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IronPort Arms Both Sides In Spam War

Posted by timothy on from the and-get-outta-the-way dept.

securitas writes "We all know about IronPort's recent acquisition of SpamCop. What may not be common knowledge is that IronPort's Senderbase has 'the reputation as the fastest way to send millions of junk e-mail messages' and is popular with spam factories. Founded by two former Microsoft executives - Hotmail's Scott Weiss and ListBot founder Scott Banister - IronPort claims its customers are not spammers but legitimate marketers. Critics say that this is a clear conflict of interest. Playing spam from both sides might be likened to a pharmaceutical company enabling the spread of a disease in order to sell the cure. SpamCop founder Julian Haight - who had to sell the company in order to remain solvent - is quoted as saying of IronPort's anti-spam measures: "I am not sure all its standards are tough enough." The story was originally reported by the New York Times' Saul Hansell. Abbreviated mirror at IHT."

51 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. But after their extensive training ... by burgburgburg · · Score: 5, Funny

    in business ethics while employed at Microsoft, I am incapable of believing that the owners of Ironport would ever do anything to hurt the general public simply to make an obscene profit.

    1. Re:But after their extensive training ... by mandalayx · · Score: 3, Interesting

      IronPort, which is private and backed by venture capital, expects to turn its first profit next year on revenue of more than $10 million. It was founded by Mr. Weiss, who worked at Hotmail, the free e-mail provider, and Scott Banister, who founded ListBot, a service that lets companies manage e-mail lists. Both companies were acquired by Microsoft.

      Actually the article leads me to believe that these guys are not MS-bred.

  2. Conspiracy. by grub · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, I know a lot of what I write makes it sound like my tinfoil hat is loose but hear me out:

    IronPort buys SpamCop

    Worms hammer anti-spam sites

    Because IronPort is now "spammer friendly", SpamCop doesn't suffer these DDoS attacks.

    SpamCop's for-fee competition and free lists are ran off the net by IronPort supporters.

    Not suprisingly, IronPort's products don't block mail from their customers.

    IronPort and it's spammer customers profit.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  3. The Analogy by mgcsinc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The analogy needs to be furthered a bit: this would be like a pharmaceutical company not only spreading that which they themselves sell the cure for, but above it all, that cure being phony, so that the market for the cure is maintained. Think, do you think IronPort's spam protection measures will stop their own supported spam? This reminds me of a bond-type plot where evil villains pay an evil company to let them continue ravaging the world. Even though this obviously would only last so long in the pharmaceutical industry, I'd call it a feasible, profitable, and despicable practice for the e-mail industry, with all the sources of spam floating around.

    1. Re:The Analogy by Chalybeous · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Despicable is right.
      IMHO, spam is spam whether it's from a legitimate marketer or not - unless I have indicated that I wish to receive information (special offers, order status, terms of service updates) from the sender, whether they're selling books, parts, or e-transaction services.

      I also concede that there is a minor loophole, inasmuch as companies with whom I hold an account (e.g. eBay UK, PayPal, Amazon.co.uk) should be free to send certain important mails relating to things like my membership status, or any important and major changes to their ToS.
      However, since they're not the sort of companies I'd expect to go through spam houses, I'd understand that if they did contact me without my consent, they'd have a pretty darn good reason.

      How long til some IronPort customer dies from popping bootleg Viagra, or is fleeced out of his savings by a bunch of Nigerians pulling a 419? Some of those people will be clueless, and will think that because it's come through the spam filter, it must be legitimate...

      Jailarity ensu-- no, wait, that would be for a Fark story :-P

      --

      "It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork

    2. Re:The Analogy by mandalayx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The analogy needs to be furthered a bit: this would be like a pharmaceutical company not only spreading that which they themselves sell the cure for, but above it all, that cure being phony, so that the market for the cure is maintained. Think, do you think IronPort's spam protection measures will stop their own supported spam? This reminds me of a bond-type plot where evil villains pay an evil company to let them continue ravaging the world. Even though this obviously would only last so long in the pharmaceutical industry, I'd call it a feasible, profitable, and despicable practice for the e-mail industry, with all the sources of spam floating around.

