Review:Stopping Spam

I've put the proverbial pen to paper and taken a look at Alan Schwartz and Simson Garfinkel's book Stopping Spam, the (of course) pig book from our friends at O'Rielly. Short, and to the point, this is a good book for those who want to stop some of that spam that seems to flow through. At least I don't get anything from Bull's Eye anymore. (grin) Stopping Spam author Alan Schwartz & Simson Garfinkel pages publisher O'Reilly & Associates rating 8.5 reviewer hemos ISBN summary Quick & dirty ways to stop spam. The Scenario Schwartz and Garfinkel (of HotWired fame) have got together to write a book basically high-lighting ways to stop spam, why spam needs to be stopped, implications of spam for the Internet, and what you can do. Well writte, they also rely on some of their experiences with it, which adds a personal touch to things. The book also talks about some of the history of spam-Spam King, what people are doing, and how Spam works. The book itself is relatively short, but packs good information into it.

What's Bad? I would preferred something longer. The book itself does a good job of covering the basics of stopping spam, but something that's more definitive for the sysamdins in the crowd would have been appreciated. This is truly a nutshell review of things-it doesn't go into a huge amount of detail, but provides more of a general overview.

What's Good? The book does a good job of covering how spam works, and how to stop spam. Some of the advice is basic-things like avoiding putting your e-mail address on web pages. It also talks about spoofing in newsgroups, how cancel messages work, why they work. To people who like context, the history and comments they give are well recieved, and well written. I particularly enjoyed some of the history of UDPs. Filters are covered, in a variety of different e-mail programs, which is useful for many people.

So What's In It For Me? Basically, if you are looking to slow/stop spam this is good. It's a good introduction for moderators of newgroups, small-time syadmins and such. I wouldn't say that this book is the definitive source, but for 80% of us, this book will more then do the job. Things like filtering mail and Usenet, safeguarding addresses, and also spam stopping for administrators. That's good stuff.

Buy this over here.

Table of Contents

1. Preface
2. What's Spam and What's the Problem?
   • Slapped in the Face
   • What's Wrong with Spam
   • A Taxonomy of Spam
3. The History of Spam
   • Prehistory
   • Early Bulk Email
   • Usenet and the Spam Cancelers
   • In Their Own Words
4. Spamming Today
   • The Players
   • The Technology
   • Spamming in the Future
5. Internet Basics
   • Addresses
   • Protocols
   • Email
   • Usenet News
   • Instant Messages
6. A User's Guide to Email Spam
   • Safeguarding your email Address
   • Filtering Junk Mail
   • Responding to Junk Mail
7. A User's Guide to Usenet Spam
   • Filtering News
   • Responding to Spam
8. Spam Stopping for Administrators and ISPS
   • Policy Choice
   • Blocking Incoming Spam
   • Stopping Outgoing Spam
9. Community Action
   • Sharing Information
   • Group Action
   • Legal and Legislative Action
   • Informing the Public
10. A: Tools and Information
11. B: Cyber Promotions Timeline
12. Index

Comments

Automated SPAM Tracking and Reporting

[Brian Ristuccia]

A lot of people used to tell me that they didn't like to report spammers. When I asked them why, there were two major reasons they always cited: 1. I don't know who to report it to, and 2. If I report them, my mailbox will only fill up with dozens of "Yes, we got your spam complaint" messages. Spamtrack, a free service powered by all Free Software is my answer to the problem.

Using spamtrack is easy. Simply forward the spam message with full headers (preferably as an attachment) to report@spamtrack.978.org. A list of all the contact addresses for the offending domains will be compiled. You will be sent a report, and the domain contacts will be sent complaint messages. All complaint messages will have the return addresses rewriten so that responses will end up in the database instead of filling up your inbox.

Spamtrack uses a modified Ricochet and the PosgreSQL database to track complaints and their responses. An online interface where you can view responses and statistics on worst offenders, response times, and number of resolutions is in the works.

Please use the report@spamtrack.978.org address only to report actual unsolicited commercial messages. You can forward test messages to test@spamtrack.978.org.

It's a shame...

[Bilbo]

It's a shame we have to get to the point of writing books about stopping Spam, but I guess it's one of those things we have to deal with. I had one work account where I was getting several dozen spams a week (I know other people who've had more). The only way I finally got rid of them was to go to work at another company, thus dropping that email address. ;-)

(I managed to really piss off a few sysadmins with my crontab mailbombers before I learned to chill out and focus my complaints more... ;-)