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UK ISPs to Shut Down Spamvertised Websites
JebuZ writes "The Register is currently reporting that UK ISPs are targeting ecommerce websites run by spammers in a new 'get tough' policy on junk mail. ISPs belonging to the London Internet Exchange (LINX) have voted through a code of practice which gives them the mandate to shut down websites promoted through spam, even if junk mail messages are sent through a third-party or over a different network. The move is intended to remove the financial incentive to send spam." There's also a BBC story.
... until people start spamming using their competition's address to facilitate them getting thrown off their host?
The Web Hosting company I work for has been doing this for years. You spam, you lose. Simple. From our AUP:
# UBE ("spam"): sending unsolicited bulk e-mail, using UBE, even if not sent from American Internet, to advertise (spamvertise) your site, providing any service to spammers such as mailboxes or Web sites.
Is this just now catching on? Shocking.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
1. Start up competitor to /.
/.
/. shut down.
2. Send out spam promoting
3. See
4. Profit!!!!
Based on the phrase "given authority", I gather that law enforcement will investigate the situation before forcibly shutting down the site. Failing to do so could result in a counter-suit claiming that law enforcement did not do their job.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
...as they're likely to have the same kind of site hosted in multiple places to avoid this problem. :( At best, it will drive up the costs of maintaining said sites, but those costs aren't that high to begin with.
Furthermore, this does nothing to the spammers whose hosters are in collusion with them, and who are profiting themselves.
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I suppose it all depends on how much investigation ISPs are required and/or willing to do.
gives them the mandate to shut down websites promoted through spam
So in theory:
Fighting with spammers is not going to work ever, as long as they can make even a single penny of profit from their sleazy operations. If their income source is forced to dry, their flow of spam will follow the trend.
IMHO, the companies, who sell their products through the spamvertized channels should be put into the same tight squeeze. I want to see Pfizer sweat for those Viagra ads I receive day in and day out in hundreds.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
My company had one of its accounts suspended briefly last year when one of our clueless clients hired a US company to send e-mails for them to "1 million opt-in UK addresses".
BTW: how gullible can you get? A single opt-in list with about 5% of the Internet-connected population on it? Wow.
Hmmm. Sounds like a really, really good idea now doesn't it?
-- MG
In theory it sounds nice. However, there are several problems here. First, the offending web site may be hosted by an ISP that doesn't give a damn. It may be overseas. It may be in Russia, or North Korea for that matter. If it is in a non-british jurisdiction all they can do is block access to it. There is no way to take it down. The link may be a referral. As others have already noted, the linked address may be that of someone the spammer doesn't like, resulting in the shutdown or blocking of an innocent web site. With so many potential problems, I doubt whether this initiative has a chance of succeeding.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
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Could we do that in the United States, too?
But what about repeat offenders? Those that open up a new website and advertize by spam on that site, too? Setting up a webpage isn't too hard these days, and one could always send one's servers offshore. This needs to be an international policy.
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That allows the people who have been spammed to identify and track the spammer.
Fight Spammers!
Other than the obvious abuse possibilities, this is a good way to remove the incentive to spam people. Until I started getting too much junk mail to keep up with, I would go to the website that was advertised (stripping out the personal identifier junk-text string) and e-mail the webmaster saying that I would never buy their product because of their advertising techniques and that I would actively warn people away from them. I doubt that they took me seriously, but it was nice to rant anyways, and yes I did follow through in my threat for many of those advertisers.
Also, if the spammers are getting a [very low percentage] click-through number, I wonder how many of those are people who have never gotten spam before. The number of people on the internet is growing so quickly, I'd imagine that many of the click-throughs are actually people who have never seen a "bulk unsolicited e-mail" before.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
DEAR SIR,
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darn filter won't let me submit in all caps
Please note the article is refering to a code of practice not a law. There will without doubt be different ways in which ISPs might and will implement it. If a competitor is spamming "on your behalf" then you're going to get a warning from your ISP saying that they're considering yanking your plug... you'll then get to address that and show circumstance.
Then if the chaps framing you are in the UK there's legal action you might take against them.
This is a good thing. It's not a draconian law, it's a business consortium agreeing that they they to focus on an issue and deciding common policy on how to address it.
Code of practice, not law.
