Say my ISP uses RBL, specifically how am i supposed to "turn it off"?Switch ISPs? Not likely, because there's only a few DSL providers around here and they all string lines from Verizon. And there's only two possibilities (AFAIK) for cable access.
You are a victim of your situation. I don't see how your limited broadband options is MAPS' problem. (BTW. I can't get *any* broadband, cable or DSL)
ISPs, sendmail developers, RBLer's, someone's got to make a system where users opt in and opt out individually. For instance, when signing up for an account of any sort with an ISP, their web page or CSR could plainly ask "would you like your mailbox to be protected from spam using the RBL?", provide an explanation if they don't know what it is and let each customer choose for themself.
You obviously have no clue as to the economics of the situation. We, especially MAPS RBL subscribers, don't want to just not get spam. We want to quit paying for it's delivery!
Giving a userlevel option to toggle it does nothing to solve the cost-shifting problem. All of our connections to the internet would be much cheaper if we didn't have spammers stealing our resources. I'm not just talking about our mailbox space, I'm referring to bandwidth. That is the enemy.
--
Most odd - why the/24?
I don't know the details about this specific case.
Usually a/24 doesn't get listed unless a good percentage of it's IP addresses wind up spamming. Another reason could be Media3 moving a spammer around to avoid the existing blocks. This happens more often than you might think.
I think the track record (see the links to spamhause.org in some of the replies) of Media3 makes it pretty clear they've been ignoring complaints or aiding spammers by reassigning netblocks. The listing of 6/24s indicates this to me. --
But the ISP isn't doing anything illegal. Current law doesn't make hosting a spammer illegal. Furthermore, MAPS are not the police. They are rent-a-cops with the authority to patrol where they are let in. Furthermore the holding of HUNDREDS of websites HOSTAGE meerly because they had once been serviced LEGITIMATELY smacks of totalitarian behavior.
"I was trying to sell my used car all last month at SpiffEmCars. It turns out SpiffEmCars was also helping car thieves sell stolen vehicles! A local consumer group boycotted SpiffEmCars and drove them out of business. I think this is totalitarian behavior."
I think not. --
First of all, MAPS really doesn't block anything. Administrators usually subscribe MAPS' lists and use their recommendations to block email. In certain circumstances, MAPS RBL, not to be confused with MAPS RSS or MAPS DUL, will be used by an administrator to null-route TCP/IP packets. Above.net does this.
What does this effectively mean?
It means that no TCP/IP packet sent across that network will reach it's destination. This effectively blocks all TCP/IP connection attempts. Including HTTP (web), FTP, SMTP (email), NNTP (newsgroups), Telnet, etc.
This is not an oversight in the MAPS RBL system. Each administrator certainly has the option of applying the MAPS RBL on the SMTP layer instead of TCP/IP layer. Anyone with enough savvy to set it up should almost certainly have the knowledge of how it will affect their connectivity, as it is non-trivial. --
Can an ISP, instead of filtering mail from "bad" sites, add identifying header lines to messages from such hosts?
Sure! MAPS doesn't tell subscribers how they should implement their usage of the list; aside from limitations on republishing it out to others.
That way, users could add fiters to block such messages, but have filters with a higher precedence to allow mail from friends and family.
Certainly possible. However, this doesn't curtail the primary problem with spam in the first place; that of cost-shifting. Filtering at the user level, instead of the server level, doesn't prevent the cost-shifting of the advertising on the the recipient.
If I share a server with you, and you want this capability, I'm having to pay for the cost of delivery just as much as you. If I don't want that, then I'll walk to a provider that filters on server level. Bang! We're right back where we are now. Half the net can't talk to the other half, and the non-filtered side starts whining (of course, it's got all the abusers too).
I would like to see all responsible parties move to the "filtered side". This will isolate the businesses that don't conform to the good net neighbor practices in their down little spam circle. They can send to each other, but not to us.:)
(I know this requires a fair level of expertise. Also not clear how you could set it up so users wouldn't even have to download spam.)
