Why would record companies have an opinion on what we want to hear? There is and always will be room from some "alternative" types of music. It is just that pop songs won't have much variety. That's the way it has been for decades. You have Top 40 and then a bunch of other stuff that satisfied various niches.
I'm not familiar with this new meaning of troll. I actually stated what needs to be done to stop spam
In very general terms. Come back when you have something we can actually implement.
and you insist on sticking to what will never be a permanent solution.
I insist on doing what works now. You can go off in your fantasy land and implement whatever unspecified permanent solution you want. I'm not stopping you. Although from your highly emotional reaction here, you'd think I was not only preventing you from stopping spam, but also choking your mother.
You then cherry pick whatever lines of my comments you like, and outright ignore other parts if they don't fit your beliefs. If anyone has earned the label of troll, it is you.
Let's settle this right now. You quote me your specific solution to the problem of spam that I supposedly ignored, and I'll take the title of troll. Don't restate it or try to make something up now. I want you to go back and copy and paste your exact words. If you can't, you're the troll. And your comment about making spam too expensive won't cut it. I want your **specific** solution. Something we can actually do. Some action we can take now that will end spam permanently without just pulling the plug on email altogether. And it has to be 100% effective and permanent so that nobody ever spams again, because apparently if anything gets through, the solution is worthless. Bonus points if it is something that I can do myself instead of filtering.
Come on. Humor me. You almost had me doubting myself. I went back and skimmed your comments and I didn't see anything, but maybe my reading comprehension really is that bad. Only you can settle this once and for all.
No, you don't get it. You cling to your filters as a solution, when at best they kick the can down the road for someone else to solve the real problem. You could be honest and realize that filtering will not solve the real problem, but instead you keep lying to yourself - and everyone else - that somehow filters will magically make spam go away.
WTF are you talking about? You're the one sitting around (I assume in a deluge of spam because you're too stubborn to filter it out) wishing someone else would start doing things your way even though you can't really say what, specifically, your way would be. The filters don't magically make spam go away. I can explain the process, if you like. The bottom line is that I don't get spam in my inbox. Maybe that doesn't solve the root problem, but it works well enough for to keep email a usable service for me and my users.
You didn't read the answer well enough to know if it was general or specific. And your filters are sure as hell not a general solution to spam.
Yada yada yada. Repeated refusal to answer a simple question noted.
Except you did. You specifically mentioned free email services, and ISPs who don't give opt-in. You stated that did not cost the user anything.
"ISPs who don't give opt-in?" What the fuck are you talking about? Do you even know?
You really should stop lying about what you say, because your lies are too transparent. If you would have just stopped at admitting to be a filtering ideologue that would have been OK.
A "filtering idealogue." Nice.
Instead you are trying to paint filtering as a solution that it is never capable of being.
Except that I already said that 99% is good enough for me. Hmm....
If you weren't an illiterate liar you would know the answer to that.
Oh shut up, troll. You dont' have a specific solution and you know it.
since it doesn't agree with your view of the world.
My "view of the world." That's a bit dramatic, don't you think? Anyway, thanks for the entertainment. Hope you enjoy wading through your spam, wishing someone else would make it go away for you. Meanwhile, I'll filter it and get on with my life. Jesus Christ, man. Get a grip.
They could have instead chosen to invest in something that is capable of solving the problem.
Who is "they?" You don't get it. Not filtering the spam is simply not an option. If there is something else that can be done, it has to be on top of filtering. I'm not going to sit around wading through spam waiting for idealists like you to work out your solution.
Instead a number of people like yourself selected the response to spam that was most convenient, without concern for its long-term consequences, or its ultimate lack of effectiveness at actually solving the problem.
You dont' get it. For many people the problem is solved. I'm sorry that you're too stubborn to filter your email, but the technology is there and it works.
You're making the inaccurate assumption that you can actually filter out all the spam from all the email.
99% is pretty damn good. Good enough for me. It isn't like any solution you could come up with woudl prevent anyone for sending spam, ever.
Even if you were able to get every email address on the planet to consent, you still would not be able to filter out all the spam, 100% of the time, with zero FP.
So? I'm happy with current solutions.
I have answered that question multiple times now. There is no point in repeating what you deliberately decide not to read.
You gave a very general answer. I want a very specific solution from you.
If you are willing to accept those costs, then say so. But don't keep running around pretending that filtering is somehow without cost.