      What about the companies that are exclusively anti-spam? Maybe they don't even have to have a spamming component.

      What if they DO perform the high and mighty task of eliminating spam in one fell swoop? Then what? Their market is gone as that product becomes assimilated. There goes the cashflow.

      This is analagous to CURING a disease rather than selling many more pills to TREAT a disease.

      The point is that whether or not a company does the "right" thing is the important thing, not whether it offers x product.

    3. Re:The Analogy by dasmegabyte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know, I don't think this a conflict of interest at all. Ironport's a software company that specializes in email software. They sell a program with a legitimate use (delivering email to multiple recepients). They can not assure that their software won't be used for a less legitimate use (delivering email to multiple UNWILLING recepients). Nor would most of us want them to -- how many of you have rallied against the sort of restrictive licensing that defines how you can and how you can't use a piece of software? So, Ironport buys a faltering company that has a product which reduces the damage caused by abuse of their product.

      This is not like releasing a disease, and then releasing a cure. It's like creating a drug, seeing that it's commonly abused, and then using your abilities to help curb this abuse. Drug companies do this all the time. Sure, they make a little money off of it. But it's not the grand conspiracy you're trying to make it out to be.

      Think of it, man. Ford Motor Company makes Mustangs that go fast. They make Crown Vics that go faster. That way, when people make the Mustangs go WAY too fast, the cops have a way to catch them. Does this mean that Ford has a conflict of interest that prevents them from selling slower cars to the police...that they're purposefully pushing these fast cars to push sales of their cop cars?

      Or does it mean that they're a company that's specialized in cars, and that they therefore try to make cars that fulfill the needs of specific people, including people who like to go fast and the guys tasked to catch them?

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
    4. Re:The Analogy by letxa2000 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      What about the companies that are exclusively anti-spam? Maybe they don't even have to have a spamming component... The point is that whether or not a company does the "right" thing is the important thing, not whether it offers x product.

      Despite the fact that we now often see certain anti-spam products being promoted in, of all things, spam, I'd like to believe that most anti-spam offerings are honestly interested in reducing spam for their customers.

      We offer an anti-spam service which has been very, very successful and received very positive feedback from our satisfied customers. It's rewarding to receive that feedback. But a few weeks ago we received an email that I knew someone would send someday: They said it was unethical and suspicious of us to be selling an anti-spam service. Don't we benefit from spam by offering the anti-spam service for a fee? Maybe we are guilty of generating spam to drive people to our service?

      Well, ignoring the minimal gains we've earned from the service (far outweighed by bandwidth and development costs), I feel TRUE anti-spam services are no more unethical than doctors. Are doctors unethical because they pay their bills curing others? They are unethical if they make people sick so they can charge to cure them, but if they truly are just curing people then that seems like a valuable service and not at all unethical (as long as they aren't ripping people off).

      Fact is, there's so much spam that no company needs to create more of it to justify anti-spam remedies. That said, I don't think it is appropriate for any company to provide anti-spam and mass-mailing services or products at the same time. That just sounds wrong and definitely looks like a conflict of interest even if it might not be.

      The real question is: If a company truly had the ability to end spam but it would end their cashflow, would they do it? I can't speak for other companies, but I know we would. We developed the service because WE were sick of spam. If we could make spam disappear tomorrow, we would do so and just find something else to do business-wise. We were solvent before spam appeared and we will be solvent after spam goes away (and I'm convinced it will, someday. Whether it is attacked with new mail protocols, filters, legislation, or all of the above, I don't think we'll be dealing with spam 5-10 years from now).

  4. It has to be said... by i_r_sensitive · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nothing like having your SPAM and eating it too!

    --
    "Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
    "Talk minus action equals /." -
  5. A wolf in the flock by Tuxedo+Jack · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Since IronPort has access to SpamCop's filters now, they could hypothetically engineer a method around them or just kill the product entirely - or make it so that only they could bypass it, and any other spams sent from elsewhere would be blocked.