Exactly the problem. I don't want to pay to download it. Content based filtering (i.e. pretty much anything other than IP filtering) carries with it all the costs and negatives of just accepting the spam in your inbox in the first place. The only difference is you don't have to wear out your delete key as much. --
Above.net routers were advertising routes for ORBS, then dropping any packets they attracted according to the orbs site.
If I recall correctly, there was a bad configuration somewhere. Possibly ORBS' provider? It was eventually worked out.
Anyhow, it's irrelevant. Above.net != MAPS
Above.net might have been null routing ORBS, but MAPS was not publishing them on the RBL list or any of their other lists.
Spreading this "guilt by association" got out of hand. Evidently, you never heard that it was resolved. --
The MAPS RBL has different goals than MAPS DUL and MAPS RSS. MAPS RBL probably does, indeed, block only 2% of spam. Why? It targets mainly the dedicated spamhauses and spam supporters. It's manual, fairly static, and each case is researched on a case-by-case basis.
Comparing the MAPS RBL to other types of spam blocklist is comparing apples with oranges. --
RBL blocking 2 out of 900 spams is pretty bad.
What's your goal? Blocking spam? I agree, that's pretty bad.
Mine is to block some spam and influence providers to police their netspace effectively. MAPS RBL achieves this objective suitably for me.
--
From what jamie has said, it sounds like RBL isn't so much trying to block spam as trying to apply political pressure to get an ISP to do what it wants.
And this is the key phrase.
Some people don't care about fixing the spam problem and just want spam out of their mailboxes. Any admin who uses the MAPS RBL expecting only this functionality needs to better understand the MAPS RBL system. The goal is blocking and education; to get providers to start policing their own netblocks for spammers.
If someone wants blocking only, MAPS RSS, MAPS DUL, and possibly ORBS would be a better bet.
The argument that MAPS is "too powerful" is empty. (Not thatOmnifarious said this, (s)he didn't.) This has been the goal of MAPS for a long time; to build confidence and consistency among admins in order to influence a greater and greater portion of the net. The more who sign up, more and more networks will have to comply with a minimum set of standards.
Disclaimer: I don't work for MAPS. --
Can anyone think of any reason the telcos didn't take this approach?
The whole point of this is to eliminate area codes altogether.
The slashdot reaction is a perfect example of how radical this change is going to be. The public can just not comprehend number portability yet.
This sort of reenforces the concern of consumer advocates. If a techie community like/. has such difficulty in global number portability, can you imagine the chaos it will cause in with the general public? --
Look. What D/FW did is not the same as this change that's being proposed. 10 digit dialing is NOT just forcing everyone to type the 1 and then their full area code and phone number.
10 digit dialing is a fundamental change in the way the North American phone system works. North American users have some preconceptions of how billing will take place when they see a "1" (or absence of one) in a number. This will no longer work.
Believe it or not (I used to work for Lucent), the phone companies have been upgrading their software and hardware for almost 10 years now to make this possible. A single phone number, you can take it with you anywhere in the world. No such thing as "area codes" at all... period. That IS going to happen.
But the consumer advocates have [some valid] concerns. Scam artists will have a hayday during the transition period, etc etc. --
For this to work in a way that does not filter out "non-offensive" sites, it would require HUMAN BEINGS to actually logon and check each site themselves to see what kind of content is on that site.
For us geeks, this is a given. This is why Peacefire is so essential; we need statistics to expose the filtering companies as the bunch of scam artists that they are. They tend to fraudulently inflate their success rates to make sales.
I find the censorware companies can be put into two categories. Some companies are just plain pushing an agenda and filtering the content they find objectionable. The rest are your basic scammers who are looking to make a quick buck off the unsuspecting moral majority who are caught up in their censorship frenzy. They know their product sucks and can't possibly keep up with the net, but there's no reason the customer needs to know that.
I think all the packages let the buyer override selected URLs. If I, as an administrator, had time to blow correcting the bad information, why would I waste the money by buying a pre-built list? It's just not realistic to think that this is going to happen on any large scale.