You lie. I never once said it was without cost. I already said the costs, as I have experienced them, are acceptable.
Ok, so what? It isn't like we can NOT use the filters.
Actually, we can. We can skip the filters, and invest time and energy in real solutions.
Who is "we" and what are these "real" solutions? Please, I'm waiting. Name one specific solution to the problem that I can invest in.
There is no law that we have to use the filters, and in some cases we may be better off without them.
No laws, but me and my users are not going to sift through the deluge of spam while you, in your fantasy land, work something out.
And yet, somehow, mysteriously, the filters work. I don't get spam.
You've already said you have to retrain your filters. Contradicting yourself, you also claimed the filters to be "one step ahead" of the spammers. Both cannot be true. Hence you are either oblivious or a liar - which is it?
We're one step ahead of the average spammer. We're one step ahead in the sense that if some spam does get through, it is just a small percentage of the total. It is an exception. It isn't like the filters are working one day and the next morning, suddenly we find that all the spam is coming through and we have to adapt. We retrain to stay ahead.
There is no mention of the fact that the three credit card processing outfits who handle >90% of all business for the spamvertised domains were recently identified and have been pressured to stop dealing with their often criminal customers.
So? What are you going to do about it? What can i do about it? What do I do while I wait for someone else use that information? I filter, that's what I do. If you want to take down those 3 credit card processign outfits, be my guest, but that' snot really anything I can do, now is it?
Of course, since you refuse to acknowledge the answer to spam that I have repeatedly supported, you probably won't consider that this would have an impact on the cost of spam, either.
You gave no specific answer. Give me a *specific* solution to spam. Stop speaking in generali
I'm skeptical of that 3,000 figure. Is that an average over all the sectors on the drive? Or is just the hottest of sectors on the drive? Seems unlikely that you'd rewrite the full drive 3,000 times every hour. That's insane, if not impossible. I'm going to assume that's a single sector being reweritten 3,000 times in a hour. With flash you use write leveling to spread that all the sectors. I don't think it is as big a deal as it sounds. 5 million writes per sector (or cell) is a LOT.
...or anyone who wants instant-on from hibernation. Imagine never having to worry about how much RAM you have again. Think of the virtualization possibilities.
I like flash, in fact I just bought some SSDs, but it does have some problems that really need addressing long term.
Maybe in theory, but my OCZ Vertex is awesome. I know the cheap SSDs can be a bit flaky if pushed to limits, but Intel and OCZ make some fine SS drives.
I don't think he was predicting the future with that statement. I think he was specifically talking about now. Obviously this solid state technology would get cheaper and storage would become greater over time. It would just be a bit behind spinning disks initially. For me SSD is great for my laptop. Installing it was a huge performance boost and I don't need the same amount of storage as my desktop/media/gaming PC where spinning disks work fine. Though ultimately it would be nice to quiet that sucker down.
Multiply your "minimal investment" by all the other users around the world making the same "minimal investment", and add in all the money spent on hardware, storage, bandwidth, and power for the same, and it is no longer a "minimal investment", is it?
Does it matter? It had to be done anyway. It wasn't like people were going to just live with the spam because someone like you says it won't solve the problem.
Well, if we consider time to be free, or trivially inexpensive enough to be called a "minimal investment", then we should put our time into disrupting the payment system. Spam is sent out because people are paying spammers to send it. Filtering won't stop that, but if the spammers aren't getting paid, they have no incentive to send out the spam. After all, they aren't generally selling the goods themselves - someone else has that duty - nor are they sending out spam just to piss people off (in spite of various claims to the contrary).
If nobody is getting the spam, people won't bother to have it delivered or they won't pay enough to make ti worth anyone to send. At worst, they're just going to find other avenues to get their advertising out there. You know, like blog spam and whatnot. What can you do besides filter it out and try to prosecute egregious offenders when you can?
Perhaps we are looking at obfuscation differently. Spam isn't obfuscated with random jibberish; it is obfuscated by adding in commonly used phrases. It may be trying to sell you counterfeit viagra, but it is using common discussion phrases to evade your filtering rules.
Yeah, they tried that years ago and it worked for filters that were primarily dictionary/token based, but nowadays we rely primarily on sender verification and greylisting. There are many other indicators that a message is spam. You're a little behind.
Filtering is getting better, not worse.
Resource consumption, and FR rates, point to the contrary.
