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TrustE Launches Trusted Spammer Program
Silverhammer writes: "InfoWorld is reporting that such luminaries as TRUSTe, ePrivacy Group, MSN, and DoubleClick are getting together to develop a "trusted senders" program to certify "commercial email" and "elevate" it above ISPs' and end users' spam filters. Why, you ask? Because they believe it's actually our fear of fraud that's hurting their response rates. Apparently all that stuff about invasion of privacy and theft of resources is just a big misunderstanding..." The Infoworld story linked above has the best information about this seal program, but CNet has another story including a quote forecasting 1400 pieces of spam per person per day in five years. Update: 01/31 17:02 GMT by M : The FTC is announcing a crackdown on spam.
Because they believe it's actually our fear of fraud that's hurting their response rates.
When I found out Sally and her dorm full of debutants weren't posing just for me, I felt hurt and angry!!
All we have to do is filter any e-mail with this "Trusted Sender" Seal and cut them out.
00110100 00110010
I noticed that TrustE seems kind of spam friendly. I mean they don't require sites to have any sort of standards, they just require that they have the policies in place, and that they use them. What the policies actually are, is up to the company.
TrustE is just a shill, a fraud like the BBB, a company that makes money by getting businesses to join, and defrauding the public into thinking they have any real oversight power at all.
Take a look at what it means for a site to be "Truste compliant" and you'll quickly see how worthless Truste is. To summarise - they don't care what your policy is as long as you state it publically. Well golly, I feel better already.
I've just had to, within the past month, give up my 'freemail' account that I'd used for mailing lists and signing up for web sites because it's now little more than a spam bucket, and I was always careful to never check those "receive offer" boxes. It's now just full of spam from Taiwan and China and the like along with the typical get-rich-quick, debt relief, Viagra, and sex site ads. A friend who runs a server network was kind enough to give me a real POP3 box instead of the simple forwarding most of his other users get.
I keep the address strictly confidential, just like my 'real' address that only gets a very small amount of spam per week. It's for a few mailing lists that I trust and are privately owned and run; I know who to yell at if I get spam on that address.
Whether or not a piece of spam is "trusted" by some other organization is not going to change my opinion of whether or not I want to buy anything. I don't. There are specific entities and individuals that I wish to receive mail from, and then there is the simple fact that I don't want to have ads thrown at me in email, too. Web ads (I block those and am not ashamed of it), TV ads (I watch a lot of PBS; great 'geek' programming and few ads) are enough, thank you.
They don't get the point. Or if they do get the point, they just don't care. I do not want spam. Period. All the sleazy spammers have ruined it completely for the good companies that try to do it responsibly (opt-in, genuine list removals, ADV: subject tagging, etc.) but you know what?
Tough.
i am a soviet space shuttle
TrustE should just make membership in this program opt-out instead of opt-in.
Personally what I do is setup a seperate address for all my mailing list mail, and then dump everything with the word "remove" into the trash for my personal mail address. Of course i still glance at the trash, just to make sure.
"Trusted Spammer" is an oxymoron.
The only spammer I would trust is a spammer that would never send me spam because I never intentionally informed said spammer than I wanted to receive email from him, in which case, it wouldn't be spam.
Damn... I think I just logically determined that spammers serve no useful purpose in this world.
What do you think?
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
It has fewer requirements than being BBB member.
It just makes me wish I had thought of it first, but at no point did they ever say thatwere not suppossed to send out reams of e-mail to the unwary.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
The problem with spam is that is mostly useless. If spammers refined their targeting strategies users would not complain.
A golfer would never consider a cool catalogue with the latest golf toys spam. A hacker would welcome the latest diff of O'Reilly titles.
Instead we get this useless pieces of mail asking to join in some Ponzi scheme, send a penny to Craig, copy DVD movies, and Viagra for St. Valentine day (I'm not making this up).
Ditto for pop-ups, pop-unders and banner ads. The ad-executives seem to think "if only people looked at my ad, we would have great sales".
Sorry but no cigar. Pop-ups/unders advertise mostly useless products and even if we were submitted 24/7 --a la clockwork orange-- to the ads we would still not buy a stupid X whatever video camera.