    Arming the wolf with the shepherd's crook? More like giving him an M-249.

    --

    Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
    1. Re:A wolf in the flock by Haight6716 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It certainly *could* happen. You let me know when/if it *does* and then we'll have something to talk about.

      -=Julian=-

  6. Prior Act .. by AftanGustur · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Playing spam from both sides might be likened to a pharmaceutical company enabling the spread of a disease in order to sell the cure.

    Or it could be compared to Chaplin's film The Kid :

    The Tramp rescues a baby abandoned by its despairing mother, brings it up to become his partner in a window-repair business - although it is the Kid's business to break the windows first

    --
    echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
    1. Re:Prior Act .. by gnu-generation-one · · Score: 2, Funny

      "The Tramp rescues a baby abandoned by its despairing mother, brings it up to become his partner in a window-repair business - although it is the Kid's business to break the windows first"

      Glad to see the Roman fire brigade still alive and well, and doing business...

  7. Question... by tonyr60 · · Score: 4, Funny

    So IronPort make both Spam mailers and anti-spam products.

    Will they use their spam mailer expertise to make better anti-spam products, or use their anti-spam expertise to make better spam emailer products?

    Why do I think I know the answer aleady.....

  8. It could be good by Tool+Man · · Score: 2, Informative

    Spamcop could improve what is already good filtering, by automatically blocking crap from IronPort's SenderBase clients.

    "All your SenderBase are belong to us."

  9. I'll say it again... by Dave21212 · · Score: 4, Insightful


    I said this before and I'll say it again...

    There is a huge incentive for IronPort to stay on the legitimate side of things. Spamcop rocks (thanks Julian!) - but only because of the constant vigilance of the many users who report instances of spam. This is a human-based review system of millions of junk messages... without the users, there is no Spamcop, and Ironport bought nothing. They can't afford to risk being the bad guy here or they risk losing the reviewers !

    --
    "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
    1. Re:I'll say it again... by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is a human-based review system of millions of junk messages... without the users, there is no Spamcop, and Ironport bought nothing.

      They didn't buy nothing, they bought the death of Spamcop. If IronPort really is dependent upon spammers, then such a buyout makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint.

      If this turns out to be the case, you can thank Julian again, for selling out the constant vigilance of many users to the highest bidder.

    2. Re:I'll say it again... by Dave21212 · · Score: 2, Interesting


      I've been a Spamcop user for years (see above unobfuscated email) and participated in or have read the associated newsgroups (where the fun really is) for as long. The system just doesn't work unless the 'users' are reporting Spam regularly and in a timely manner (hours, not days). These people are rabid anti-spam and would scream bloody murder if there was a site under IronPort that was spamming and it wasn't being handled.

      My optimisim comes from the absence of those screams since June when the deal went down. They aren't doing anything that bad (selling specialized server hardware?)

      --
      "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
    3. Re:I'll say it again... by GSloop · · Score: 2, Informative

      Spamcop doesn't rock.

      It's configuration of spamassassin isn't very good IMHO.

      Quite a bit of spam still gets through.

      I've seen much better implimentations of spamassassin elsewhere. And no, they're not just one off site specific implimentations.

      I'm sorry if I've dissed Julian - I'm not sure who's responsible for the technical setup.

      Spamcop used to be incredible. The last couple of years hasn't been so hot.

      Frankly, I'd recommend other filtering options. (Like getting your webhosting/email from totalchoicehosting.com and using their implimentation of spamassassin.)

      If you're forced into filtering a single account, than using a local copy of spamassassin is probably better, but spamcop is easier.

      I dunno, there's no great answer out there.

      But trying to stop reading spam will always have loopholes. What would be more effective is the elimination of the spammers themselves.

      Anti-Spam enforcement ought to go after the *beneficiaries* of spam. They (the beneficiariesof spam campaigns) have to bank somewhere, and it's likely at a bank we (the US) have access to. Go after the profits, and the demand for spam will drop. (This will easily target 99.9% of direct product spam, but will be harder to use against "mindshare" spam.)

