Slashdot Mirror
AOL Blocking Spammers' Web Sites
Nuclear Elephant writes "According to this article, AOL has decided to take a fresh approach to fighting spam and is now blocking the spammer's web address. The philosophy is, if the customers can't visit spammers sites, spammers will not be able to make any money. On a side note, I suggested this concept about six months ago but nobody thought ISPs would adopt it. Now perhaps we can get a group like NANOG interested in sponsoring a blacklist for spammer addresses?"
I don't know, whether this is such a brilliant idea - if this gets widely adopted it can't be long before some idiot will get the idea of paying for a spam to "advertise" one of his competitors just to get HIS site blocked...
I see loads of abuse potential here... While AOL might be smart enough not to block sites like microsoft.com or ebay.com if they showed up in a spam, it could be a knock-out blow to relatively
small and medium (and hence little known) companies on the web.
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From: baduser@aol.com
To: gooduser@aol.com
Subject: Look At My Porn
Come look at my naked (sister|mother|wife|daughter) on her web cam doing all kinds of nasty things.
http://www.sco.com
--------------
AOL , making DoS even easier.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I've been doing this for the past year. Every so often I get a call from a user that needs to get to a sight that is associated with a spammer. For example, a local television station's site is hosted on the same machine as a spammer's site. I got calls from users wanting to visit that station's site so I had to unblock it. This is a never-ending job since spammers many time host their "web sites" on virus-infected broadband home PCs. Since I only have to work with 1000 or so users, it's not a big deal. If I had billions like AOL. Gads. I'd rather not think about it. And that's not taking into account those people that truly want to visit the spammer's sites. Who is AOL to deny them the ability to go to the websites they want.
There are just too many pitfalls in this. I don't think all large ISPs will go this route.
But why is the rum gone?
It would be better if instead of completely blocking the page, it re-directed to a page saying that this site is implicated in spamming, but with a link to the real page. Would mimimize impact to falsly accused sites.
that with the negative backlash, some legal, that has occured against blacklist maintainters of all sorts (causing the SPEWS mainttainers to go anon), the fine people at NANOG will be smart enough to leave it alone. Not to say that some motivated members might not do it, but NANOG ain'ta gonna touch it.
Wow, this means I can take down other people's web sites by putting them into a message and spamming AOL users with it. Cool!
I'll start with Microsoft, move on to SCO...
--G
One, two, three, even four errors in that email! No exclemation points, no use of the _word_ "u" (like "c u therr". I mean, come on you even capitalized the first letter, what kind of AOL user would do that?? Really, you should really look into improving your writing techneques.
The company I'm working for provides free web service ( http://www.skymail.fr ).
:
This kind of service frequently gets abused by spammers. Two they abuse it
1) they open an account, just to have a valid address in order to bypass basic spam filters. Then, they send their spam through other servers using this address as the sender.
2) they use scripts to send spam through the service, as any regular user would. This is extremely annoying.
For 1) we publish SPF for all domains we send mail from. Now, it's up to people to enable SPF on their mail servers.
For 2) we filter _all_ packets coming from China, Korea, Nigeria and addresses listed in Spews and Spamhaus databases. That's about 13000+ filtered networks. Thanks to OpenBSD packet filter, it's trivial to set up and it doesn't introduce any slowdown.
{{.sig}}
Oh yea, lets all block websites so the idiots can't get spam sent to them. God forbid we taught them not to be idiots. Hell lets put them all on Linux, then they won't even be able to find the "Interweb explored" icon and we'll never have to deal with them again... or package forks with a microsoft logo and tell them to insert into a plug socket... either way we win..
--- [Insert intresting Sig here]
These are the same concerns people are having with FFB (Filters that Fight Back) which are capable of creating massive DoS's against a spammer, but don't really affect anyone else. I think blocking is certainly a step in the right direction, as it conserves bandwidth rather than consume it. AOL will definitely have to keep on their toes to make sure a legitimate website isn't blocked. Some of this can be automated, though - every time it thinks about blocking a website, crawl the site and perform the same type of language classification on it that you would a spam. The website should be even spammier than the email in most cases, or at least provide enough information to classify it as a spammy website. If it doesn't, throw up a red flag and let someone manually review it (or just drop it completely). The great thing about this function is that it not only blocks the spammer's method of contact, but it also makes it much more difficult for a spammer to move around. It's easy to use a different IP to send the spams, but to change your website every day or two is a bit more time consuming, and hopefully will exhaust spammers.
I've got mixed feelings about that.
First of all, are all spammers bad? I mean, there ARE some people that buy crap advertised in spam. And is it all bad, or a ripoff? There was an link on Fark a week ago to an article about some guy that actually looks forwards to receiving spam, and had bought a lot of things from spam mails. Weird things, like a carpet cleaner, but things.