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=truste &op=stories&sort=1
I ran the TrustE "vs." Real story here in 1999, and I spent a little while summing up their history-to-date.
How can any thief be trusted? How can any vandal be trusted?
Spam is theft. Never forget that. Sending email to someone requires the use of resources which that person legitimately owns or controls, and you do not. Therefore, if you are habitually sending email to people who do not want it, you are appropriating resources to which you have no right. That's stealing.
It doesn't matter if the commercial offers made in a spam message are themselves legitimate or if they are fraudulent. A legitimate advertisement wrapped around a brick and thrown through my window is just as offensive to my rights as a fraudulent advertisement delivered in the same way.
Opposing spam is not about opposing commerce, or "commercialization of the Net", or the free market. It is about defending private property from trespass and theft -- and defending a useful service (the email facility) from its ruination. For if spamming is "legitimized" by crooks such as these, the email facility as we know it is not long for this world.
This is an idea I'm working on to help reduce telemarking calls.
I'm envisioning a simple device that sits on your phone line. When a telemarketer calls you, as soon as you realize its a telemarketer, you activate the unit and hang up. The device takes
over after that.
While the telemarketer is talking, the device will play back every few seconds any of about 20 different small murmers "hmmm" "uh huh" "yeah" "interesting" etc. Then when the telemarketer stops talking, the device will detect the drop in audio and will play back one of several segue phrases "That sounds very interesting, could you tell me more" "Are you offering any other services?" "How much does all of this cost?" "Could you go over all that again so I can take notes?" "I've been interested in this very thing, but I need to make sure its safe. Could you tell me all the safety standards you stand to?" "Could you hold on for a couple minutes, I have something on the stove. DON'T LEAVE!" And so on.
Telemarketers are mostly script readers. The idea will to be to ask vague questions that will cause them to find the most appropriate script. And just keep them going for a LONG time. When the phone line finally goes dead, the device will hang up automatically. Maybe keep track of the longest call. Maybe record them too. The possibilities are endless!
This device probably wouldn't cost more than $20 to manufacture and is the perfect way to keep telemarketers busy when they call you at dinner. Not only will you be able to eat with a smug grin on your face, any other incoming calls will be blocked by the lively conversation. You'll be assured of a meal in peace.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Spam is theft. Deleting it takes up time that eventually accumulates...time that can't be billed out. It also eats up network resources in terms of bandwidth and storage space. So, unlike postal junk mail, where the sender pays for postage, *you* pay for spam. Spam is like a collect call that you're forced to accept.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Assuming that you are refering to the US postal service you are 100% wrong.
The USPS receives no tax dollars to pay for operations. Not some, not a little, not a few, NONE! The USPS pays for itself. That's why they have to occaionally raise rates. They can't just go ask for more tax dollars. If you don't like the US Mail, don't use it and you won't be paying for it. Don't you wish all government programs were like that?
Bulk mail, presorted stuff, stuff mailed and labeled by machines is actually cheaper for the Post Office to deliver, but the PO doesn't pass ALL of this cost savings on to the Bulk Mailers. You see, those folks sending out junk mail are actually SUBSIDISING YOU! That Valentine's Day card you're about to send to your grandmother costs you less than it should because of all those coupons and solicitations you receive.
If you eliminated junk mail from the US Mail, the Postal Service would cost _more_ per piece to maintain, the price of stamps would go _up_ and it wouldn't save a dime from the Federal Budget.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
If the "trusted seal" is, in fact, a hyperlink to an image, you get an instant list of all recipients and a good idea of their timezone. You also get their actual computer ID, not just the ID of the mail server that they use. Other information sent includes the browser/mail client ID, the OS used, and any other bits of information included in an HTTP request.
Of course, if the connection goes via a
There may be other controls in the e-mail, or the image, which can feed back other information. It's not as if the average Windows box is hyper-secure.
I don't know if Outlook lets people slide controls into the subject line (say, via a buffer overflow), but if it does, you can also get the date and time the e-mail was delivered to the user, regardless of whether they opened it or not.
