Spam Conference in Boston

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Posted by michael on Friday December 27, 2002 @11:56AM from the just-provide-your-email-address-to-register dept.

bpfinn writes "Are you working on your own anti-spam solution? Would you like to compare notes with other coders? You'll get your chance at the Spam Conference in Cambridge on January 17, 2003. Among the speakers are: Paul Graham (of "a plan for spam" fame), ESR, John Graham-Cumming (of "POPFile" fame), and Matt Sergeant from MessageLabs. According to the homepage, this conference will be very informal: "no fees, sponsorships, proceedings, luncheons, contests, etc. Just a series of quick, concentrated talks, and then we all go off and get Chinese food." Slashdotters who are peeved about spam can register here."

15 of 229 comments (clear)

Oh I didnt know by brejc8 · 2002-12-27 12:00 · Score: 4, Funny

What they should do is to advertise the event using popups.

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Heh by Em+Emalb · 2002-12-27 12:00 · Score: 5, Funny

"Are you working on your own anti-spam solution? Would you like to compare notes with other coders?"

If you are, and would like the NATIONAL EXPOSURE only email can get you, call the number listed below. You will be giving MILLIONS the opportunity to receive your amazing breakthrough via email.

To unsubscribe (suckers!!) please click the link below.

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Sweet! by intermodal · 2002-12-27 12:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

A conference where they actually confer and (As implied by going to eat together) discuss what they're talking about rather than just visiting booths. It's about time some of that hacker-ethic efficiency made its way to the computer conference world.

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In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Focus by The+Bungi · 2002-12-27 12:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

I do hope they focus on the bandwidth problem. We've all seen the recent stories here about the slimeball spammer who's return rate is something to the tune of 0.000001% for 100 million messages. Or some such statistic. And yet he's swimming in $$.
The better spam filters get, the more horsepower these fuckers are going to put into plying their trade. That 100 million herbal viagra batch didn't work? Oh, OK, let's send out 1 billion messages then.
Their capacity to add processing power to their operations will grow exponentially as the efficiency of spam blocks increases. But there's only so much bandwidth to go around. Ergo, suffer the ISP (mine and yours, not theirs). Something's gotta give.
I shudder to even contemplate it, but unless their revenue stream is cut off, this is going to continue. And that means educating users to NOT FUCKING BUY ANYTHING SOLD THROUGH SPAM. Until then, well...
1. Re:Focus by MacAndrew · 2002-12-27 14:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I shudder to even contemplate it, but unless their revenue stream is cut off, this is going to continue. And that means educating users to NOT FUCKING BUY ANYTHING SOLD THROUGH SPAM. Until then, well...
  
  Yes, but ... the crowd that's buying herbal Viagra is a tough one to reason with by definition. Then there are the "get rich quick" suckers -- just try explaining basic math to them.
  
  There's an old saying that some people will buy anything. Spamming is about locating them. The rest of us get caught in the overspray.
Spam Conference... by VistaBoy · 2002-12-27 12:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

Because we're having a conference on spam to begin with already means that the spammers have won. Besides, what keeps spammers from attending the conference and figuring out how all the spam guarding stuff works?
1. Re:Spam Conference... by glwtta · 2002-12-27 12:54 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Besides, what keeps spammers from attending the conference and figuring out how all the spam guarding stuff works?
  We'll all talk really quietly.
  
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  sic transit gloria mundi
Prevent SPAM instead of trying to deal with it.... by 8BitWimp · 2002-12-27 12:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

Its ironic that this conference (and other discussion groups) are focusing on dealing with, filtering, and otherwise trapping SPAM. It appears that the only solution to eliminating SPAM is to develop a completely new architecture for handling email which would simply not provide mechanisms for the broadcast of SPAM, and the hijacking of mail servers. Spammers are just as ingenious as the folks valiantly trying to filter it. Until we consider a new approach, we will just be battling an ever growing volume of SPAM mail.
An Anti-Spam Solution? by Lucas+Membrane · 2002-12-27 12:21 · Score: 4, Funny

There is no such thing as anti-spam, thank goodness. If there were, and if the spammers sent it spam, the spam would be gone, but copious gamma rays and neutrinos would result, and the bystanders would all die from the radiation.
The only spam conference needed... by MillionthMonkey · 2002-12-27 12:21 · Score: 5, Funny

This problem is not difficult to solve. All you need is a "conference" of enraged global villagers marching up the road to Alan Ralsky's house equipped with dynamite, pitchforks, Bayesian filters, and burning torches! We could bring some diplomas from prestigious nonaccredited universities to get the fire going. And afterwards everyone gets Chinese food.

OK, maybe it wouldn't solve the problem, but it would make great reality TV. Wouldn't you rather watch a spammer get lynched than sit through yet another gold digger beauty pageant on FOX?
Register for the conference.... via email? by NineNine · 2002-12-27 12:23 · Score: 4, Funny

Doesn't this seem just a bit fishy to anybody else?
My spam solution by archnerd · 2002-12-27 12:26 · Score: 4, Informative

I use SpamAssassin, combined with some scripts available here. Since I implemented this system last month, I have gotten exactly one piece of spam, and it got through because the body contained nothing except a URL.
How to End Spam in Four Easy Steps by mark_space2001 · 2002-12-27 12:28 · Score: 5, Funny

1. Declare Spammers are terrorists.
2. Fly a C130 "Ghost" Gunship over their house.
3. Open Fire.
4. Enjoy "Miller" brand beer in a Spam Free world.
Darn by anotherone · 2002-12-27 12:32 · Score: 4, Funny

I was hoping that this would be a conference for spammers rather than anti-spam coders...

Then we could destroy them all in one place.

Finally a cause the entire internet community could rally around.

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Trusted mail servers and TLS by Nonesuch · 2002-12-27 14:05 · Score: 5, Informative

We've been talking with the Open Group on a couple of different approaches to implement the concept of "trusted servers" for SMTP.
One approach would be to use TLS with certificates signed by trusted anti-spam certification agents, and give TLS mail priority over plain-old cleartext SMTP.
Basically, nearly all current anti-spam techniques (one exception being whitelisting) work on the concept of "marking down" certain messages or sending hosts as being less trusted. Our goal is to use TLS and other approaches to apply the concept of "elevating trust", of elevating the trust level of certain hosts and messages.

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