On the other hand, do people want AOL to shelter them from the web, from the real world? I can't mail some friends on another ISP because their ISP has blacklisted Roadrunner Email. We already have a government 'sheltering' us from things, such as the real truth behind assassinations, aliens, and the disappearance of Elvis.
Finally, the more things AOL blocks, the more reason for people to take the red pill, wake up to the monopoly, and get on a real ISP. Then those stupid CDs will stop showing up in my mailbox.
I want to see the web, the whole web, the whole glorious ugly sex-ridden spam-filled seething mass of crap, and naught else.
I have commented several toimes about a need for providers of internet services to take more care of their customers
AOL is a family ISP - most techies wouldn't use it as it doesn't provide what we want, but all those kids surfing on it deserve to be protected from the people who target them with spam
It's been demonstrated over and over that there are enough people out there willing to buy from spammers to make it a highly profitable industry, but that most of those profits come from taking payment by fraud and never supplying the goods
I would not use an ISP that did this, but the marvel of free will means I don't have to. For AOL's target market (largely clueless and wanting an all-in-one service to supply services and protect them) this is the right action.
One final recommendation to AOL
Please supply the latest Windows service pack and the latest Internet Explorer update patches on your CDs and make them a prerequisite to going online. Microsoft would love you to do this, techies would love it too and it would close down a lot of spam relays by closing the holes.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Now, if only my webhost would have a way to prevent people from forging email to appears as if it originated from my domain... ...great fun for someone who makes his money selling art and shirts through his website, nobody on AOL will be able to visit my site because some spammer forger email.
Machine9dotNet
At least to some extent, they've been rejecting mail that contains urls believed to be connected with spam. This can be mail from domains that aren't otherwise blocked by their filters. I forget the exact text I saw in their bounce message. A user at ISP where I work NOC had complained of not being able to send mail to an aol address. I could see she was trying to forward a spamish mail she had received to her aol-using friend (gee, what are friends for, if not to share spam); my recollection months later is fuzzy, but it was clear from the body of the rejected mail and the aol bounce did specifically mention that it was rejected on the basis of the url contained in the mail.
But the idea is to force the spammers out of business by taking away the small fraction of customers that they get from sending out their spam. If you just have an intermediate page saying this website is involved in spam, all you're doing is putting one more mouse click between the customer and the website. Remember, these are people that *want* to visit the spammers site that are being blocked.
IMHO, even though it is all for a good cause, once you start blocking websites "for the good of the internet" it's a slippery slope to full-on censorship.
On this last condition I disagree. Don't confuse legality with morality.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Why not build this capability into browsers? Follow the cookies handling model.
Make it optional, stick it in "preferences", stock it with an initial list of spam sites, and give the user the ability to add additional sites, delete sites, and select/deselect the block.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Instead of simply blocking the connection, AOL could redirect the visitor to a special error page, explaining that the page was blocked for spam reasons and offering an override if the user really wants to see it.
After reading through a page explaining that it is a spam site and that the user might be tracked and harrassed further by those companies for giving them a visit, I'm sure most of them would not click through.
Those masochists looking forward to buying spam and actively supporting these scum could just click "Yes, I really want to see this page" and everyone would be happy. Right?
I didn't know they were filtering spamvertized sites but I know they block some mails based on content, specifically URLs they may contain; some emails to AOL got rejected because of this, and their smtp returns
reason: 554-: (HVU:B1) The URL contained in your email to AOL members has generated a high volume of complaints.
The URL in question was http://someplace.(can't remember).solmedia.com which doesn't sound like a spamgang operation to me..
have you been defaced today?
So, does this include sites that have 'dynamic' IP addresses as well? Currently they consider a lot of web hosts as having dynamic IP addresses, and force them to have to get on a whitelist (which I might add, is nearlly impossible). Does this mean now, not only will AOL users not be able to sign up for anything that requires an e-mail on my site, but that they'll now not be able to view it at all?
I sure hope it's just spammers they've blacklisted, rather than a comibnation of a blacklist, and whitelist. I can certainly see the possibility of this being even more of a problem than one would think.
re-directed to a page saying that this site is implicated in spamming, but with a link to the real page
:)
A notice like "we know who you are, pervert, and we're going to tell your mom" will surely help to reduce even more the number of clicks.
Anyway, excellent idea ripnet, even without my modest contibution.
The problem with spam-filtering schemes is what about people like this to whom there is no unwanted email?
It's really not fair to those customers. This is why filtering has to be controlled by the user and nobody else should make the decisions.
You're dead on. This scheme may be an effective and smart idea, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
When I pay for internet access, I expect to be able to access any public site on the internet if I so with.
