FTC Declares Can-Spam a Success

TheSixth1 writes "ZDNet is reporting that the FTC announced in a recent report to Congress [PDF Warning] that the Can-Spam act is 'effective in providing protection for consumers.' The report boasts that the substantive provisions of the Act have mandated adoption of a number of commercial email "best practices" that many legitimate online marketers are now following. Second, the Act has provided law enforcement agencies and ISPs with an additional tool to use when bringing suit against spammers. The more than 50 cases brought to date by the FTC, the Department of Justice, state Attorneys General, and ISPs demonstrate CAN-SPAM's enforcement efficacy."

Comments

I've been virtually spam free since July 2004....

[iamcf13]

Note: If you hate ads, please do not read or 'badmouth' this post or mod it down in 'anticommercial retaliation'. If you hate email spam, please read this post.

Fed up with email spam, I wrote my own filter

Now, at iamcf13@hotpop.com, where I have 'max filtering in effect', I only get spam that looks like this:


+OK 406 octets
Return-Path: <ikoey8y36vihioyt@yahoo.com>
Received: from 222.115.40.214 (unknown [222.115.40.214])
by mx3.hotpop.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 27CC51B0D23E
for <iamcf13@hotpop.com>; Sat, 3 Dec 2005 10:01:01 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from by ; Sat, 03 Dec 2005 05:55:12 -0400
Message-ID: <[20
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 10:01:01 +0000 (UTC)
From: ikoey8y36vihioyt@yahoo.com
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: (CF13-SMTP [SpamByte=000:]) no subject
X-MTA: CF13-SMTP(TM) / CF13-POP3(TM) http://www.cf13.com/
X-CF13-SMTP-ID-Message: <20051206190956.CF13-POP3@69.168.168.192.in-addr.a rpa>

.


or like this:


+OK 1061 octets
Return-Path: <heated@libel.org>
Received: from c-24-11-215-156.hsd1.mi.comcast.net (c-24-11-215-156.hsd1.mi.comcast.net [24.11.215.156])
by mx1.hotpop.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 02C6BE8390
for <iamcf13@hotpop.com>; Tue, 6 Dec 2005 01:34:51 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from unknown (HELO arguably) (192.168.212.39)
by c-24-11-215-156.hsd1.mi.comcast.net with SMTP; Mon, 5 Dec 2005 20:28:21 -0500
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-Id: <11581682156.87374113983@c-24-11-215-156.hsd1.mi.c omcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
To: iamcf13@hotpop.com
From: Joyce Mcgee <heated@libel.org>
Subject: (CF13-SMTP [SpamByte=000:]) Expand your Penis 20% Larger in weeks
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 01:34:53 +0000 (UTC)
X-HotPOP-Delivered-To: iamcf13@hotpop.com
X-MTA: CF13-SMTP(TM) / CF13-POP3(TM) http://www.cf13.com/
X-CF13-SMTP-ID-Message: <20051206191144.CF13-POP3@69.168.168.192.in-addr.a rpa>

World first Patch Technology for penis Enlargement /pt/

Contraceptives should be used on every conceivable occasion.
Change is good, but dollars are better.
It's hard to work in groups when you're omnipotent.

When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.

.


From 2005-11-30 to 2005-12-19, my POP3 client 'ate' 2,109 spam emails on iamcf13@hotpop.com while allowing 6 'null spams' (see first example) and 1 'bozo spam' (see second example) to get through. This equates to a 'failure rate' of about 1/3 of 1% --in other words, for every 300 spams 'eaten', one would get through...

Since my approach has been ridiculed and belittled here in the past I'll just let the facts and figures in this post speak for themselves. It would be nice if I could use my SMTP server and then I could block or drop the email spam at the SMTP level instead which would be much more efficient. Since [variants of] Bayesian filtering is still popular in antispam software today, my approach could be used as a 'pre-processor' to cut down the input to the Bayesian email filtering module by droping 'obvious' spam and processing only 'suspect spam' (see second example). As a benefit, such filters wouldn't be inundated and waylaid by normal 'Bayesian busting' spam email that is only a carrier unit for the spammer URLs, email addresses, contact info, and shiping and pricing information contained within them.

With my approach, spammers will have to be painfully and obviously verbose in order to get around my filtering method. In fact, to do so, would make it impossible for the email recipient to easily surf to the spammer's site.

Isn't that the