-Originating-IP so you can't miss it.

If you want a good tutorial on how to read headers, go here. It's a bit dated, but it will give you a good foundation on what headers mean.

This is a good thing, and not just because we all enjoy bashing Microsoft. (Not that there's anything wrong with bashing Microsoft ;)

Why is this good? It's because, just like the Usenet Death Penalty, if MAPS takes on one of the "big boys", and wins (by forcing them to back down), it will be a great stride forward in the public's perception of MAPS as a legitimate system. MAPS needs public recognition, and standing firm on a legitimate dispute with a major player is just the way to get it.

--

Go find some _real_ information.

http://www.stopspam.org/usenet/faqs/udp.html
might do for example.
(And hey, /., don't even try making this A HREF, you're modifying my posts, they're copyrighted, whine, whine...)

UDP isn't about not feeding them articles, it's about not _taking_ articles originating there.

And fortunately, people who decide UDPs have more brains the average Slashdotter.


--
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind.
Its teaching, therefore, should be

Dunno about PSI, but SpewSpewNet has a reputation for spam-friendliness. They were subjected to the Usenet Death Penalty in August 1997, and responded with legal threats, obfuscation, and just about everything else except a committment to fix the problem. They eventually put a stronger policy in place, but establishing a policy is not equivalent to enforcing it.
/.

If no one can hear anything but your yelling, then certainly no one else can speak, freely or otherwise.

The same can happen when an eletronic forum becomes bloated with so much junk that the signal to noise ratio approximates zero. Hence the UDP.

I know, I know. You can just "walk away" right?

You can be spammed out of a forum and start another and hope all those other folks can find it before the spammers do, right?

So you should change your email address when it gets so spammed that you can't use it anymore? What happens when every email address is that way? When happens when every USENET forum is that way? ALmost every communicaton o nthe internet that isn't somehow moderated is already suffering from these problems.

And don't forget that harassment can occur in any communicaton, and speaking with anger or foul language is different than harrassing someone with your speech. BOth of these problems already plague the net.

--

Flux, do you even know what an active UDP is?

Read the FAQ:

http://www.stopspam.org/usenet/faqs/udp. html


Pathost aliasing is usually associated with passive UDP, and this is explicitly an active UDP.

Yes, messages do indeed get "actively deleted" off other servers.

That's not, as you called it, "a gaping security hole". It's the normal default functionality of most news server software. You have to explicitly remove that functionality for it to not be there, with most commonly-used news servers.

You might want to read this faq, as well:

http://www.landfield.com/faqs/ usenet/cancel-faq/part1/

Have you read the UDP FAQ at http://www.stopspam.org/usenet/faqs/ud p.html??
If not, please do.

From the UDP FAQ:

What about legal issues? Don't you worry about being sued? As UUnet (and others) have found, there is no legal requirement for other sites to carry or post their messages. Cancel messages are advisory in nature, and the sites which accept them have to have the ability to process them enabled in their software for them to be effective (the vast majority of sites have them enabled). UUnet threatened legal action when they were UDP'ed in August of 1997, but both the US Justice Department and the FBI (and presumably their own legal department after they consulted them) stated that there had been no laws broken and that they refused to investigate or act. Because none of their own equipment or networks were attacked, compromised, or even affected, there was no legitimate Denial Of Service (DOS) complaint that could be filed. What was happening, in effect, was an organized boycott of their messages. Nothing more, nothing less - and there is nothing illegal in all that. There would also be a horrendous negative public relations wave from actually instituting any legal action. When UUnet threatened, even more people came out in support of that UDP, contributions to legal funds were offered by a large number of people, lawyers volunteered to defend those participating in the UDP, and many ISPs promised to alias UUnet permanently (and work to get others to do the same) the moment they actually instituted legal action.

As another example, there was a rogue canceler, nicknamed "the Kikecanceller" [because his racially inspired cancel message paths all had "!kikecancel" (along with "!spiccancel," "!wopcancel," and others) in them], who was active for a short while. This rogue canceler nuked over 25,000 articles for no legitimate reason before his account got canceled. James M. Hawkins, the supervising agent at the FBI's Tulsa office, stated: "We don't have a case. I don't think we're going to be getting involved in the matter." The local United States Attorney's office was contacted about the cancellations and they replied that no law had been broken. (see the NY Times article about the "Kikecanceller". Note: this site requires you to enter a user name and password to access it, although it is free. There have been no reported instances of spam being sent to any test address that was used to enter the site, so it appears as if this data is only used by that site and not released to anyone who might utilize it for a spamlist).

Well not only that, but if you read the FAQ then it explains in section 11 about "what about the legitimate users being cut off?". Section 8 also deals with those who 'hijack open servers'.

Basically, I see the UDP as saying "this site's users are toss-pots and the site admins aren't doing anything about it, block site, solve problem" and the existence legitimate users either forces the ISP to clean up its act, or they all go elsewhere - who'd want to subscribe to a lame ISP?