Whatever. I don't get spam and I don't have a problem with false positives. I see no reason to believe that will change.
It doesn't matter how much the software cost, it still required time to set up, consumed CPU time, required storage space, needed to be retrained periodically, and still missed spam, incorrectly tagged legitimate email, or both.
Ok, so what? It isn't like we can NOT use the filters. I dont' really understand what your issue is.
I'm afraid you're wrong on that. If filtering was "one stop ahead" then why does it need to be retrained? The spammers will always find ways around filtering rules. Filters are a band-aid for a massive gushing head wound.
And yet, somehow, mysteriously, the filters work. I don't get spam.
There's no indication that filters will just stop working
That statement only makes sense if you ignore the fact that filters have to be continually adjusted. Eventually they will no longer be useful as the FP rates will become unacceptable.
But FP rates aren't increasing! If anyting, they're much better than when i first started filtering spam 6 years ago.
In the meantime they do nothing whatsoever to discourage spammers from sending out spam.
Read TFA. Spamming is getting less and less profitable every day. If that isnt' discouragement, I don't know what is.
I've laid out my reasoning for you. Just because it doesn't fit your own assumptions about how reality works does not mean it is not reasoning.
Your "reasoning" is entirely based on the general idea that arms races don't/can't work, which I don't entirely disagree with, but you completely ignore the fact that filters are better than they were years ago and spamming is not as profitable as it once was.
I can't even imagine a way for you to be more wrong. Filtering consumes money, time, and resources. It only encourages spammers to further obfuscate their email to find ways around filtering rules.
But it works. They spend time and money figuring out how get around filters while I make a minimal investment in filtering on my end. What solution do ou suggest that doesn't involve any kind of investment?
. Eventually spam becomes obfuscated enough that the false positive rate for filtering reaches completely unacceptable levels
Ah, but that's where you're wrong. The thing about spam is that the more you try to obfusctate it, the less it looks like legitimate email and the easier it sot filter out!
and then people who cling to filtering will have to wake up and realize that they didn't solve the problem, and that with filtering alone they never had any hope to doing so.
But for all intents an purposes, the problem is solved at least for me. I don't get spam anymore. I suppose I would like it if more legitimate senders used an opt-in model, but at least I never have to see the Viagra and porn garbage.
Except filtering eventually won't do that either
All indicators point to the contrary. Filtering is getting better, not worse.
Wrong. You can repeat yourself, but you won't become right by repetition. Why do people who insist on filtering have to continually spend more time, money, and resources on filtering?
Do they? Maybe Google is, but I'm not seeing the cost since it is a free service. When I worked as a sysadmin, I was able to use free tools to filter out spam for a college. It added a bit to my workload, but it wasn't anything that required any significant increase in resources.
Because you're only taking part in an arms race with the spammers.
Be that as it may, we've been one step ahead of them for years now. At this point spammers are surviving off of the providers that have no yet jumped on the filtering bandwagon or have not been very good at it.
And you cannot win that arms race, not with filtering anyways.
But I have. I haven't gotten more than a handful of spam message in YEARS and my email address is published all over the place. There's no indication that filters will just stop working. They've only gotten better. You have absolutely no basis for any of your predictions other than the idea that "arms races" don't work. You're not applying any reasoning to this particular issue. You're making generalizations. You dont' know what you're talking about.
It isn't common because it is a stupid waste of time. Real spam filters will stop those messages from reaching your inbox in the first place, saving you the time and effort. But hey, if you want to do it manually, whatever..
Has the guy emailed you before? (continue test if no)
Greylisting. THough it is a little more complicated than this. There has to be a way to allow people to email you for the first time. So what a greylisting filter does is deny first delivery once with a temporary failure and it keeps denying until a certain time has elapsed. Then it allows the message in. The idea is that most spammers won't bother retrying the delivery, or at least not with the same "From" field and the same botnet node. It is actually pretty effective. Although the initial delay can be a little annoying for users who expect an email to go through within a couple minutes.
Is there a reference to a site selling watches, drugs, or online degrees? (continue test if yes)
Filters do use blacklisted URLs. But usually you want to make this a last resort. Scanning content is CPU intensive.
Is the site from a known legit source, based on popularity of the 'unspam' button for this user? (move to spam folder if no)
It is too easy to spoof the source and chances are that you won't get the same spoofed source twice. You might, but it is like playing whack-a-mole. Spam filters have gotten away from user ratings. It is too much hassle for users and there's not enough reporting of spam to be terribly effective.