If someone is detected as having
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I don't rely on e-mail much anymore, just at work. I have Trillian to keep in touch with my friends. I like it because people have to get my authorization to see me on-line. Why can't email act like this? Heck, it'd only require a client really. It works like this:
.JPG file or a .GIF file, preventing spammers from writing a script to automatically seek authorization.) Then, once it's sent, I get a message on my mail client saying "So and so has requested authorization", alot like ICQ. If I authorize it, they're good to go. If I deny it, then I dont recieve any more messages from them.
Somebody sends an email, it sits on the mailserver. The new mail client checks the from field of the address and attempts to match it up to its address book. If it finds it, the mail goes through. If not, then a mail is sent back saying "You are not authorized to send this mail. Would you like to acquire authorization? Then please send a message back with exacctly this in the Subject 'INSERT PASSWORD HERE'." (that part is an image like a
I'd get this client installed today if it were available. Right now I manually add filters to put people I really want to hear from in a different folder. Everything else sits out in the inbox until I do a cleansing. I'm starting to see patterns in what I'm getting too. I think I'm going to filter the words diploma, enlarge, and celebrity.
"Derp de derp."
Actually, "commercial" junkmail is where the P.O. makes most of its revenues. Presorted (as mass mailings are required to be) requires less handling and sorting by the P.O. itself, so costs less to process and deliver. That's why the P.O. can charge lower rates for it yet still make more money from it.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Well, first of all, spam is theft. But on the practical side ... did you miss that part about
"1400 pieces of spam per person per day in five
years"?
Spamming has no marginal costs. It costs the spammer the same amount (i.e. nothing -- a free one-month AOL account) to send a million spam messages as to send a thousand. Therefore, it is in every spammer's interest to spam as much as possible. That is to say, the demand that spammers place upon the email facility is by nature unlimited.
However, the demand that legitimate users place upon the email facility is finite. Compared to the number of people a spammer targets, a real user only exchanges email with a small number of people. Moreover, real users write their email individually -- they don't send the same message to a million addresses.
If spam is "legitimized", then that infinite demand will take over. The number of spam messages you get will dramatically outnumber the legitimate messages you get from people you actually want to converse with. The email facility will become useless, drowned in the noise, just like many USENET newsgroups.
Interesting you should mention that. When someone sends you junk snail mail, s/he is paying for the privilege. In the United States, the postal service actually makes so much money off of bulk mail that even though bulk mail gets a discount for pre-sorting, it ends up subsidizing non-bulk mail.
The cost of sending bulk mail varies in proportion to the number of pieces of mail sent. If I want to send out a million postcards advertising herbal Viagra, it will cost me about a hundred times as much as if I sent out only ten thousand. I have to pay the postage, as well as costs such as printing, sorting, and getting the things to the post office.
However, as mentioned above, spamming has no such marginal cost. If I write a Perl script to send spam messages, it doesn't cost me any more to send a million than ten thousand. It just takes a bit longer.
If it ties them up longer, it makes the returns from telemarketing lower, making it a less desirable activity for the marketer.
It should be a criminal offense to make a solicitation from a phone line that does not in some way identify the call as such--so that the victims can avoid having the phone ring in the first place.
hawk
Users then get to go through their spam, clicking on the 'click here to be removed' and wasting their time and bandwidth, until the next bout of spam comes through.
Basically, it's a good thought, but there looks (to me) to be so many potential fuckups, especially with the assumption that becuase it is "legit" people want to see it, that I don't think it'll be any better, and will probably be worse, as now you have two different types of spam to deal with. No thanks, it's spamassassin for me!
"What we are in the process of doing for the first time is to launch a systematic attack on fraudulent and deceptive spam,"
So Hormel won't be able to sell turkey Spam any more?
but in most first-degree murders and sexual abuse (or at least sexual abuse ) cases, the victim knew and trusted the perpetrator
This is more like a marauding band of vikings that you had thought long dead razing your town
Reboot macht Frei.