In this respect, Bess appears no different than any of the other products.
Choosing what categories to block isn't going to help much; as Peacefire has shown us, most filtering packages are incapable of following their own category guidelines.
Network scans is hardly subjective.
"Network scan" is very subjective:
Is a single test on port 25 (i.e. testing for open SMTP relay) a "network scan"?
Are 7 tests? Each testing for a different vulnerability?
Port scanning all ports? What about 5 ports?
Is a webcrawl bot a network scan? It's multiple connections to port 80.
Which list? RBL? RSS? DUL?
MAPS RBL is not exclusively for those machines that send spam. But also for spam facilitators. If you own a website that's selling the latest release of Spamware 2000 then you're a candidate. Likewise an ISP's netblock where a spammer has IP hopped around in can also get listed in the RBL. This all spelled out in their policies.
MAPS RSS? While I'm certain there might be errors in the database, I'd bet they're few. RSS is open relays that have been used to send spam (a sample is archived). It, however, excludes certain mailservers where the collateral damage would be too great.
MAPS DUL? Well.. yes. But, the way it is designed to be used, it doesn't matter. It's designed to only be blocked from making direct SMTP TCP/IP connections.
While they may have multiple lists to try and keep these seperate, the problem is the users do not have control over which list is used.
You're right. It's not the user's equipment. It's the providers, who have full discretion as to how their equipment/bandwidth is used. You can just jump off the "user's rights" train now, cause it ain't gonna fly. You have "rights" on the steps of your local courthouse. Your "rights" on my equipment are severely limited. Claiming there's crossover is a red herring.
Slashdot users start screaming and yelling the moment somebody wants to filter Internet access in public libraries; but they will happily sit back while somebody filters their e-mail.
Slashdot users are smart enough to know the difference between blocking mail based on content and blocking mail based on a bad "track record" of responsible net behavior.
MAPS is busy enough dealing with real spammers than "acquaintance spam", which is kind of a gray area. Something which I fully understand. One must prioritize.
I did submit B&N at some point in the past.
This is known as "acquaintance spam" and I think MAPS generally won't much involved unless it's happening on a massive scale.
Amazon is the worst offender and always has been.
Barnes & Noble will also repeatedly spam you even after opting out. They manage it by outsourcing their mailings, Click Rewards for one. When you get spammed B&N responds with "Take it up with Click Rewards" then Click Rewards responds with "sounds like a B&N technical problem take it up with them". There is zero accountability in that company.
I managed to stop the spam-hose by changing my account email address to <randomstring>@[127.0.0.1]
Lastly... get this. Guess who else spammed me?
Fatbrain. In blatant violation of my preference settings. When challenging them on it, they played ignorant. I spelled it out very clearly in my complaint that my preference settings said "no promotions", but their employee carefully didn't read that part. They still haven't explained to me why I got the spam despite having opted out of everything. Everyone please think about this while promoting Fatbrain on/.
This will e-mail the password.
Read his post again. I think it wanted his [wife's] credit card information before mailing the password. Remember before commerce on the net? When most every mailing list had unsub instructions in it? And they worked?
No longer. Corporations intentionally make it hard to unsubscribe, sometime to the point of impossibility. Barnes and Noble has been spamming me for years, even after I've opted out dozens of times.
There's always some new B&N marketing department head who thinks that "opt-out" doesn't mean him.
I don't like SPAM, but when an ISP chooses to use MAPS RBL, they're censoring your email for you.
There's that misunderstood word again. The implication being that MAPS somehow evaluates each email and blocks based on content. This is not the case. Once an IP is determined to be sending spam, attempts are made to contact the "owner" of that network, and if the situation is not resolved, then the machine is added to the MAPS RBL. From there on, it doesn't matter what the emails contain as that machine is prohibited on MAPS RBL subscribers' networks. Content is irrelevant at that point.
