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China Signs Anti-Spam Pact
Iphtashu Fitz writes "The Chinese government has joined an international anti-spam effort started by the U.S. and UK. Over the weekend China stated that it would join international enforcement efforts against spam by adopting the London Action Plan on Spam Enforcement Collaboration. The London Action Plan was launched after a conference on spam enforcement hosted jointly by the UK Office of Fair Trading and the US Federal Trade Commission in London in October 2004. It was the first international forum to focus exclusively on spam enforcement. China is well known for being one of the biggest origins of spam, with as much as 20% of all junk e-mail originating from within its borders."
China is a very distant 4th place when it comes to spam. You want to know who leads the world in spam output; its the wealthy EU countries followed very closely by Japan-Korea and the US. I don't know where that 20% for china comes from. From a study done in March of 2005:
1) Europe(*) 24.70
2) Japan-Korea 24.24
3) US 22.80
4) Greater China(**) 14.45
(*) European Union countries: 21.85%; Top spam-distributors: French, Spain, Germany, UK
** Including: China, Taiwan, Hong Kong.
source: http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/email/article
Of course, I also see numbers like this from a slightly older article:
"Sophos, Inc., an anti-virus and anti-spam company based in Lynnfield, Mass., reports that the U.S. -- sending out 42.53 percent of all spam -- sits far atop its list of the world's Top 12 Spam-Producing Countries."
So, just depends on who you ask on how it breaks down, however, either way, it isn't China.
--greg Vulcan quiescent... Q: What machine shutdown with this message?
China is being really smart. This is not just a move to demonstrate they are against spam or limit liability; I think it's to show that they can be a lovable government. Would Mao care about spammers? China appears to be taking a page from Canada in how to be a liked country. They are ratifying a London anti-spam accord and that to me spells maybe some change in their normally opressive attitudes? How long before China starts ratifying UN human rights accords and the like? It could not be soon enough and this is a sign that they are moving in the right direction. I applaud this and only hope that it is as good as it looks. Please, China, keep progressing towards a free society. (and I could say as much for the USA, too)
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
In Communist China, computers spam you...
China can stop spam much more easily because the state has control over the internet... Sort of like how my parents used to have more control over me when I lived with them (what are these Kmart Brassiere Catalogs doing under your mattress) than they do now, when I live with my grandmother.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
It seems to me that a tremendous amount of SPAM comes from Florida, USA! So, when will the US decide to sign a similar pact to deal with it?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
In related news, China will continue to be the world's leading supplier of hacked DVDs and CDS, they're just promising not to pester you about buying them.
Screensavers as Corporate Message Boards?
China is well known for being one of the biggest origins of spam, with as much as 20% of all junk e-mail originating from within its borders.
But what about the so called "bullet proof" hosting that you can get in China? A lot of the Viagra spammers have their ordering site in China and no number of complaints filed make any difference. I think that might be a bigger issue than spam originating *from* China.
I maen seriously, the US is in on it, but what are they doing to that lamer who makes a living by running spamming servers? I mean, isn't that considered a "spam zombie"?
BTW, when will Nigeria join the anti-spam ring? I mean honestly, with the bajillion dollars that each citizen has over there that they are dying to get off their country, it's a surprise they don't agree to have better computer protection worldwide.
^_~
I'm assuming your friend's school has no Chinese students that would never need to keep in touch with family and friends back home? If I tried that at my workplace I'd be keelhauled (on a junk, but keelhauled nonetheless)
Trolling is a art,
Let's find better technological solutions to spam control, and less government-based solutions.
After all, government never get it quite right. Moreover, there is the enforcement issue. It's just not workable. Anyone can purchase a web server in any other country other than the one they live in, so enforcement becomes a joke at best, or worse becomes so draconian that it will hurt hammers as well as spammers (or may not hurt spammers at all, since they can skate the loopholes in the system).
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Spam could potentially provide China's citizens with additional knowledge the government doesn't want them to know about.
It also cuts down on the amount of bulk China has to process to know what's happening with "its" internet. If China doesn't have to contend with spam, it can devote more resources to scanning their citizens software for disent.