One ISP that I had worked with a while ago setup his sendmail so that with each subsequent message it sends, it takes a quarter of a second longer. So, the idea was, spammers send thousands of messages at a time. So after the 100th email, they would have to wait a couple minutes to send. At this point, not knowing that the ISP set this up, they would cancel the send.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
You might look into an anti-telemarketer service. I have Qwest and they call it "Privacy Plus", it's a service bundled with caller ID for $9.95/month. If someone calls, and their caller ID info is unavailable, it prompts them to press a button and record their name. Then, the system will double-ring my phone, play their name, and ask me to press 1 to accept or 2 to decline the call.
:(
The beauty is, most telemarketers can't press the 1 button to speak their name, so your phone never rings. I've gotten two unwanted calls in all the time I've had it (2+ years), one was from the University I work for, asking me to donate money (they had legit caller ID info), and the other night I had someone from the Special Olympics get through, who apparently wasn't using an autodialer. I just pressed the 2 button, and the computer voice told him to shove off.
Yeah, it's a bit pricey, but I'd rather not spend my time running to the phone to deal with those people. I also don't own an answering machine or voice mail, I have a cell phone with those features, and if it's important, and you have to leave me a message, you'll know my cell phone number. Otherwise, you can e-mail me.
I'd ditch the landline completely, but I have two TiVos that depend on it.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
So, unlike postal junk mail, where the sender pays for postage, *you* pay for spam.
Carrying postal junk mail takes energy. Therefore I have to eat more, and that costs me money. Also, the mass of the mail has a gravitational force which dilates time. And we all know that time is money.
It sounds drastic, but if you want to get rid of every telemarkter that will every try to reach you ... get a cell phone and cancel your primary line.
Sure you might still use the copper for dial-up or DSL ... in that case, unplug your phone and turn off your modem ringer.
I did this after purchasing my home and it was a welcome relief. I know the tricks with telemarketers, I know the magic words, "put me on your company's do not call list" but I was still getting the calls.
With the cell as my primary number it does not happen. Granted, this might depend on my carrier (EdgeWireless, basically a front for AT&T), however from what I understand most cell providers are very skeptical about selling their number list to telemarketers for fear of the enormous consumer backlash (interestingly enough, it would be for the same root reason we all get so pissed about spam: ergo, we pay to receive spam just like we'd pay, per minute, to receive telemarketing calls on a cell phone).
I hope this helps you out. Yes, I am well aware how annoying it is to change one's primary phone number.
Cheers,
-- RLJ
"Trusted Spammer"
...brought to you by the same folks who brought you:
passive agression
alone together
plastic glasses
Microsoft Works
pretty ugly
postal worker
military intelligence
freezer burn
jumbo shrimp
junk food
student teacher
advanced BASIC
bittersweet
peace force
found missing
genuine imitation
living dead
soft rock
taped live
tight slacks
athletic scholarship
12-ounce pound cake
working vacation
resident alien
same difference
clearly misunderstood
exact estimate
Power Mac
even odds
negative growth
random order
...and many, many others.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is poised to announce an unprecedented law enforcement sweep against deceptive junk e-mail, also known as "spam."
Unfortunately, that happens to be the first line of the article.
Spam is not only definted as deceptive junk-email. Spam is email sent to someone in a broadcasting manner when that person has not signed up for that broadcast. In other words, if you send a message, deceptive or not, commercial or not, to a list of recipients that you don't know, that's spam.
~ now you know
Here's a thought - what if I wrote an email client that forced users to read TrustE-authorised spam. Say, before you could read any non-TrustE-spam, you had to spend at least 5 seconds on each spam, scrolling from top to bottom. This would be to put it mildly a trivial addition to any existing mail client (except telnet :-).
Hey presto, you have a spamming tool that is legally enforced in the U.S.A. by the DCMA. Want to remove the spam? You're breaking the law.
Of course, if I was being a *real* bastard, I would prosecute any clients that don't enforce spam, but use my mail-server. Yep, if you're using an unauthorised mail client to strip spam from mail you receive, that's a DCMA violation as well.
Do you doubt this could happen? Imagine having a conversation with someone twenty years ago, trying to explain to them the DCMA, DVD encryption and the Skylarov case.