Why is it that the companies selling these products are even allowed to continue to operate anyway? Most of them seem to be pharmaceutical suppliers and are based in the US. Further they often sell what are classed as Schedule 4 drugs in Australia (must be sold by a licensed pharmacist by doctor prescription only). Does not the US FDA have similoar powers to shut these operators down? If we could stop the shady operators from selling this stuff (and I can't see how they operate legally) there would be no spam.
Let's all just block AOL. Eliminating all of the stupid users that "support" the spammers. That should solve the problem (and many others), quite fast.
I've already had one of my competaters complain about me (unjustly) and now I'm blocked and I can't send email to aol customers. This is the first major step in isolating aol customers from non aol parts of the internet, watch how this turns out they will start "filtering" in a big way now.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Many have already noted the comments where a DDOS may be launched via sending out spam in order to deliberately draw the attention of IP blocking filters, but at the same time, it is also worth noting that many web servers have multiple domains on one IP address using both virtual directories and virtual domains. In fact, almost every ISP does this, in order to give their users a place to oput Mom and Dad's pictures with the kids, etc.
So, if implemented uninteliigently, filtering by ISPs would simply p/o their own customers. All script-kiddie John has to do is get an account on say, Earthlink, put his little target V-iagra content there and then use an SMTP mailer to draw the attention of Earthlink's own IP blocker after his mails rattle along the 'net.
Sure, they'd clean it up pretty quick, and then unblock, but do you really think that Mr. and Mrs. Non-Techie User are going to be so understanding while their fabulous portraits of their kids are intermittently available as this little war plays itself over and over again? I think not. Grandma is even less technical than them and just can't understand why her AOL dialup can't open the web site where they were just yesterday.
That said, the spam content IP blocking idea has merit, but it's not going to be as simple as merely blocking an IP address. It's probably going to have to be quite smart, smarter than both spammers AND script-kiddies in order to work and thus be accepted. I say the technology merits study but is not ready for prime-time.
This is real funny. I've been trying to install some new sendmail milter programs on my mail server in an attempt to cut down on the amount of spam I receive. As a result, I've been taking a closer look at my mail logs.
I'm getting a lot of mail addressed to accounts that don't exist from systems with names like omr-m14.mx.aol.com. Are these legitimate MTAs or open relays?
If AOL wants to cut down on SPAM, they should start with what gets sent by their servers.
That would be great if people were to actually read and understand the intermediate page. However, most of the people browsing the World Wide Web won't take the time to read the explanation. They're just going to click the 'click here' link.
Perhaps slap one of those 'text in image' verifications and have the text read 'I love spam'?
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
Is this a troll?
"I can see legal problems in many jurisdictions for ISP's censoring the Internet."
what legal problems? what jurisdictions? Seems unlikely to me - if AOL's terms of service allow them to restrict access to certain websites then they can do so.
"not only are AOL a big spammer"
I get hundreds of spam each day; I've never had one from AOL. Is this really correct?
"most spam comes from their network"
oh come on - spam often contains a spoof AOL e-mail address, but the idea "most" spam actually *comes* from AOL is daft
"they encourage people to use their networks for spam, and they are funded by spammers."
this is just tin foil hat time
It doesn't take a lot of foresight to imagine the day when the political interests can persuade AOL to block other "undesirable" sites. Technically, it's not censorship because AOL has supposedly done it voluntarily; just like Clear Channel has "voluntarily" removed Howard Stern from their radion stations.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
AOL recently identified me as a spammer and blocked all future email from me to my friend in Paris, following a fairly rapid exchange of emails between us concerning tickets for a newly announced gig that I knew she would love to go to, but were not visible to her for some reason. Presumably because the emails all centred around 'tickets', AOL severed our communications. She is the onl AOL customer I contact by email, and then infrequently. If this is a measure of their accuracy in identifying spammers, God help us all
Did you check the IP address to see where the email was really coming from, or did you blindly accept the other system's word that it was an AOL server? Stuff like 23.really.real.aol.com [208.55.71.153] needs a closer look. :^)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The idea is the web site hoster is doing the spaming. The way this works in the real world is the idot that is tring to sell something talks to some spamers who convince them that its an op-in list and pays like $5000 to send his crafted message out. Of course the "demo" shows about one hit in 30 so its got to be good right? The real world is the spamer takes the cash from some moron and then may spam a different product. by that time the person paying is out of the loop an the rest of us pay.
The only solution to spamers is jail or a clue by 4 to the brain.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
~Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the
governor, November 11, 1755
The problem with AOL is they make it too easy to get their customer's email addresses. If you have an AOL account, you have access to seeing everybody else's screenname which is a great security risk. When I had an AOL account, I had more spam then I've ever had with any other account.