      Sure, there's some problems in determining who is really responsible, as someone could troll spam "for" your business just to get you in trouble - but I suspect it would be fairly trivial to know when it happened. (One could also require/allow discovery in court to determine if any funds were transferred between the spammer and the beneficiary - so I think that's doable.)

      Anyway...

      Cheers

    4. Re:I'll say it again... by felicity · · Score: 2, Informative

      Their product is basically a highly optimized MTA with built-in personalization capabilities. As far as I know, the box is just a "standard" server-class PC. Probably running BSD or Linux.

      The personalization stuff is basically the ability to give, say, 1000 email addresses and a message, and also some macro values (first name, last name, etc,) for each address. If the MTA connects successfully, it rewrites the message on the fly for delivery. The big upshot here is that you don't need to submit each individual mail to your sending MTA, and therefore it doesn't need to handle thousands/millions of files in the spool directory.

      I'm sure there are more features than just that, but when my employer was looking at them, that was the main feature I remember.

  10. better analogy by isfuglen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's kind of like the diet industry. You try the newest hottest spam killer that will guarantee getting rid of all the spam, like trying the newest hottest diet that will guarantee getting rid of all the kilos. You lose the spam like you lose the kilos, and then, after a few months, it all comes back twofold. So you try the next newest hottest spam killer, the next newest hottest diet, blah blah, it comes back threefold. Then you try the next...(ad nauseum)

    --
    When life hands you lemons, grab the salt and pass the tequilla...
  11. Julian Haight's comments not about SpamCop by jc103 · · Score: 3, Informative
    But Haight, who will stay with company, says he is concerned that the Bonded Sender program is too lenient. "I am not sure all its standards are tough enough," he said.

    His comment was about Bonded Sender, not SpamCop.

    --

    --
    Have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum

    1. Re:Julian Haight's comments not about SpamCop by jc103 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IronPort isn't "buying", they bought SpamCop back in June.

      Bonded Sender is a product totally distinct from SpamCop.

      The poster's comments (which could be you AC), doesn't make it clear that Mr. Haight's comments are specifically and only about the separate Bonded Sender concept/product. The comment was not about SpamCop.

      That's why I posted. The comment isn't directed towards SpamCop. Julian Haight still runs it. The registry is still fed by regular users. I'm try to help clear up the FUD towards SpamCop being lumped in with Bonded Sender, like you're trying to do in your reply to my post.

      --

      --
      Have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum

  12. Helpdesk employees? by msimm · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hotmail helpdesk #1: Dude, spam is big business.
    Hotmail helpdesk #2: Ya, I bet someone could make a killing off an anti-spam service.
    Hotmail helpdesk #1: Sure, but spammers are legitimate marketers too.
    Hotmail helpdesk #2: Dude I know, their just trying to get their message out.
    .
    ..
    .
    2000 - IronPort founded
    .

    --
    Quack, quack.
  13. Ah, capitalism by violet16 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I guess a few bugs still need to be worked out.

    --
    I should buy some cement.
  14. MS-bred?!? by burgburgburg · · Score: 4, Funny
    I understand what you're trying to say here, but I find that image to be a bit much. MS-bred? Last I checked, Bill and Steve haven't as of yet instituted a breeding program to ensure a steady supply of new Microsofties (though that might be the plot to that new movie "Paycheck").

    Everyone in the Microsoft thrall volunteered. Weiss and Banister signed their names in blood to Microsoft contracts. At some point, Dark Lord Ballmer will come with the Blue Screen of Death and collect from them. That is the way of things, at least until Frodo Torvald is able to throw the closed-source ring of power back into Mount Redmond where is was forged ...wait, it's time for my medicine again, isn't it?

  15. This reminds me of a certain episode ... by rcastro0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    PINKY: Gee, Brain, what do you wanna do tonight?