It is more effective to force email providers to implement authentication systems like SPF and Sender ID. With these systems, you can at least validate the the domain of the sender's email address matches the server trying to send you the message. This has a dual effect of blocking botnet nodes and makes the send use a specific return address, which can then be blacklisted if necessary.
But yeah, mail providers are way ahead of you. Filters are pretty good these days. There's really no reason why the average person should still be getting spam.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Very few spammers of any volume use a single relay. Any known relay of spam gets blacklisted in a matter of hours.
Bulk of spam is delivered through botnets and between greylisting and SPF, most of that spam doesn't even get through to end users. Less and and spam is getting to end users. Meanwhile, botnets don't come cheap. While this kind of decrease in such a short period of time probably isn't due solely to filtering, I would expect rates to begin a decline.
Filtering works and it is a great long term solution. It is the only solution. You can't stop people from responding to spam. All you can do is stop end users from getting the spam. This has the effect of increasing the cost of sending spam.
spam is so prevalent today because it is so cheap and profitable,
Read TFA. It USED TO BE cheap and profitable. Not so much anymore. The economic incentive is being removed by both saturation and filtering. Do you have any idea how much a decent botnet costs spammers? Gone are the days when you could simply run a couple MTAs and pump out your own spam with little to no cost.
What service are you using? I know gmail's filter is good. I haven't lost any email that I'm aware of. Or do you mean the messages you're sending end up in spam buckets? Do you run your own MTA or something?
I suggest you save yourself the hassle and just host your mail domain with Google. It is free and they have excellent filters and support IMAP. While it is neat to tinker with filters and see the tactics first hand, it s really not worth your time.
That $20 a day is a very good job in China. That's $7k a year (spam is a 24/7 business after all) compared to the $3k you'd get working in Foxconn [telegraph.co.uk], for example.
Even $20 is pretty optimistic. You're certainly not going to make that as a casual spammer.
I think you have it backwards. Other avenues of attack will come back now that spam is no longer viable. As far as knowing how to get past filters, the thing is that not all filters are the same. Maybe your company's filter had a hole, but not everyone uses the same techniques. Also, good filters look at more than content. Greylisting, for example, cuts out 80% of spam simply because successful spamming depends on incredibly high volumes and performing the retries required by greylisting is just not feasible. Hell, if you simply block unauthenticated SMTP access to all broadband IPs, you can cut out the majority of SPAM. Bulk of spam depends on botnets. You just can't push the necessary amount of spam through legit channels on a consistent basis. If you abuse someone else's system, they will shut you out. And by the time you build up your own resources to delivery that kind of volume, you'll be blacklisted.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would record companies have an opinion on what we want to hear? There is and always will be room from some "alternative" types of music. It is just that pop songs won't have much variety. That's the way it has been for decades. You have Top 40 and then a bunch of other stuff that satisfied various niches.
Then it is settled. Thanks.
Well, isn't centralized in the sense that you can sort of cluster servers, but it isn't P2P either. You're still connected to a dedicated server.
I'm not familiar with this new meaning of troll. I actually stated what needs to be done to stop spam
In very general terms. Come back when you have something we can actually implement.
and you insist on sticking to what will never be a permanent solution.
I insist on doing what works now. You can go off in your fantasy land and implement whatever unspecified permanent solution you want. I'm not stopping you. Although from your highly emotional reaction here, you'd think I was not only preventing you from stopping spam, but also choking your mother.
You then cherry pick whatever lines of my comments you like, and outright ignore other parts if they don't fit your beliefs. If anyone has earned the label of troll, it is you.
Let's settle this right now. You quote me your specific solution to the problem of spam that I supposedly ignored, and I'll take the title of troll. Don't restate it or try to make something up now. I want you to go back and copy and paste your exact words. If you can't, you're the troll. And your comment about making spam too expensive won't cut it. I want your **specific** solution. Something we can actually do. Some action we can take now that will end spam permanently without just pulling the plug on email altogether. And it has to be 100% effective and permanent so that nobody ever spams again, because apparently if anything gets through, the solution is worthless. Bonus points if it is something that I can do myself instead of filtering.
Come on. Humor me. You almost had me doubting myself. I went back and skimmed your comments and I didn't see anything, but maybe my reading comprehension really is that bad. Only you can settle this once and for all.