All in all, sounds like a good thing to me. Surprisingly enough, Deja notwithstanding, there are those of us who use news clients, subscribe to individual news groups, and read them as 'regulars'. We don't want no stinkin' @Home twerps on my newsgroups, for starters!

If you have a problem with spammers then you go after the spammers, not their ISP.

The first thing you should do before you continue with this rant is to get all the facts together, and take a read of the Usenet Death Penalty FAQ and maybe you wouldn't go shooting yourself in the foot with your obviously uninformed opinion.

Then maybe you would SEE that all other avenues have been exhasted.

Thats whats wrong with today's world, too many idiots prepared to shoot first and ask questions later.. now grow up..

Or maybe YOU are a spamming mongrel yourself.

I really have to ask, does anyone know is SPAM profitable? Are these just un-informed idiots that really don't know that they're wasting their time? Does anyone have information on this?

Furthermore has anyone even _heard_ of someone that bought something because of SPAM?

Are these people just the deranged/hopeful side of the net?

if the UDP has the desired effect, then it's an example of anarchism actually working

the UDP FAQ certainly claims a large number of successes, among them:

Erols.com had been a thorn in the side of usenet for a long time. With a change in policy after discussion of a UDP against them, they now have a very high reputation among both the usenet and email community.

Bell Atlantic, near the end of July, 1997, was a major spamhaus. Word got to them that they were being considered for a UDP. Spam dropped dramatically almost instantly, to their credit. No UDP was necessary.

UUnet, which was the largest single spam producer around the beginning of August, 1997, [...]announced and apparently instituted a much tougher AUP against spamming, and nuked a couple of the most persistent spammers that usenet has ever seen. Numbers again have fallen dramatically, and we all hope that UUnet continues with this policy.

October, 1997, Compuserve

In December, 1997, TIAC appeared absolutely unwilling to deal with any of their ongoing spam [...] UDP was announced with the 5 business day waiting period before institution. Although their owner continued to make excuses and argue about their culpability as well as bluster and threaten legal action, by the time the deadline had arrived, they had "cleaned up their act" to the point that the UDP was no longer necessary, and the deadline was extended for another 5 days to watch the numbers. After that additional 5 day period, the stats had stayed low, and the UDP deadline was lifted.

About 10 others between these dates.

In December of 1999, a simultaneous UDP of VSNL and SILNET, the two main carriers in India, was instituted for their failure to even begin to control the usenet terrorist who calls himself "HipCrime" and who forges, cancels, floods, and supercedes thousands of articles on a nearly daily basis in an attempt to blackmail the entire world into doing things his way - his way being a usenet without spam cancels. Currently, VNSL and SILET have enabled port 119 (news)blocks on all outgoing connections from their services with the exception of their own servers.

So, it looks like there is good evidence that this will work, given the past history of success.

My Mum told me to hit them!

Um, read the UDP FAQ, item 10 in particular. In short: It's not DOS, it's simply an organized boycott, which is perfectly legal. UUNet threatened legal action when they got UDP'ed, and the Justice Dept. and the FBI just laughed at them.

the way a UDP works is that several news admins are generating cancel messages for articles originating from @Home. If you go read the UDP FAQ you would know this. Anyone not wishing to participate in an active UDP can refuse to accept articles from the pseudosite udpcancel.
All cancels delaing with an active UDP have udpcancel in their path header.

So, the majority of usenet admins are participating simply because they haven't chosen to ignore these cancels.

Even if a site that ignores these cancels passes them on to another site which honors these cancels, the second site will get the cancels and the messages will go away. (It's magic!) The only news servers where the articles originating from @Home will be found are the guys who ignore the udpcancels.

And not to try to impress you, but I do control a major newsfeed. You can also reach me at my deja.com address. I'm their primary news admin.

According to the FAQ that one gentleman posted, UUnet got this in 1997, and threatened legal action. That was stupid, infeasible, and generally clueless, and was laughed out in short order. However, the internet was not really Big Business then, with Big Pockets and Stupid Corporate Lawyers (tm). How stupid is @Home? Might they try a lawsuit? Yes, it would kill them and not work anyway, but stupidity knows few bounds...

I'm extremely impressed by the USENET community's ability to get companies to respond quickly to spam complaints once UDP has been declared. Sanctions do work sometimes.

-S. Louie

You did sound pretty ignorant, because if you'd read the usenet article that was linked to, you'd have seen a link to the UDP FAQ.

The original message linked to on deja states:

Please see the Usenet Death Penalty FAQ, <http://www.stopspam.org/usenet/faqs/udp.html>.

The UDP, if effectively implemented, cuts off all users of that domain from being heard by the rest of usenet.

As an @home customer who sometimes uses usenet (and has complained about spam before) I am going to go write a letter to customer service now...

UDP Faq
That's the faq for the UDP.
ls: .sig: File not found.

Perhaps they need to be taught a lesson. Slashdot should consider filing for a Usenet Death Penalty or, if there such a thing, SMTP Death Penalty.
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