Hey, I just thought of something: Maybe spam isn't a malicious, egregious and unsolicited marketing technique after all! Maybe it's just those countries trying to clog the internet filters with junk so they can disguise their normal communications. Spam is freeeeedom! If you try to squash spam, you're just one of them!
The revolution exists in penis enlargers and pain killers and we didn't even know it!
And will attack in the morning.
Mod this as troll, mod it as flamebait. Apply Godwin's law (which is nothing but a dodge anyway...).
Then read about how Hitler signed a treaty with Joe Stalin saying the Germans wouldn't attack.
Due to bad publicity, Hormel renames it's canned meat product back to its original name, Junk Mail.
the brutality of their human rights situation. While American spammers get off easy with a mere 9 years of taxpayer-subsidized television and weightlifting, we can expect Chinese spammers to receive the torture and hard labor they so richly deserve...
And how many extrajudicial executions still happen in China? How about the laogai? Buy something at Wal-Mart lately? Well it could have been made with slave^H^H^H^H^Hprison labor. Tibet, the Uhigurs in Western China, the censorship of the internet, their bellicosity toward Taiwan, aborting babies because they're girls and more. Oh and they pretty much let their hackers take pot shots at the US' infrastructure with maybe a slap on the wrist.
The US, EU and Japan aren't perfect, but they are a lot better than China. For my money, I blame it on the "middle kingdom complex." Let's be realistic, China doesn't even really pretend to care about any law other than what it creates, and even that is flimsy as there are numerous loopholes for the state to get out of trouble with. China isn't going to really do anything to stop spammers unless it means they might not get the 2008 olympics or they might lose their MFN status in the US and neither of those will happen over spam.
Move on kids, this is just another feel good thing by the politicians. Nothing to see here that you couldn't see on C-Span.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
There's no indication on the spammer forums of any fears about China-based hosting yet.
So, thus far, any crackdown is vaporware.
It's even less than a "pact not to spam".
Read between the lines of the "protocol" they've signed onto. It's basically an agreement between a bunch of bureaucrats to get together with fellow bureaucrats and gab at each other about how spam's bad, mmmmmkay. Not a damn thing on the list that could possibly result in the slightest hint of policy, let alone legislation or any other form of action.
> 1. Designate a point of contact
"which in the case of our country, happens to be /dev/null".
> 2. Encourage communication and coordination among the different Agencies...
"Hi Joe, how's things in your neck of the bureaucracy? Pretty cool too, huh? Great! Kthxbye!"
> 3. Take part in periodic conference calls, at least quarterly, with other appropriate participants to...
"See #2. Well, see #2 in 90 days. Reading this post out loud means we're already done for this quarter."
> 4. Encourage dialogue between...
"When we talk, we'll even say we'd like other people to talk to!"
> 5. Prioritize cases based on harm to victims when requesting international assistance.
"This guy pissed off a campaign contributor of a buddy of mine, so his folder goes to the top of the stack of papers in the disused lavatory at the bottom of the stairs with the sign on it saying 'Beware of the Leopard'. But it's due to get our attention faster than the ones at the bottom of the stack."
> 6. Complete the OECD Questionaire on ...
"If we can host one conference call per quarter, I suppose we can also approve funding for a #2 pencil."
> Encourage and support the involvement of less-developed countries in spam enforcement cooperation.
I could read that as...
"J0IN N0W! MAKE L0BBY1ST FA$T! WOR-K IN UR OWN PVT GOVER|\|MENT OFF1CE! All u need is 2 fill out paper and be SITTING IN ON ONE FONE CALL EVRY 90 DAYS!"
...when they shoot some in the back of the head and bill the family for the bullet.
And I won't shed any tears. If they're going to be a murderous dictatorship, they could at least kill some people who deserve it. (No, I'm not defending dictatorships, I just hate spammers.)
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Given that virutally all spam is already criminal - advertising products that do not exist, that do not do what is claimed, that are blatantly illegal on their face, like drugs or child porn - and the criminal laws being broken are almost completely unenforced, given all that . . .
Why would you think that a new law would be enforced?
