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Ask ISP Owner Barry Shein About the Spam Wars

Posted by Roblimo on from the spam-spam-everywhere-a-spam- dept.

Spam sucks. But it's worse for ISPs than for the rest of us, because they get bounces and complaints and other behind-the-scenes spam-caused messes the rest of us don't see. AOL talks of spam as "public enemy number one." Barry Shein, who started (and still runs) the world's first full-service dialup ISP, likens spammers to organized criminals, and calls spam "an organized, vicious, sociopathic thing" in this article, which spurred an interesting Slashdot discussion. So what should we do about spam? Ask Barry. One question per post, please. We'll post his answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions sometime in the next week or so.

4 of 594 comments (clear)

  1. He's severely over-reacting by doomdog · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    From the article:

    "The spammers are calling the shots, the spammers are in charge of my time, and they are in charge of the Internet."

    In charge of the internet? Give me a break... Spam is definitely a problem, but spammers are _not_ running the show.

    My guess is that the guy hasn't properly upgraded is mail servers (with more CPU power, memory, disk space, etc.) over the past few years and is currently suffering from e-mail overload (and blaming it on the spammers)...

  2. Is this why God created (gasp) Government? by release7 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    No body ever said Government was perfect (and I defy you to find an institution that is), but dammit, it's the only thing we have to bring order and law to a world of chaos. The anti-government, anti-regulation libertarian rhetoric that has captured the popular mind in the last couple of decades has got to come to an end before the spam problem will be solved.

    --

    <a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>

  3. Catch them if you can by phorm · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The problem is: catching spammers is tricky. They use tons of tricks - most notably nailing other people's servers to transmit spam - in order to make it appear as if spam comes from another source.

    If we could catch some of the spammers now, I think more actions would already be in place against them (whether legal or vigilante).

  4. AOL signs you up for spam? by nomel · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I don't know about AOL's spam being "enemy number one"...

    I signed up for 1000 free hours with AOL (was between pay accounts) and was surprised (well not realy) at what happened.

    I was using the AOL service for a net connection only, so I never used their browser (just minimized it) to look at any sites, just Mozilla. After a day or so, I found a couple spam messages in my AOL mailbox. I didn't think anything of it... Then after a couple days, I had many spam's comming in at every couple hours. I didn't understand because I NEVER EVEN USED THEIR BROWSER! I thought it might be from some HTTP header that AOL sends out, containing the AOL account name or something. I don't think this is the case because they all had similar unsubscribe links and page layouts (seemed to profesional for normal low class spam :) It could have been from a name scanner or something, but that would require AOL to have craptacular spam blocking.

    After I realised this was happening, I got pissed off (also got my other pay account activated). I called the unsubscribe number the next day. The tech support guy was very confused of why I wanted to cancel so soon. I told him that it was because of the spam. He said it was probably sites I went to and signed up for things with. I told him, in a fairly loud voice, "No, because I didn't use your browser once." He was further confused, and I told him that I just used AOL for the net connection and used mozilla "What's mozilla?" he asked..hehe When I mentioned the word Netscape, he proclaimed "Oh, well, we own netscape."...a bubbling box-o-knowledge.

    He, of course, offered me some free months of service (no wonder it costs so much...your paying for the free service they always give out!), but I refused. After the I told him I never used the browser and got all the spam anyways, he didn't have as much spunk. In a sad and confused voice, he just said he didn't understand why I would give it up so soon (hate to kill a salesmans spunk).

    So, maybe if they either stop selling the users names to spammers, or stop transmitting the http headers (not confirmed), they would reduce their spam count.