It is rather hypocritical that/. clamors for one form of censorware, but fights against another, the forced censorship of internet connections in public schools and libraries, which is also a decision which is made without the input of the user, and which also supposedly protects the user from something which is bad for them.
You misunderstand the goal of MAPS. The goal is to protect the owner's network, not [necessarily] the end user. MAPS' goal is not to protect kids from porn, although it's a nice side effect, but it is to keep their network running so the user has a network to login to.
What disturbs me most about MAPS RBL is the small number of people that make a decision to add a mail server to it, and the same small number that can make the decision to remove it in the future or retain it.
There must be a relatively small number of people involved in order to maintain consitency in the listing standards. A centralized point is both the nightmare for spammers and the boon for innocent admins who get listed, because they can get off it so easily with a single database change.
If the government were doing this, there would be an outcry, but when a private company does it, it's fine.
You're right here. The government has no business in this. Which is why I thank $DEITY a private organization stepped up to the plate to fill the void.
Bottom Line: MAPS RBL is not voluntary for the user, just for the ISP.
"Vote with your feet." If there were a big demand for unfiltered access then you'd have no problems starting up your own ISP.
Are those crickets I hear chirping?
I know for a fact that some of these groups do network scans (which they often claim they do not do); since they do most of the scans via private network accounts they don't get caught in log files.
You're painting a mighty broad brush there.:)
The reference to "network scans" (in itself a subjective term) is referring to ORBS and, possibly, the now-defunct IMRSS.
See my previous post for information on the differences between the various anti-spam IP lists.
Neither of these lists has anything to do with MAPS. MAPS considers active networking scanning abusive. However, having received a spam, then testing to see if the offending machine is an open relay would not be considered a "network scan".
Note: I am not an employee of MAPS. I do not speak for MAPS in any capacity. Rather, from a position of familiarity with their policies.
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Re:Is spam also free speech?
on
MAPS Sued Again
·
· Score: 1
it occurred to me that spam might also be considered free speech, abhorrent as it is.
"Speech isn't free if it arrives postage due."
For instance, the way they blackhole anyone who runs an open SMTP server, even if it's not being used for spamming, or has spam filtering built in.
You don't know what MAPS RBL does. You appear to be referring to ORBS.
Various blocklists...
ORBS - Open Relay Behaviour-modification System
Open relay blocklist. Not affiliated in any way with MAPS. Blocks open SMTP relays. Does not require that the relay actually be used to send spam.
MAPS RBL - Realtime Blackhole List
List of IP addresses of machines owned by providers who are know to be spam friendly. Manual submission. [Relatively] difficult to be placed on. This is as much admin behavior modification as spam blocking. To be used for blocking at SMTP level or BGP filtering (i.e. blackholing on the TCP/IP layer).
MAPS RSS - Relay Spam Stopper
List of IP addresses of machines that contain open relays. Differs from ORBS because they don't actively scan for open relays and they require a sample of the spam before considering listing. To be used for blocking at SMTP level.
MAPS DUL - Dial-up User List
List of IP addresses of dialup modem pools. To be used for SMTP blocking, but only blocking a "direct connection". Many believe that a dial-up user has no business attempting to pose as an SMTP server rather than an SMTP client. Spammers use direct-to-MX programs to bypass any sort of filtering/throttling their ISP might use on their dedicated SMTP servers. This prevents such spam from getting through.
Please note that none of these lists block on content. They are all lists of IPs.
As I see it, the problem here is that the software is encouraging the ignorant to violate internet ethics. The end-user should get what they deserve, which is possible termination of their internet connection for spamming. I encourage everyone to report anyone using this feature to their ISP.
But this is not the true problem here. While "my friend" might have technically sent me an unsolicited email, the message (i.e. content) is from Microsoft; given that the user cannot alter the message. It is a very slick twist on viral marketing which I find extremely distasteful.
Where are all these Chief Privacy Officers I keep hearing about? Self-regulation at work.