Even Spam is made in China! Is there anything that they don't make? Will they put those little gold stickers on spam?
Seriously, I haven't had a single spam get through my SpamBayes filter in months, and I rarely get any of my valid mail dumped in "unsure". I see no reason why anyone with a modicum of technical nous should even be caring about spam, unless they are paying for metered bandwidth.
I'll tell you why they're doing this. It's not just because almost all Chinese IP space is now RBL'd, it's because many ISPs like mine have gone beyond this and simply filtered all Chinese IP traffic of all types from ever hitting our servers. It's not just about spam. Chinese IP space is also responsible for the lion's share of system probes and DoS activity. I got tired of seeing 5000 connection attempts so we've just wholesale blocked their entire IP space at the router level -- it's not like there's any legitimate TCP activity coming from that space that any of my clients care about.
Until these countries can regulate the illegal activity of their systems, they don't deserve to have unfettered access to the Internet IMO... not when the abuse-to-legitimate traffic ratio is 1000000 to 1.
According to Spamhaus, whom I completely agree with based on my own experience, 80% of all known spam originates from no more than 200 "spam gangs", most of whom are in the United States. If China cooperates by providing U.S. Authorities with the missing logs to track the illegal activities of these groups so that law enforcement can prosecute them, that will be a good thing. But it still comes down to law enforcement going after the spammers, which is something that's not being done. If just a few of these 200 spam gangs were criminally prosecuted, we'd probably see spam levels drop dramatically. So everyone should contact their District Attorney and demand that they pursue and prosecute these cases.
And then you have big corporations that are deliberately sabotaging anti-spam efforts. AT&T for example is hacking their nameservers to be authoritative for anti-spam RBLs so their users are unable to filter mail based on these services. That's unconscionable, and reason # 87,343 why you shouldn't do business with a provider like AT&T who is not only being ambivalent about spam, but actively interfering with their customers' own attempts to find superior solutions.
I don't know why, but Gmail seem to be completely useless at filtering japanese spam. I don't know how many times I've told it "YES, this is spam!" and it keeps sending me. I'm sure a major part of the Gmail user base is doing the same. I rarely get English spam in my inbox nowadays, and it's very accurate there, but with japanese spam being such a common problem I can't see why Google isn't doing something about it. It's almost as if their spam filter don't even support unicode so it just let all those mails pass unchecked. :-p
So then I tried to just block *.jp, but Gmail doesn't support blocking by the hidden "Received" header the mail server set, where I could clearly see it came from Japan, despite the "From" field OF COURSE being faked.
Gmail is a great service, but it sure isn't perfect, and blocking on custom mail headers doesn't seem like a too hard work for their developers either, as all the headers are stored like regular text in the mails anyway.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
You want to know who leads the world in spam output; its the wealthy EU countries ....
Both the USA and the EU have approximately the same number of internet users (US 200 million vs. EU 215 million as of March 2005) and their share of the total spam generation rate (US 22.8% vs. EU 24.7%) roughly roughly corresponds to those numbers. This is not surprising since alot of the spam generators are zombie Windows boxen owned and operated by people with a very limited computer knowledge. It seems to me that all we can conclude from these statistics is that the level of 'computer-cluelessness' among the general public is about the same on both sides of the pond. Even so, I care fairly little about where the actual Spam Servers/Zombie PCs churning out the crap mail are located. What would be more interesting is a statistical analysis of where the people owning or controlling all these spam servers and zombies are located? Which countries are failing to deal with the spam companies causing the problem? Take a look at the top ten list at the bottom of this page the USA claims no less than six of the top ten ROKSO spammers I don't see a single spam king from an EU country on that list.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
We had a university try that on us once (I work for a technology incubator in Japan). We were going to pay one of their professors a sum in the low five figures (USD) to come out here and give a conference. He never got the invitation due to spam filtering. I wasn't in the room when that prof chewed out his IT department, obviously, but I was in the room when our boss chewed out him on the telephone for trying to justify the policy (direct quote: "Japan is not #$#$$&$%# China, dickwad" -- my boss studied at Harvard and apparently majored in Intercultural Cursing, because I've seen him do it in four languages now).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.