    BRAIN: The same thing we do every night,Pinky!
    Try to take over the world!
    {Pinky and the Brain theme}

    BRAIN: Email messages, Pinky, is our new tool! We will take over computers with trojan horses, send spam from there, and then we will sell everyone Anti-Spam... for what it's worth !

    PINKY: What if they don't buy your anti-Spam, Brain?

    BRAIN: Even better ! We will scare the people off the internet, leaving their connected PCs behind! This in turn will give us more hosts from which to send Spam. We will then have taken over the world!

    PINKY: Egad, Brain, Brilliant! Oh, oh, wait, no, no -- why would they be scared of us? We're so small, um, we're practically the size of mice, Brain!

    BRAIN: We *are* mice, Pinky.

    PINKY: Oh, right. Well, there you are then. Nya-ha-ha!

    --
    Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
  16. change in spamcop reporting by kurt555gs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I use Squirrelmail, and one of the options is to use Spamcop (report as spam)

    In he last few days, when you process your spamcop response, I have noticed that instead of sending the notices to the usual "abuse@comcast.net" it is simply /dev/null'ing everything.

    I was wondering about this.

    Has anyone else noticed funny things going on in SpamCop?

    --
    * Carthago Delenda Est *
  17. SPAMcop by mugnyte · · Score: 3, Insightful


    I see this as a single-minded business. SPAMcop wants to remove spammers by hunting down the true origins of mail it is told are illegitimate, or through filters. OTOH, it is owned by a company that teaches and sells mass-marketing schemes. This mass-marketer has competition, and thats exactly what SPAMcop will be going after. Bingo! You have a great model to improve your scores by showing actual tallies of improved responses from people using your lists or methods.

    However, there will be an easy way to detect this: If the companies that are sending the spam are ignored by SPAMcop and also part of their enterprise, we have the feared result. At the moment, I haven't seen any evidence of this posted anywhere. But I'm only one person.

    mug

  18. Or like... by Tokerat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Critics say that this is a clear conflict of interest. Playing spam from both sides might be likened to a pharmaceutical company enabling the spread of a disease in order to sell the cure.
    You mean like writing viruses and then selling antivirus software?

    I think big business is starting to learn what step 2 is, and it's kind of frightening.
    1. Create inconvinience/problems.
    2. Sell products which eleminate the problem.
    3. Profit!
    What a shame the tech industry is becomming.
    --
    CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
  19. Playing Both Sides? by Roofus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You mean kind of like Verizon selling my phone number to telemarketers, and then trying to sell me anti-telemarketing services for a premium price?

    1. Re:Playing Both Sides? by Alizarin+Erythrosin · · Score: 2, Informative

      Verizon (my local phone company) got my name wrong somehow when I signed up for my phone. So I was going to get it changed, until I got some junk mail (snail, not e) with that mispelled name on it. Hrm... interesting indeed. So now I know when Verizon sold my info to some telemarketers or whatever. Plus, when people call looking for Mr. Gandnee, I can say wrong number :-)

      --
      There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
  20. Legitimate blah blah by Heem · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "IronPort claims its customers are not spammers but legitimate marketers."

    To me, any marketing related mail is spam. Another user may want to be marketed things that he is interested in, but not me, and I suspect the same of most users of any type of anti-spam solution.

    --
    Don't Tread on Me
  21. Re:nothing really wrong here by Comatose51 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The reason oil companies do research on non-oil fuel is to get a patent on those things and prevent anyone else from using them.

    --
    EvilCON - Made Famous by /.
  22. Don't blame the technology by JimDabell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When it's something like file sharing, everybody's keen to jump on the "don't blame the technology" bandwagon. After all, file sharing can be used legitimately, right?

    How is this any different? There are legitimate needs to send bulk mail aren't there? It's not only used by spammers is it?

    The only difference I can see is that spam is something techies collectively hate, and copyright is something a lot of people are ambivelant about. Let's be fair and apply the same standards! Arguments don't stand or fall based upon whether we like the people involved.