Slashdot Mirror
Say my ISP uses RBL, specifically how am i supposed to "turn it off"? Switch ISPs? Not likely, because there's only a few DSL providers around here and they all string lines from Verizon. And there's only two possibilities (AFAIK) for cable access. You are a victim of your situation. I don't see how your limited broadband options is MAPS' problem. (BTW. I can't get *any* broadband, cable or DSL) ISPs, sendmail developers, RBLer's, someone's got to make a system where users opt in and opt out individually. For instance, when signing up for an account of any sort with an ISP, their web page or CSR could plainly ask "would you like your mailbox to be protected from spam using the RBL?", provide an explanation if they don't know what it is and let each customer choose for themself. You obviously have no clue as to the economics of the situation. We, especially MAPS RBL subscribers, don't want to just not get spam. We want to quit paying for it's delivery! Giving a userlevel option to toggle it does nothing to solve the cost-shifting problem. All of our connections to the internet would be much cheaper if we didn't have spammers stealing our resources. I'm not just talking about our mailbox space, I'm referring to bandwidth. That is the enemy.
--
Most odd - why the /24?
I don't know the details about this specific case.
Usually a /24 doesn't get listed unless a good percentage of it's IP addresses wind up spamming. Another reason could be Media3 moving a spammer around to avoid the existing blocks. This happens more often than you might think.
I think the track record (see the links to spamhause.org in some of the replies) of Media3 makes it pretty clear they've been ignoring complaints or aiding spammers by reassigning netblocks. The listing of 6 /24s indicates this to me.
--
But the ISP isn't doing anything illegal. Current law doesn't make hosting a spammer illegal. Furthermore, MAPS are not the police. They are rent-a-cops with the authority to patrol where they are let in. Furthermore the holding of HUNDREDS of websites HOSTAGE meerly because they had once been serviced LEGITIMATELY smacks of totalitarian behavior. "I was trying to sell my used car all last month at SpiffEmCars. It turns out SpiffEmCars was also helping car thieves sell stolen vehicles! A local consumer group boycotted SpiffEmCars and drove them out of business. I think this is totalitarian behavior." I think not.
--
First of all, MAPS really doesn't block anything. Administrators usually subscribe MAPS' lists and use their recommendations to block email. In certain circumstances, MAPS RBL, not to be confused with MAPS RSS or MAPS DUL, will be used by an administrator to null-route TCP/IP packets. Above.net does this. What does this effectively mean?
It means that no TCP/IP packet sent across that network will reach it's destination. This effectively blocks all TCP/IP connection attempts. Including HTTP (web), FTP, SMTP (email), NNTP (newsgroups), Telnet, etc. This is not an oversight in the MAPS RBL system. Each administrator certainly has the option of applying the MAPS RBL on the SMTP layer instead of TCP/IP layer. Anyone with enough savvy to set it up should almost certainly have the knowledge of how it will affect their connectivity, as it is non-trivial.
--
Can an ISP, instead of filtering mail from "bad" sites, add identifying header lines to messages from such hosts? Sure! MAPS doesn't tell subscribers how they should implement their usage of the list; aside from limitations on republishing it out to others. That way, users could add fiters to block such messages, but have filters with a higher precedence to allow mail from friends and family. Certainly possible. However, this doesn't curtail the primary problem with spam in the first place; that of cost-shifting. Filtering at the user level, instead of the server level, doesn't prevent the cost-shifting of the advertising on the the recipient. If I share a server with you, and you want this capability, I'm having to pay for the cost of delivery just as much as you. If I don't want that, then I'll walk to a provider that filters on server level. Bang! We're right back where we are now. Half the net can't talk to the other half, and the non-filtered side starts whining (of course, it's got all the abusers too). I would like to see all responsible parties move to the "filtered side". This will isolate the businesses that don't conform to the good net neighbor practices in their down little spam circle. They can send to each other, but not to us. :)
(I know this requires a fair level of expertise. Also not clear how you could set it up so users wouldn't even have to download spam.)
