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IronPort Arms Both Sides In Spam War
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."
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.
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,
Nothing like having your SPAM and eating it too!
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
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!
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
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.....
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
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
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?
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.
I use Squirrelmail, and one of the options is to use Spamcop (report as spam)
/dev/null'ing everything.
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
I was wondering about this.
Has anyone else noticed funny things going on in SpamCop?
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I think big business is starting to learn what step 2 is, and it's kind of frightening.
- Create inconvinience/problems.
- Sell products which eleminate the problem.
- Profit!
What a shame the tech industry is becomming.CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
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?
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.
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
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.
;)
7 1.207.query.bondedsender.org has address 127.0.0.10l .spamcop.net has address 127.0.0.2
.. 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 ..
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
101.188.1
$ host 101.188.171.207.bl.spamcop.net
101.188.171.207.b
(Note, the blacklist changes quickly over time, it was listed when I wrote this)
-=Julian "10 hot comments" Haight=-