There's at least two serious problems with such unilateral approaches by any "authority" rather than the recipient. What's spam to you may be ham to me and vice versa. Additionally, it opens a rather insidious door: if someone rather than you is the gatekeeper of your mail, then there is always the possibility that they can be influenced (usually by monetary means) to let mail through that you'd consider spam (User: "Why am I getting these unwanted ads? This is spam" Authority: "Oh? We'd never have thought our users would consider such an upstanding member of the business community a spammer." User: "That's not the point. I don't want this mail". Authority: "Tough. Read the terms of your contract with us. We get to decide." ...) This is =not= a good idea in my book.
Of course, if we'd get people properly educated about the use and effectiveness of Bayesian Content Filtering, such actions by "authorities" would be totally irrelevant since BCF can solve the problem without such negative consequences.
Agreed, this is a clear conflict of interest. Even though I could legally and technically block HTTP traffic between spammer websites and our university network, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing so, precisely because those most likely to complain about it would not be the spammers (or those unfortunate enough to share their web server with a spammer), but rather my own colleagues. And, they would complain to me, rather than to the spammer's ISP.
I'm all for public blacklists, and I keep using those to protect my own mailboxes from inbound junk. If somebody wants to send me mail, I'm justified in asking that person not to pay money to (or otherwise support) the ISP of a spammer. Likewise if they want to access my web pages, though I haven't implemented a blacklist check for those yet.
However, when I prevent my friends and colleagues from viewing somebody else's website just because that website shares hardware with a spammer, things are getting real tricky, because I'm interfering with traffic that doesn't necessarily benefit the spammer or his ISP anyway, and the only ones hurt by it are my friends and colleagues. This is clearly not desirable.
I admit that it makes a little more sense for AOL to do this, given their millions of users who supposedly don't know what's in their own best interest, but I wouldn't want to be a customer of such a company, nor would I want to work for it.
In Russia most ISPs, including the largest hosting providers, routinly close websites belonging to spammers (repeat offenders) for a few years already. So far this has not been abused, suggesting, it might work equally well on the American and even global scale too.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
What about Joe-jobs? What about innocent advertisers? What about them? They're collateral damage. So sorry, flowers to the family, but the war takes priority.
I even emailed Carl Hutzler, Director of Anti-spam at AOL, and he hasn't returned my emails or my calls. The same goes for the hundreds of thousands of spams we get from *.verizon.net, comcast.net, voyager.net, compaq.com, and others. Clearly people inside the business infrastructure have infected systems propagating spam on the weekends, using the corporate bandwidth to do it.
At this point, this is what I do:
So far, the more I block, the faster the spam comes in, and the more I block, ad nauseum.
Here is today's counts. At 5:30am, this was 164 hosts, and now it is 109 more than that.
Spam is definately getting worse, as more and more machines are hijacked for the purposes of propagating it, with these trojans.
The more I block, the more incoming spam we get.
With all the annoying warnings that users have learned to bypass without reading, will another warning really matter?
Really, it's just a game of motivation where the user is expected to press the right button to see the requested webpage as quickly as possible. "Check this box if you don't want to see this warning in the future."
Just like tagging e-mail as spam before passing it on to the recipient minimizes impact on legit mail? Impact? What impact?
I think AOL has made an unwise decision, not because of collateral damage to wrongly listed sites, but in a not-caring-what-the-users-want kind of way. If AOL had a million users asking for this feature, eager to send informed complaints to the blacklisted website operators to encourage them to kick out the spammers, then this may have some effect. AOL saying "Our customers will no longer have the freedom to read your advertising" isn't likely to be noticed by anybody with any influence here.
I agree on principle that this is the wrong way to do this but also offer a compromise;
;-p
Give people an informed choice. Tell them that the website they are attempting to access has been identified as a security risk/spam house/pron site/etc then let them decide if they want to continue.
It is just as open to abuse but it also seems like it would fail gracefully in the event that the site is not a problem or that as an individual you don't have a problem with it's content.
Go one step further and allow the browser or your account to keep a white list of bookmarks which pass you straight through to the site... just set a cookie or similar.
The end result is that you give people a community knowledge-based opinion about the content of a site, then you give them the choice of whether they want to go with the crowd or go their own way and you make it convenient for them to go their own way from then on.
Many tools already do this with filtering for Ads... just extend it to apply to entire sites and return the bookmark option page instead and if you are AOL you can hook it up to your community database of opinions... "mod this site up, it has 'original' pron... not just the same set of crappy old pics"
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
The legal problem is the common carrier issue. Once you begin filtering for content, you become liable.
But as to spam from an AOL address -- it's been about 5 years since I last saw a spam that *actually* came from an AOL server.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The thing about spammers is that no matter how many proxies, zombie machines, foreign servers and fake addresses they hide behind - at SOME point, there has to be a contact between spam victim and spammer for spam to be an effective money-maker. Spammers try to sell you things - things which require monetary transactions to complete. That's where they are vulnerable. Find out the businesses that profit from spam and go after them. They can't hide forever, especially if they want to sell you something.
Men believe what they want. - Caesar