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Spamhaus Guru Steve Linford Profiled
BenLev writes "The New York Times has an article profiling Spamhaus Project director Steve Linford. The feature goes behind the scenes at Spamhaus, 'one of the leading groups that is trying to make the world safe from junk e-mail', showing that it operates from Linford's houseboat on the Thames near London, spammers don't like him, and his volunteer corps likens itself to the X-Men."
What happened to that proposal to add records (as comments, so the DNS protocol wasn't broken) to the DNS saying that a domain was authoratative for the envelope 'From ' header ? That sounded like a good idea, so long as the MTA's took it up...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
My particular server (a dedicated box) was innocent, but my hosting facility had spammers on other dedicated boxes.
Isn't blocking a /20 like swatting flys with a hand grenade?
It still only qualifies as an annoyance because I seldom do anything important over email. But the reason I don't do anything important over email is because I know spam makes it unreliable. Bit of a Catch 22 there. Seems like the reason spam is an annoyance and not a serious issue is that it's increasing fairly gradually. If there were this much spam back in '95, there'd be riots. (Among the nerds, which I guess means lots of really heated USENET posts about how Captain Kirk is so much better than Captain Picard.)
I'm surprised no-one has thought through the logical conclusions of where we're going with spam.
... since there is nothing serious happening against any of these directions, the conclusion seems unavoidable. What I'd like to say is that
Spam filters work only for those able to configure them. For the vast majority of Internet users, they are just a dream.
Spam blacklists are unsustainable in a world where most net connections come across DHCP, and most spam is/will be sent from owned home computers.
Spam merchants will continue to harness the 'dark side of the force', paying crackes and virus writers to create the networks of owned machines they need to operate from...
the Net will split into two halves, an "infected" and a "clean" part, and every single transaction from the infected part will be treated with scrutiny and suspicion.
But this is impossible too.
Conclusion: the purity of the net is a thing of the past. We will come to understand that traffic is bad until demonstrated good. Emails will be 99.999% junk, virus, and trojan, and the art will come not from filtering out this junk but from detecting the signal within the noise.
Clearly, whitelists are part of the solution but they are limited since you can't form a network of whitelists, it's a one-to-one solution that does not scale.
I see only one solution that is scalable. Data clearing houses. You register with me, I'll vouch for all your data, and pass it on to those who need it, along with my signature. A trust network, if you like.
Data clearing houses will rate each other, creating a system of moderation in which data is never guaranteed good, but at least you get a measurable index of confidence.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
So call me a troll, but...
It's pretty hard to enforce US laws on a Taiwan spamhaus.
And why exactly would anyone want to use US law in this case? Hasn't it been proven to be about as toothless and worthless, not to say non-existant end sometimes even endorsing spammers? Thanks, but no thanks. It would be like trying to get rid of cockroaches by drowning them in excrements.
If anything, a law which actually tries to stop these sleazy vermin should be used. If the mentioned EU law/directive is that much better than US "law" as it seems at first sight, I believe that should be used.
If later China get their act together and decides this is a capitol offence (after all, they do still execute people en masse on large arenas - letting people watch the executions), I wouldn't mind at all watching Ralsky & Co. fry in the chair - on web-TV. They are after all among the worst vermin on the planet. Far worse for far more people than e.g. ebola or anthrax.
If there was a fund to have these pests terminated, I'd happily pitch in a 50.
0.01 $ to get on my whitelist.
:)
Which spammer has the energy ?
If you really want to mail me, you probably have the energy and the money, or if you really want I could pay you back
> I think spam is not that big of a deal. It's just a small annoyance
:-)
> that can be deleted in less than 3 clicks.
I run my own server, and mailhost for a number of friends and family.
In total, the server receives approx 10,000 spams a day which is not at all reasonable.
Secondly, because of 'porn spam' my young niece can't have her own email address.
Thirdly, lots of spam in a mailbox can sometimes make you miss important emails if you just delete them quickly.
Finally, no-clicks at all... GUI mailers are too slow
Sig out of date
I doubt that any progress will be made in fighting spam until Microsoft/Apple include authentication options in their default mail applications.
Unfortunately, authentication is unlikely to do much to stop spam unless people use it with a personal whitelist of permitted senders. It is currently straightforward to track a spam email (SpamCop can do this if you paste the email in with full header information) but nowadays it typically comes from a cable/DSL user whose machine has been hijacked.
You're an idiot. I get 6 or 7 *hundred* spams a day and 1 or 2 hams. If I was deleting this stuff manually, it would take hours a day. I cannot recommend ASSP strongly enough; http://assp.sourceforge.net
Look what I got yesterday (with forged headers):
---- quote --------------
Dear Internet user.
We are an organization dedicated to stopping spam. Please help us as we are
funded solely by private donations.
visit www.spamcop.net for full details. Or you can send your donations to:
Julian Haight
PO Box 25732
Seattle, WA
98125-1232
As you can see by this message unsolicited e-mail is an invasion of your
privacy. As you can also see it can be sent anonymously
We will continue our efforts until all spam is eliminated.
To join please visit www.spamcop.net or contact
jkdom@mail.julianhaight.com
We will continue to send out this message until we convince all ISP's to
stop all spammers.
!!!Stop low-lifes from invading your inbox with their junk!!!
---- end quote ------------
If they spew out fake spam which can only be meant for slanderous purposes, would you really expect them to *not* be in the virus game. Almost all these Windows viruses, if you hexdump them, have smtp capability. It's quite thinkable that a fair amount of them are really experiments rather than 'bad things done to innocent users because the virus writer likes doing that'.
There must be a lot of money involved in the art of spamming still. I wouldn't be surprised if spamhauses are partially means of laundering money as well (think about it). Either way, these people *are* criminals and one should consider them as such.
We (the dev firm I work for) was approached to do spamming. I went apeshit and said I would quit and report it to the FCC but they were offering real money and my bosses were tempted. So I turned off the blacklists and let them swim in spam a few days till they came to their senses. When he had 100+ spams everyday, he saw the light.
If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it. -- Calvin Coolidge
In an unrelated rant, my username is a normal English word and my domain is a popular email domain. I get five or ten spams a week. The solution? Completely fake information when I sign up for things. The New York Times knows me as Pablo Rodriguez from River Forest, Illinois. My email for them is hotsexy69696969696969@hotmail.com. I suggest you all do the same.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
You misunderstand. I meant, they would check the Do Not Spam list to get a list of valid e-mail addresses (if somebody bothered to list them, they must be valid), then sell that list to other spammers as a confirmed opt-in spam list.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;