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Microsoft Offers Tools to Spamming ISPs
Michael writes "Computer Business Review reports that 'Internet service providers curious to know how much spam they are sending Hotmail users will be able to get detailed reports on the topic, courtesy of a service Microsoft launched in beta yesterday.' Microsoft's new Smart Network Data Services, a part of the larger MSN Portmaster initiative, allows the owners of IP blocks to view reports on the volume of email being sent from their networks to Hotmail users, and see how much of that email is being flagged as spam."
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Excellent! I had no idea if my spam was getting caught by the spam filter or not. Now they are providing a great tool to measure my spam filter bypassing techniques!
Thanks Microsoft!
Internet service providers curious to know how much spam they are sending Hotmail users, please raise your hands...
ummmm.. I dont see any.. Seriously, if ISP's were THAT concerned about the amount of spam their clients are generating, I wouldnt have to worry about spam, in the first place...
Nope, but their customers might want to know how effective the SPAM tactics are working.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
Even better. If you are a spammer, this gives you the most useful data ever: how much of my spam is actually being recognized as spam? I'd want my spam messages to be so clever or so interesting that users don't readily figure out that it's spam.
Of course, I'm not a spammer, and few who stoop to such pathetic marketing tactics would think enough to craft a message that ( to a person ) in not easily recognizable as spam, so I guess you have a point.
Very little, i'd say. The thing is, a lot of the spam doesn't actually come from hotmail.
The bulk of it seems to come from virus infected spam zombie networks, carrying a fake from & return address specifying hotmail, or worse, some poor schmuck who has nothing whatsoever to do with the spam.
What's the solution? well, aside from lining up the spammers against a brick wall and shooting'em all, the SPF system seems to look promising, as do the well-run blocklists.
On the subject of blocklists, spamcop, spamhaus, and dsbl all seem quite good. I can't recommend sorbs at all, because they attempt to extort money from ISPs. If a server is blacklisted, say, because some end-user had a virus or security incident, they insist that the isp pay them money in order to get un-listed. For this reason their list is outdated and unreliable.
XW
Wow, I better change from gmail, and get a BETTER e-mail account at hotmail.
I would get better spam protection right? lol
When you look at where these messages are coming from, though, and compare them to the IPs hotmail uses for outgoing smtp... I don't actually see any messages that really came from them--they are almost entirely forged addresses.
Not that I have any love of MS/Hotmail, just sayin'.