  23. Krupp Arms by DaRat · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Reminds me of the story about Krupp Arms around the beginning of the 20th century. They sold armor and cannon/shells to most major naval powers:
    • They would first come out with a new improved armor that every navy power rushed to put on their ships since it was advertised as being impervious to existing shell technology.
    • Then, they'd come out with improved shells/cannon to defeat the improved armor. All navies would buy the new shells/cannon.
    • Then, they'd come out with Improved Armor Mk2 to defend against the improved shells/cannon. Navies would construct new ships with the Mk2 armor.
    • Then, Improved Shells/Cannon Mk2 would come out...
  24. Ethics. Never heard of it ... by crovira · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Specially at M$ where its not enough to M$ to win but YOU have to lose.

    The only thing I'm happy about is that even Bill Gates will eventually die, just like the poorest Afghani. There is some comfort in that. Nobody lasts for ever.

    But if there is an after-life, I hope he has to use his own products to run a support-site for his own products for the rest of eternity.

    --
    MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
  25. I blame Scott Adams... by Comatose51 · · Score: 2, Funny
    He should have known that anyone worth their weight in the tech industry is going to read his strip. Unleashing an idea like that! What was he thinking?

    http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilb ert-20031129.html

    And good God, he's an AOL user!

    --
    EvilCON - Made Famous by /.
    1. Re:I blame Scott Adams... by Comatose51 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Now the URL without the space in the middle...

      --
      EvilCON - Made Famous by /.
  26. Sounds familiar by Alizarin+Erythrosin · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sounds like when that one phone company (I think it was AT&T) was selling technology to block telemarketers to consumers, and selling technology to get around technology to block telemarketers to telemarketers.

    And, as they say, hilarity ensues...

    --
    There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
  27. And..spamcop has my email.... by MindSlap · · Score: 2, Funny

    Gee.. and they have my email address...
    Would they? Could they?...give their collected mail addresses to their 'partners'/'customers'?

    10 Send report of spam to spamcop
    20 spam cop 'parters' spam you
    30 goto 10

  28. not only spammers buy it by austad · · Score: 3, Informative

    There are some legit companies that use it. A place I used to work used it for sending user-configured news and stock alerts. Interestingly enough, the box is a rebranded dell running freebsd. I have my suspicions they are using qmail on it also just because of the way it behaves. Everything is hidden behind a nice little interface though, so you have to boot with a floppy to poke around, which I never got around to doing.

    The boxes are $30k each last I checked. On a revenue of $10 million, that's likely under 300 machines if you include a support contract. Not selling many of them... :) It is a good product though, you would have serious trouble getting that kind of performance out of a standard mailserver using the same hardware.

    --
    Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
  29. Re:Write to Them by NerdSlayer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, because only spammers send high volume email in a short period of time.

  30. IronPort's not just for SPAM by Stultsinator · · Score: 3, Informative

    The company I work for is looking at using one of these boxes to send our opted-in newsletters. IronPort may be popular with spammers, but I have to agree that there are perfectly ethical reasons to send out millions of emails per day (per hour in fact!) The IronPort systems are by far the fastest mail servers around.

  31. Open proxies by AchmedHabib · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know, isn't it a "traditional" mail sender/relay? Most spam these days comes via open proxies etc. A spammer operating with his own mail server like SenderBase would be blocked by all anti-spam lists fast and would not be effective for long.

    And lets not forget proper uses for the box. I sure would like an appliance box for handling the daily newsletters and etc. Sure it's fun to sit and tweak Postfix on a Linux box but if you were to setup a new system it might not be cheaper to build an entire system yourself, with the tuning, tweaking and scriptwriting, and the following maintainance like updates fixes etc.

  32. senderbase by LarryRiedel · · Score: 2, Insightful
    What may not be common knowledge is that IronPort's Senderbase has 'the reputation as the fastest way to send millions of junk e-mail messages' and is popular with spam factories.

    Senderbase.org is an invaluable site for fighting spam, not a way to send junk email; it is a scourge for spam factories.

