David Harris On Spam

Ace Suares writes "David Harris, maker of the free e-mail software Pegasus Mail, has written a white paper on spam as part of 'an active initiative to bring together a broad group of people who can promote education and legislation against spam in the New Zealand environment'."

Comments

Math lessons

[Phronesis]

From the white paper:

Imagine for a moment that a spammer promoting penile enlargement pills for $29.95 a bottle sends out ten million spams - a very moderate number by modern standards. If the spammer gets one thousandth of one percent sales response (.001%), he will sell 10,000 bottles, for a total return of $299,500.00. Even on response rates as small as one millionth of one percent, operations like this can still turn a profit that makes them worthwhile, simply because of the enormous number of addresses that can be reached at almost no cost.

Last time I checked 0.001% of 10^7 was 100, not 10,000. The spammer would sell 100 bottles for a total return of $2,950, not a huge haul.

At one one millionth of a percent response, he would sell on average one tenth of a bottle.

Re:Math lessons

[kelnos]

Last time I checked 0.001% of 10^7 was 100, not 10,000. The spammer would sell 100 bottles for a total return of $2,950, not a huge haul.

actually that's $2,995, not $2950 ^_~. but you're right - looks like someone forgot that 0.001% of x is 0.00001*x, not 0.001*x...

Re:Math lessons

[Stargoat]

They make pills that can enlarge my penis? Tell me where to sign up!!

the New Zealand Environment

[falsification]

This is the correct term. The old name was just "New Zealand." Due to legislation recently passed by the Parliamentary Body of the New Zealand Environment, it is henceforth illegal in the New Zealand Environment to say the words "New Zealand" if not sandwiching them between "The" and "Environment." The New Zealand Environment is a fully protected copyrighted trademark. Anyone who uses the term the New Zealand Environment without permission must pay $5 to the New Zealand Environment. Thank goodness Slashdot has caught on to this in time, or it would be liable for $5 for every hit.

Re:the New Zealand Environment

[wizarddc]

Looks like you broke the copyright, buddy. I'd copy and paste your infringement, but then I'd also be in trouble with TNZE.

the cost is increasing

[chochos]

From the article:

simply because of the enormous number of addresses that can be reached at almost no cost

But the cost for spammers is (fortunately) increasing. We read here about a spammer having a DDoS with snail mail, about spammers getting their names and addresses published, about a spammer who was harrassed until he had to shut down his operation (in New Zealand, nonetheless).

Just last night there was this article posted and the /. effect was worse than usual... My guess is there was a DDoS attack performed with the scripts posted by some /.ers and the bulk club domain was removed from DNS servers (although you can still reach the site with the IP address).

So now a lot of people have names and addresses of many spammers, a spam support group site is under attack, perhaps some of these spammers can expect some harrassment over the next days... I hope they learn the lesson.

Re:the cost is increasing

[zcat_NZ]

..about a spammer who was harrassed until he had to shut down his operation..

we wish..
harassed == a few phone calls (only 20? wtf?!!)
shut down == switched to search-engine and referer spamming

Personally I think 'cost' is where the answer is, but not in the form of an email tax!

Every major ISP needs to clearly define what they consider 'spam', and then lay down enforceable rules about it such as "You WILL be charged a cleanup fee. You WILL be terminated immediately. Your name, company name, and known aliases WILL be publically blacklisted."

Unlike the elsewhere-proposed 'email tax', these costs would only affect spammers.

Re:the cost is increasing

[jechonias]

Unfortunatly acording to the NZ herald that published an article a few weeks ago on the NZ spammer that had his name and telephone number published on an on-line forum (maybee just like this one...) he received death threats and telephone abuse that even his young daughter received.

The trouble is that most of society do not take their email abuse as serious as some netizens.

This activity is unlawful and imoral. Sending spam is not unlawful. A death threat is punishible by jail terms and is a very serious crime.

Spam is no where near as important as most geeks make it out to be, certainly not to the level that death threats are justified.

jech

Re:the cost is increasing

[Steve B]

acording to the NZ herald that published an article a few weeks ago on the NZ spammer that had his name and telephone number published on an on-line forum (maybee just like this one...) he received death threats and telephone abuse that even his young daughter received

Not "acording to the NZ herald" -- according to the spammer, who happened to be quoted in that publication. Remember the rules:

1. Spammers lie.
2. If you think a spammer is telling the truth, see Rule 1.

Re:the cost is increasing

[jechonias]

Good point, and I have no reason to assume he is telling the truth.

But, and this is an important "But", death threats and other serious threats are often made towards spammers (as reported in the media), even on slashdot.

I have a strong suspicion that the spammer in question probably did receive a threat or two of an unlawful nature, even if made by a few teenage boys that don't know any better.

The level of rhetoric and pseudo - violence seems to be rising against what is merely an anoying form of marketing.

And I'm sick of paying for my adsl bandwidth to download spam shite, and i'm quite afraid of the viruses and crap that are propogated via email, both of which have a dollar cost to my business, neither of which justify the lengths people seem to be willing to go to, just to stop this level of anoying marketing.

jech.

Way More Important

[acxr is wasted]

Much more importantly, why do the "Apple" and "Games" sections of /. get their own Slashdot logos, while the "Developers" get the Joan Collins special? Rabble! Rabble, rabble!

Re:Way More Important

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

Would you really want something like that ugly purple for the Developers section logo? Although I am a fan of the blue they use...

Re:Way More Important

[acxr is wasted]

Oh yeah, this color scheme is very pleasant.

fuck the laws

[Anonymous Coward]

just tell me where the spammers live

Nothing about prevention

[svennieboy]

Too bad the author didn't write about what can be done to prevent spam from happening.

Following things come to mind (some are quite obvious, on the other hand your average user doesn't know these things can have a big impact):

• react against HTML email
• Turn off JavaScript/previewing of messages (or even just images), so web bugs won't be activated
• Never open attachments of unknown origin (this particular practice has been stressed a lot lately (think trojans), but still people seem to happily open every file they get in their email)
• Don't react to spam (quote from the article: "As long as the profit motive remains, so will the problem.")
• Don't use the unsubscribe button (it reveals as much information as a web bug does)

There are probably more do's and especially don'ts I forgot to mention.

As long as Joe and Jane Average User stay uneducated about spam, they will keep on reacting to it and help the problem remain (or even escalate).

Sven

When will we replace SMTP?

[Not_Wiggins]

You know, if servers had to authenticate in order to transmit mail (ie, identify themselves), then perhaps we could stem the flow of spam.

Of course, with a protocol as ingrained into the 'net as SMTP is, methinks it will take getting unacceptably high levels of spam traffic to push that sort of change along.

Hmmm... maybe along the same time people switch to IPv6? (yeah... right).

Re:When will we replace SMTP?

[schon]

if servers had to authenticate in order to transmit mail (ie, identify themselves), then perhaps we could stem the flow of spam.

Perhaps you're not aware, but all servers do identify themselves. The first thing two SMTP servers do when they connect to each other is identify themselves.

It doesn't do a damn thing to reduce spam.

News to me...

[meowsqueak]

Where the heck did this come from?