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NYT on Spam Cops

yet another coward writes "The New York Times reports on new measures against spam. (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies) Microsoft has increased efforts to track and prosecute spammers. Hotmail receives 2 billion (2 * 10^9) spam messages per day. In a twist of weirdness, the Direct Marketing Association is funding investigators who cooperate with the FBI on spam investigations. Spamhaus also gets a mention."

11 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Registration site by swordboy · · Score: 3, Informative

    No Need - plenty of other sources out there.

    --

    Life is the leading cause of death in America.
  2. Futureproofing Spamhaus by alanxyzzy · · Score: 5, Informative
    In related news, Spamhaus has announced a Funding model based on charging large corporate networks a yearly fee for our Data Feed rsync/ixfr service.

    The public DNSBL service will remain free.

  3. Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 4, Informative

    Regardless of whether this was posted for karma or to benefit other users here, it is still copyright infringement.

    Cool - then just do it this way then.

    Made from This Page.

    --
    _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
  4. The DMA hates spammers (true) by Random+BedHead+Ed · · Score: 4, Informative
    In a twist of weirdness, the Direct Marketing Association is funding investigators who cooperate with the FBI on spam investigations.

    Not much of a twist at all, despite many of the above comments. Just grok this: the DMA hates spammers. No, really. I know someone who works for a company that's part of the DMA, and spam is her biggest headache. While we all hate commercial e-mail in general, the DMA is made up of companies who want to play by the rules. True, they want to have a hand in writing the rules as well, but the rules are pretty good ones. No faking your source IP addresses or From: fields. Always have an Unsubscribe feature that actually works. And so forth.

    Spammers make the DMA's life a living hell. It's impossible to have a conversation with most people about legitimate commercial e-mail because illegitmate spam is such a pain (I just deleted 20 spams, vs. three real messages in my Lycos mail). With an annoyance like spam, no one even wants to hear the DMA's side of the story. So the DMA's members get blocked from sending e-mail by many sysadmins (like me).

    If all commercial mail conformed to the rules that the DMA advocates, no one would complain to ISPs about commercial mail because the power to prevent it would be in the hands of the recipient. Just click Unsubscribe and you're free and clear. Until spammers go away, that's impossible because no one trusts Unsubscribe links. It shouldn't surprise us that the DMA will do anything they can to prevent spam.

    1. Re:The DMA hates spammers (true) by homer_ca · · Score: 2, Informative

      "the DMA is made up of companies who want to play by the rules. True, they want to have a hand in writing the rules as well, but the rules are pretty good ones. No faking your source IP addresses or From: fields. Always have an Unsubscribe feature that actually works."

      The problem is that email addresses eventually leak out from the more legit DMA members to shadier and shadier spammers, whether it's through "affiliates", bankruptcy sales, or corrupt employees. See the story of Nadine for an excellent example of how this happens.

  5. Re:Illegal and tricky Spam by Noryungi · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why don't you just forward this to the FBI? I am sure their kiddie porn Dept would be interested.

    Finding the relevant @fbi.gov address is left as an exercise for the reader...

    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
  6. Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Informative

    How come I can read the exact same article by simply going in via another entrance.

    The common google affiliated link to all NYT stories is a gaping hole in their DNA sample taking policy.

    I do however agree about posting the whole article, but news is news, and it should not change depending upon where you read it.

    Same subject - if a story is submitted to slash, and it includes a link to an NYT story obtained from google - a perfectly valid news linking service, would Slashdot editors remove the google portion of the link and try to force us to signup?

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  7. OpenBSD + spamd by Santana · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually spamd on OpenBSDdoes a great job stopping spam

    I used to get around 300 messages daily, all of them spam. Now I only get 1 or 2 every two days.

    --
    The best way to predict the future is to invent it
  8. Re:Registration site by arturogatti · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you don't wish to register you might consider visiting here also.

  9. Re:My ISP blocks ALL port 25 traffic. by jonfelder · · Score: 2, Informative

    Filtering port 25 keeps users from using their own machines to send spam, or from spammers using the machines that have been infected with some worm to send spam.

    The SMTP server doesn't need to require authentication because your ISP (should) only allow relaying from IP addresses administered by your ISP. It would be nice if they offered it though, but it's not necessary from their point of view.

    All of your Internet traffic goes through your ISP. This means they can monitor ALL your traffic, not just mail...if you're concerned that your ISP is reading your mail, encrypt it before you send it. Even if your ISP supported authentication, since they control the server they could still monitor your email.

    That goes for any of your other traffic too...if you don't want them to view it, encrypt it.

  10. Re:NYT Jokes by yet+another+coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    For the record, I submitted the article. I did not submit the registration required joke with it. Since Taco posted the story, he probably added it.