Exactly the problem. I don't want to pay to download it. Content based filtering (i.e. pretty much anything other than IP filtering) carries with it all the costs and negatives of just accepting the spam in your inbox in the first place. The only difference is you don't have to wear out your delete key as much.
--
Above.net routers were advertising routes for ORBS, then dropping any packets they attracted according to the orbs site. If I recall correctly, there was a bad configuration somewhere. Possibly ORBS' provider? It was eventually worked out. Anyhow, it's irrelevant.
Above.net != MAPS
Above.net might have been null routing ORBS, but MAPS was not publishing them on the RBL list or any of their other lists. Spreading this "guilt by association" got out of hand. Evidently, you never heard that it was resolved.
--
The MAPS RBL has different goals than MAPS DUL and MAPS RSS. MAPS RBL probably does, indeed, block only 2% of spam. Why? It targets mainly the dedicated spamhauses and spam supporters. It's manual, fairly static, and each case is researched on a case-by-case basis. Comparing the MAPS RBL to other types of spam blocklist is comparing apples with oranges.
--
RBL blocking 2 out of 900 spams is pretty bad. What's your goal? Blocking spam? I agree, that's pretty bad. Mine is to block some spam and influence providers to police their netspace effectively. MAPS RBL achieves this objective suitably for me.
--
From what jamie has said, it sounds like RBL isn't so much trying to block spam as trying to apply political pressure to get an ISP to do what it wants. And this is the key phrase. Some people don't care about fixing the spam problem and just want spam out of their mailboxes. Any admin who uses the MAPS RBL expecting only this functionality needs to better understand the MAPS RBL system. The goal is blocking and education; to get providers to start policing their own netblocks for spammers. If someone wants blocking only, MAPS RSS, MAPS DUL, and possibly ORBS would be a better bet. The argument that MAPS is "too powerful" is empty. (Not thatOmnifarious said this, (s)he didn't.) This has been the goal of MAPS for a long time; to build confidence and consistency among admins in order to influence a greater and greater portion of the net. The more who sign up, more and more networks will have to comply with a minimum set of standards. Disclaimer: I don't work for MAPS.
--
Can anyone think of any reason the telcos didn't take this approach? The whole point of this is to eliminate area codes altogether. The slashdot reaction is a perfect example of how radical this change is going to be. The public can just not comprehend number portability yet. This sort of reenforces the concern of consumer advocates. If a techie community like /. has such difficulty in global number portability, can you imagine the chaos it will cause in with the general public?
--
Look. What D/FW did is not the same as this change that's being proposed. 10 digit dialing is NOT just forcing everyone to type the 1 and then their full area code and phone number. 10 digit dialing is a fundamental change in the way the North American phone system works. North American users have some preconceptions of how billing will take place when they see a "1" (or absence of one) in a number. This will no longer work. Believe it or not (I used to work for Lucent), the phone companies have been upgrading their software and hardware for almost 10 years now to make this possible. A single phone number, you can take it with you anywhere in the world. No such thing as "area codes" at all... period. That IS going to happen. But the consumer advocates have [some valid] concerns. Scam artists will have a hayday during the transition period, etc etc.
--
I went to the website and read a very nice press release. Yet it gives no information on how to get started. Whom do I contact? Stupid marketers.
--
For this to work in a way that does not filter out "non-offensive" sites, it would require HUMAN BEINGS to actually logon and check each site themselves to see what kind of content is on that site. For us geeks, this is a given. This is why Peacefire is so essential; we need statistics to expose the filtering companies as the bunch of scam artists that they are. They tend to fraudulently inflate their success rates to make sales. I find the censorware companies can be put into two categories. Some companies are just plain pushing an agenda and filtering the content they find objectionable. The rest are your basic scammers who are looking to make a quick buck off the unsuspecting moral majority who are caught up in their censorship frenzy. They know their product sucks and can't possibly keep up with the net, but there's no reason the customer needs to know that.
