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

If this is what a small world is all about....

[BigBlockMopar]

This happens because the people who are in position to make laws and policies are directly affected... Secondly, to get laws passed, you need a lobby... Unless a lobby is formed and pressure sustained, we can whine all day on /.

Dude, last time I checked my incoming spam, the originating IP address for most of it was from China and other third-world shitholes. You *don't* honestly think that they'll stop because the USA has a new law which will give them a slap on the wrist?

This is NOT a problem which can be legislated away. These are not 20-year-old mothers of 4 living in trailer parks in Florida.

A friend of mine, of Chinese descent, told me that it's unlucky to refuse to take someone's business card, and it's even unluckier to throw it out. This is the tradition with which we're dealing, and if an e-mail is seen as merely an electronic business card....

At this point, I have configured my mailserver to send all incoming mail from .cn, .kr, .pl, .pk and a few other choice hellholes directly to /dev/null. With no apologies. I know nobody in any of those places, and until they stop spamming, I have no interest in knowing anybody in any of those places.

I will tell you this, it sure does take most of the crap out of the mail spool.