ISP Chief on Spam

saddlark writes "internetweek.com has another article about spam and false positives. They've talked to Barry Shein, president of The World (the worlds first dialup ISP) - someone highly affected by spam. Quote: We're victims of crime, and nobody gives a damn. That's a nice feeling -- your business is being pounded into dust by criminals, and people say, `Live with it,' Shein said." ISPs have it pretty bad since their SMTP servers are often being hijaaked to send email that nobody wants. As annoying as spam is to us (113 messages so far today!), it's even worse on that side.

Comments

Stop crying and take action!

[www.sorehands.com]

ISPs are able to take action against spam!

They can implement strong AUPs that will do the following:

• If a spammer is hosting on your system, you don't shut down the server/domain/site, but redirect it to a page saying it has been shut down for spamming while locking them out from changes or accessing the data.
• Implement a stiff fine/cleanup fee.
• Provide people who complain the real information on the spammer.
• Confirm credit card information to make sure that the credit cards are not stolen.
• Secure your servers.

Re:Alternatives?

[CommanderTaco]

There is: ESMTP. Provides a framework for extending SMTP, including allowing for username/password authentication. Wrap it with SSL/TLS and you're good to go. Most of the popular MTA's (sendmail, postfix, qmail) either have built-in support or patches available, and many popular MUA's (outlook/oe, mozilla, evolution) support it as well.