--
I think all the packages let the buyer override selected URLs. If I, as an administrator, had time to blow correcting the bad information, why would I waste the money by buying a pre-built list? It's just not realistic to think that this is going to happen on any large scale. In this respect, Bess appears no different than any of the other products. Choosing what categories to block isn't going to help much; as Peacefire has shown us, most filtering packages are incapable of following their own category guidelines.
--
- Find every single porn site on the internet.
- Take a range of these porn sites.
- Test each site within this range.
- Compare number of blocked (or non-blocked) against the total number, which you found in the first step.
Good luck with Step 1.*cough*
--
--
- Is a single test on port 25 (i.e. testing for open SMTP relay) a "network scan"?
- Are 7 tests? Each testing for a different vulnerability?
- Port scanning all ports? What about 5 ports?
- Is a webcrawl bot a network scan? It's multiple connections to port 80.
Which list? RBL? RSS? DUL? MAPS RBL is not exclusively for those machines that send spam. But also for spam facilitators. If you own a website that's selling the latest release of Spamware 2000 then you're a candidate. Likewise an ISP's netblock where a spammer has IP hopped around in can also get listed in the RBL. This all spelled out in their policies. MAPS RSS? While I'm certain there might be errors in the database, I'd bet they're few. RSS is open relays that have been used to send spam (a sample is archived). It, however, excludes certain mailservers where the collateral damage would be too great. MAPS DUL? Well.. yes. But, the way it is designed to be used, it doesn't matter. It's designed to only be blocked from making direct SMTP TCP/IP connections. While they may have multiple lists to try and keep these seperate, the problem is the users do not have control over which list is used. You're right. It's not the user's equipment. It's the providers, who have full discretion as to how their equipment/bandwidth is used. You can just jump off the "user's rights" train now, cause it ain't gonna fly. You have "rights" on the steps of your local courthouse. Your "rights" on my equipment are severely limited. Claiming there's crossover is a red herring. Slashdot users start screaming and yelling the moment somebody wants to filter Internet access in public libraries; but they will happily sit back while somebody filters their e-mail. Slashdot users are smart enough to know the difference between blocking mail based on content and blocking mail based on a bad "track record" of responsible net behavior.--
MAPS is busy enough dealing with real spammers than "acquaintance spam", which is kind of a gray area. Something which I fully understand. One must prioritize. I did submit B&N at some point in the past.
--
This is known as "acquaintance spam" and I think MAPS generally won't much involved unless it's happening on a massive scale. Amazon is the worst offender and always has been. Barnes & Noble will also repeatedly spam you even after opting out. They manage it by outsourcing their mailings, Click Rewards for one. When you get spammed B&N responds with "Take it up with Click Rewards" then Click Rewards responds with "sounds like a B&N technical problem take it up with them". There is zero accountability in that company. /.
I managed to stop the spam-hose by changing my account email address to <randomstring>@[127.0.0.1] Lastly... get this. Guess who else spammed me? Fatbrain. In blatant violation of my preference settings. When challenging them on it, they played ignorant. I spelled it out very clearly in my complaint that my preference settings said "no promotions", but their employee carefully didn't read that part. They still haven't explained to me why I got the spam despite having opted out of everything. Everyone please think about this while promoting Fatbrain on
--
This will e-mail the password. Read his post again. I think it wanted his [wife's] credit card information before mailing the password. Remember before commerce on the net? When most every mailing list had unsub instructions in it? And they worked? No longer. Corporations intentionally make it hard to unsubscribe, sometime to the point of impossibility. Barnes and Noble has been spamming me for years, even after I've opted out dozens of times. There's always some new B&N marketing department head who thinks that "opt-out" doesn't mean him.