I've noticed that many of the people who bitch the most about spam are also the first one to produce simplistic and pedantic retorts to steps people make to do something about it. "But somebody might not get their email for a day."
Spam Whiners: Shit or get off the pot.
Either somebody does *something*, however imperfect or flawed, or they do nothing. The whining and the complaining and the doing of nothing adds up to exactly nothing but noise.
I want actions taken, and I want them taken *now*. Collateral damage? Unavoidable -- any solution strong enough to work is going to cause collateral damage. This isn't a kernel bugfix, the patch doesn't have to be formally proved at an academic conference, it has to be implemented and adjusted as needed for maximum effectiveness.
If you're not making mistakes, you're not making anything, and not doing anything about spam has been how effective?
This tumor is so rooted in the Internet, that there is no way to cut it all out without removing some healthy tissue. There is probably no perfect solution to this problem, but it HAS to be addressed.
I truly can't see people resorting to trying to advertise competitor's web sites via SPAM to get them shut down. They'd open themselves up to way too much liability if that actually happened.
IMHO: This solution does a pretty decent job of targetting the tumor without removing much healthy tissue. Again, no solution will perfectly home in on just spammers... innocents will always get caught up in the effort to remove this problem. The trick is to just come up with items and balance it's positive effects against its negative effects.
-- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."
"Collateral damage is just fine--Until I'm the one being damaged."
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Either somebody does *something*, however imperfect or flawed, or they do nothing. The whining and the complaining and the doing of nothing adds up to exactly nothing but noise.
It wasn't a whine nor a complaint. And it can have very serious reprocussions. How happy would you be if your legitimate, non-spamming online business was blacklisted because someone else forged fake spam?
I want actions taken, and I want them taken *now*. Collateral damage? Unavoidable -- any solution strong enough to work is going to cause collateral damage.
Wonderful attitude. "Fuck the innocent as long as I'm happy (and it doesn't happen to me)"
This system could be useful, but considering there was no detailed mention of how they're going to deal with this potential problem its a valid question.
The harder spam becomes to send the better it is. There is no instant cure, stop watching Oprah you american. The real world requires you to work had on multiple fronts to solve a problem. This is just one tiny drop on the hot plate. But together with all the other little drops it is making a difference.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This should have been: the existence of joe jobs is no reason not to penalize actual spammers.
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Micro? Soft?
That's as inappropriate a name for a peni-spammer as you're likely to get.
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Multiple Spammed Denial of Service?
Absit Invidia
When I submit my daily dose of spam to Spamcop, I can see that 90% of all websites referred to by spam mails are hosted in China and Brazil, and I don't think either country will do a similar move anytime soon.
It is already common practice for spammers to use bullet-proof hosts (which is even mentioned in TFA).
So I don't think this move will change anything as far as spam goes, but the potential for abuse (see some of the previous comments) will increase, given that most sites hosted by UK ISPS are legitimate.
The LINX Best Current Practice on Unsolicited Bulk E-mail ("the spam BCP") is carefully written so as to avoid being a way to create denial of service attacks.
LINX does not adjudicate complaints; our ISPs members do. You can complain to an ISP for tolerating spamvertised web sites just like you can complain to them for tolerating someone sending spam. If they follow Best Practice they will cut off the web site if, only if, and not before they satisfy themselves that the spam was sent by or with the consent of the web site owner.
Of course, it is possible that they could get it wrong; miscarriages of justice do occur in every area of life. This is not a reason not to have any rules at all. It is up to the ISP to take care when considering a complaint so as not to cut their customers off without good reason. Naturally, some will consider this an unnecessary delay - and even evidence that the ISP is not serious about cancelling the account. Well, it's not possible to please everybody all the time; you've just got to craft the best policy you can and run with it.
Malcolm Hutty
LINX Regulation Officer.
I have mentioned this before at Slashdot and I'm always ridiculed for it. However, I greatly reduced my spam intake from well over 2,000 spams a day to well under 100 by simply blocking any email that contains a link to a server that I've put in my "that is a spam-advertised IP address" file. It isn't difficult to do. In fact, I make what I've written freely available on my website.
Every time I mention this, someone says, "Oh my God! You're going to block some good little Mom&Pop store because they share a server with a spammer!" If that is what you are thinking, you didn't read my previous paragraph. I block any email WITH A LINK TO A SERVER that is in my block list. I DO NOT block any email originating from a server in the block list.