    Larry

  33. Senderbase is not a spam tool... by Kelson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's a database that identifies high-volume email sources. So you could say Senderbase is pretty much neutral.

    These are also the people who came up with Bonded Sender - a whitelist with an economic incentive to keep senders honest. So they're hardly new to the anti-spam world.

    The controversy seems to be over IronPort's hardware: they sell mail servers. Big friggin' whoop.

  34. Cincinnati Microwave by Hollins · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know if they still do, but for years, Cincinnati Microwave made both radar guns and radar detectors. They generated a technology war with better and better radar guns and more sensitive detectors. They seemed to have been very successful with this strategy.

  35. Not always... by MadAnthony02 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ironport's website mentions transaction confirmations as one of the uses, and that is certainly legit... when I order stuff online, I like to get an email confirming it, telling me it's been shipped, ect.

    There are legitimate advertising emails. I buy alot of electronics, so I regularly get emails from companies I've bought stuff from in the past, and I'm glad I have - they have alerted me to some good sales.

    To me, there is a huge difference from me getting an email from Compgeeks, TigerDirect, eCost, or another company that I've bought stuff from (and could opt out of if I want to) and getting emails to BUY DISCOUNT VIAGRA, or MEET CHRISTIAN SINGLES, or the like. If IronPort is doing the former, then that's fine by me. If the companies are using their stuff to do the latter, then there is a problem

    --
    I have blog like everyone else
  36. Some Clarifications from Julian by Haight6716 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hi, this is Julian, the long-time owner of SpamCop.net. I must say I was a bit dissapointed in the NYT coverage of this.

    First of all, I was not *forced* to sell SpamCop to remain solvent. I am proud of the fact that I have been profitable since 1999. If anything, this deal makes SpamCop a charity case within Ironport. I still get paid of course ;)

    The NYT article quotes me as saying (referring back to my dead-tree version): "After a while, I found that this had become a job, and I had to find a way to make money from it". That quote was taken out of context - I was referring to my 1999 decision to take SpamCop commercial, not my 2003 decision to sell the *profitable* company to ironport.

    It is true that the akamai bill is not cheap. But I think I would have survived the same way I have always done without selling the business. And that leads to my next point - I'm not cashing out. I will be with the company for the forseeable future, doing what I have always done - fighting spam! I sold it to ironport because I felt they would support my goals. They offered me a nice lump of cash, help with the non-spam-fighting part of the job (sysadmin, administrivia, lawyering, DDoS protection, etc.) and most important, a credible promise to let me keep it on-track.

    The very fact that I am here talking about this, and expressing my doubts about bonded sender to the NYT should indicate that I'm not just rolling over here.

    I don't control the bonded sender program and likewise the people who control it won't be calling the shots where SpamCop is concerned.

    Oh, and BTW, I know ironport boxes are good for spamming. They're also good for sending (and also receiving) tons of legitimate mail. Noone with ironport has ever claimed that "our customers aren't spammers". Some might claim our *bonded sender members* aren't spammers, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

    Are we arming both sides? Sure! But as with all arms dealers, the real point is that we make the best weapons on the market! Don't like spam from ironport customers? Use the spamcop blacklist! If this were really some big conspiracy, would spamazon's IP be in both the spamcop blacklist and the ironport whitelist?

    $ host 207.171.188.101
    101.188.171.207.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer mm-outgoing-101.amazon.com.
    $ host 101.188.171.207.query.bondedsender.org
    101.188.17 1.207.query.bondedsender.org has address 127.0.0.10
    $ host 101.188.171.207.bl.spamcop.net
    101.188.171.207.bl .spamcop.net has address 127.0.0.2

    (Note, the blacklist changes quickly over time, it was listed when I wrote this) .. and here I was coming to slashdot to read the news and relax. Little did I know I'd be spending the next half hour writing this rebuttal ..

    -=Julian "10 hot comments" Haight=-

  37. Playing both sides against the middle by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Informative

    Also note the "Spam Farmers" post, where AT&T is promoting "viral marketing" as a benefit to developers of their new mMode service.

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