--
I don't like SPAM, but when an ISP chooses to use MAPS RBL, they're censoring your email for you. There's that misunderstood word again. The implication being that MAPS somehow evaluates each email and blocks based on content. This is not the case. Once an IP is determined to be sending spam, attempts are made to contact the "owner" of that network, and if the situation is not resolved, then the machine is added to the MAPS RBL. From there on, it doesn't matter what the emails contain as that machine is prohibited on MAPS RBL subscribers' networks. Content is irrelevant at that point. It is rather hypocritical that /. clamors for one form of censorware, but fights against another, the forced censorship of internet connections in public schools and libraries, which is also a decision which is made without the input of the user, and which also supposedly protects the user from something which is bad for them.
You misunderstand the goal of MAPS. The goal is to protect the owner's network, not [necessarily] the end user. MAPS' goal is not to protect kids from porn, although it's a nice side effect, but it is to keep their network running so the user has a network to login to.
What disturbs me most about MAPS RBL is the small number of people that make a decision to add a mail server to it, and the same small number that can make the decision to remove it in the future or retain it.
There must be a relatively small number of people involved in order to maintain consitency in the listing standards. A centralized point is both the nightmare for spammers and the boon for innocent admins who get listed, because they can get off it so easily with a single database change.
If the government were doing this, there would be an outcry, but when a private company does it, it's fine.
You're right here. The government has no business in this. Which is why I thank $DEITY a private organization stepped up to the plate to fill the void.
Bottom Line: MAPS RBL is not voluntary for the user, just for the ISP.
"Vote with your feet." If there were a big demand for unfiltered access then you'd have no problems starting up your own ISP.
Are those crickets I hear chirping?
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I know for a fact that some of these groups do network scans (which they often claim they do not do); since they do most of the scans via private network accounts they don't get caught in log files. You're painting a mighty broad brush there. :)
The reference to "network scans" (in itself a subjective term) is referring to ORBS and, possibly, the now-defunct IMRSS. See my previous post for information on the differences between the various anti-spam IP lists. Neither of these lists has anything to do with MAPS. MAPS considers active networking scanning abusive. However, having received a spam, then testing to see if the offending machine is an open relay would not be considered a "network scan". Note: I am not an employee of MAPS. I do not speak for MAPS in any capacity. Rather, from a position of familiarity with their policies.
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it occurred to me that spam might also be considered free speech, abhorrent as it is. "Speech isn't free if it arrives postage due."
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For instance, the way they blackhole anyone who runs an open SMTP server, even if it's not being used for spamming, or has spam filtering built in. You don't know what MAPS RBL does. You appear to be referring to ORBS.
Various blocklists... ORBS - Open Relay Behaviour-modification System
Open relay blocklist. Not affiliated in any way with MAPS. Blocks open SMTP relays. Does not require that the relay actually be used to send spam. MAPS RBL - Realtime Blackhole List
List of IP addresses of machines owned by providers who are know to be spam friendly. Manual submission. [Relatively] difficult to be placed on. This is as much admin behavior modification as spam blocking. To be used for blocking at SMTP level or BGP filtering (i.e. blackholing on the TCP/IP layer). MAPS RSS - Relay Spam Stopper
List of IP addresses of machines that contain open relays. Differs from ORBS because they don't actively scan for open relays and they require a sample of the spam before considering listing. To be used for blocking at SMTP level. MAPS DUL - Dial-up User List
List of IP addresses of dialup modem pools. To be used for SMTP blocking, but only blocking a "direct connection". Many believe that a dial-up user has no business attempting to pose as an SMTP server rather than an SMTP client. Spammers use direct-to-MX programs to bypass any sort of filtering/throttling their ISP might use on their dedicated SMTP servers. This prevents such spam from getting through. Please note that none of these lists block on content. They are all lists of IPs.
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As I see it, the problem here is that the software is encouraging the ignorant to violate internet ethics. The end-user should get what they deserve, which is possible termination of their internet connection for spamming. I encourage everyone to report anyone using this feature to their ISP. But this is not the true problem here. While "my friend" might have technically sent me an unsolicited email, the message (i.e. content) is from Microsoft; given that the user cannot alter the message. It is a very slick twist on viral marketing which I find extremely distasteful. Where are all these Chief Privacy Officers I keep hearing about? Self-regulation at work.
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