As this article explains, the incentive is to remove the profit margin from spam. I think my method works better than kicking them off the server if my method was used by a majority of the Internet users. The reason is that my method hopes the spammers keep the same IP addresses. If you kick them off the server, they change IP addresses and I have to block the new one.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
...is people acting like it's a bad thing.
Anti-spammers have always maintained that ISPs should kill the websites of known spammers. That's what a number of the blacklists out there are about -- they list ISPs that don't kick off websites that have been advertised through spamming, even if the spam was sent from a different ISP.
This is a good thing. Spammers should lose their Internet access, period. They should also lose their lives, but ISPs aren't really in the position to do that kind of thing.
So much whining about a very good practice. Any ISP that allows spammers on their network should be shunned, and their management shot.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Another common type of attack, though not spam-related, is the Distributed Relay Denial of Service. A recent Slashdot story covered the Politically Conceived Denial of Service.
And let's not forget the Systemwide Offensive Linking All Remote Internet Sites, a truly ghastly crime against nature, itself second only to the destructive powers of the terrorist organization known as the Society for the Literal Annihilation of Sites Hosting Data Oriented to Technology (motto: Nothing Ever Withstands the Society; Fear Our Response. Now Eventually Readers Duplicate Stories, Stories That Unfortunately Flopped the First Time, Horribly. Although Taco May Attempt to Tend Things, Evil Results Somehow.)
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Quick! Everyone send spams promoting microsoft products!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The story is a dupe, the topic is boring, the facts weren't checked. WE GET IT!!
Spammers will stop spamming when it stops being profitable. If every time they spam, they get sued and have to pay money to attorneys and plaintiffs, they will stop -- BECAUSE it destroys their business model.
Fight Spammers!
No, most spammers profit by re-selling their spamming services. Spam is a remarkably low-hit, low-margin, and very unreliable advertising vehicle.
Where the real spammers make their money is in creating the *illusion* that you, too, can make your fortune by paying them to send out 1,000,000 emails. In a way, spammers are like the online equivalent of those huckster-like classified ads in the backs of tabloid papers. They aren't selling any product themselves... they are selling an advertising service to normal people operating under the pretenses that there is money to be made.
In fairness, I'm sure there are citable examples of spammers who made money selling product. I'm just willing to bet that those are the exception, not the rule.
Self-referential sigs are rarely entertaining.
Now, my friend's boss is putting a lot of pressure on him to send these emails. My friend asked me for help but I flatly refused regardless of price. He really doesn't want to do it, but his boss is leaning on him, and his wife's opinion is that since he's getting paid for it, he should just do the work (my retort being that if his boss wanted to pay him to star in gay porn, then would he still be expected to do so?).
I've explained at great length that this is immoral, probably illegal, and a really stupid idea all around. He agrees, but his boss really wants that check from the client and I don't know the boss well enough to confront him directly.
Any suggestions on what I can do to put an early end to my friend's career as a spammer? I love the guy like a brother and don't want to see him rendered unemployable and hated by his family and friends, but I also don't want him to lose his job.
My best idea so far is to get him to convince his boss to start with a very small batch of spam (say, 1000 addresses) and to have my friend report back after a few minutes that the batch has been sent (but without actually doing it). Then, about five minutes later, call the client and scream, curse, and scream some more at them for filling my inbox with their crap. Get about 10 other people to do the same thing, perhaps even in person at the company (a restaurant), until the client keels over dead in their panic to call of the "advertising campaign". Note that my friend is the only technical person at his company, so the odds of anyone other than him being able to determine whether those 1000 test emails were actually sent is roughly zero, and if there were any question, I'm probably the person that his boss would call to seek confirmation ("Yep, looks like he sent 'em at 11:30. What? The client went out of business at 11:45? What a coincidence!").
To repeat: "my friend" is not me, so don't bother lecturing me on the evils of spamming. I just want to help him stay an honest man.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Just send spam on their behalf.
Only spam I see is what people show in stories like these.
So I was wrong. Lets just hope then that since these ISP's will be kicking paying customers from their networks that they will make certain that they got the right person. I can see it being a problem for "shady" but non-spamming companies that have spamming rivals, think porn sites. But non-spamming porn companies are good customers and ISP's need those.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.