No, you don't get it. You cling to your filters as a solution, when at best they kick the can down the road for someone else to solve the real problem. You could be honest and realize that filtering will not solve the real problem, but instead you keep lying to yourself - and everyone else - that somehow filters will magically make spam go away.
WTF are you talking about? You're the one sitting around (I assume in a deluge of spam because you're too stubborn to filter it out) wishing someone else would start doing things your way even though you can't really say what, specifically, your way would be. The filters don't magically make spam go away. I can explain the process, if you like. The bottom line is that I don't get spam in my inbox. Maybe that doesn't solve the root problem, but it works well enough for to keep email a usable service for me and my users.
You didn't read the answer well enough to know if it was general or specific. And your filters are sure as hell not a general solution to spam.
Yada yada yada. Repeated refusal to answer a simple question noted.
Except you did. You specifically mentioned free email services, and ISPs who don't give opt-in. You stated that did not cost the user anything.
"ISPs who don't give opt-in?" What the fuck are you talking about? Do you even know?
You really should stop lying about what you say, because your lies are too transparent. If you would have just stopped at admitting to be a filtering ideologue that would have been OK.
A "filtering idealogue." Nice.
Instead you are trying to paint filtering as a solution that it is never capable of being.
Except that I already said that 99% is good enough for me. Hmm....
If you weren't an illiterate liar you would know the answer to that.
Oh shut up, troll. You dont' have a specific solution and you know it.
since it doesn't agree with your view of the world.
My "view of the world." That's a bit dramatic, don't you think? Anyway, thanks for the entertainment. Hope you enjoy wading through your spam, wishing someone else would make it go away for you. Meanwhile, I'll filter it and get on with my life. Jesus Christ, man. Get a grip.
They could have instead chosen to invest in something that is capable of solving the problem.
Who is "they?" You don't get it. Not filtering the spam is simply not an option. If there is something else that can be done, it has to be on top of filtering. I'm not going to sit around wading through spam waiting for idealists like you to work out your solution.
Instead a number of people like yourself selected the response to spam that was most convenient, without concern for its long-term consequences, or its ultimate lack of effectiveness at actually solving the problem.
You dont' get it. For many people the problem is solved. I'm sorry that you're too stubborn to filter your email, but the technology is there and it works.
You're making the inaccurate assumption that you can actually filter out all the spam from all the email.
99% is pretty damn good. Good enough for me. It isn't like any solution you could come up with woudl prevent anyone for sending spam, ever.
Even if you were able to get every email address on the planet to consent, you still would not be able to filter out all the spam, 100% of the time, with zero FP.
So? I'm happy with current solutions.
I have answered that question multiple times now. There is no point in repeating what you deliberately decide not to read.
You gave a very general answer. I want a very specific solution from you.
If you are willing to accept those costs, then say so. But don't keep running around pretending that filtering is somehow without cost.
You lie. I never once said it was without cost. I already said the costs, as I have experienced them, are acceptable.
Ok, so what? It isn't like we can NOT use the filters.
Actually, we can. We can skip the filters, and invest time and energy in real solutions.
Who is "we" and what are these "real" solutions? Please, I'm waiting. Name one specific solution to the problem that I can invest in.
There is no law that we have to use the filters, and in some cases we may be better off without them.
No laws, but me and my users are not going to sift through the deluge of spam while you, in your fantasy land, work something out.
And yet, somehow, mysteriously, the filters work. I don't get spam.
You've already said you have to retrain your filters. Contradicting yourself, you also claimed the filters to be "one step ahead" of the spammers. Both cannot be true. Hence you are either oblivious or a liar - which is it?
We're one step ahead of the average spammer. We're one step ahead in the sense that if some spam does get through, it is just a small percentage of the total. It is an exception. It isn't like the filters are working one day and the next morning, suddenly we find that all the spam is coming through and we have to adapt. We retrain to stay ahead.
There is no mention of the fact that the three credit card processing outfits who handle >90% of all business for the spamvertised domains were recently identified and have been pressured to stop dealing with their often criminal customers.
So? What are you going to do about it? What can i do about it? What do I do while I wait for someone else use that information? I filter, that's what I do. If you want to take down those 3 credit card processign outfits, be my guest, but that' snot really anything I can do, now is it?
Of course, since you refuse to acknowledge the answer to spam that I have repeatedly supported, you probably won't consider that this would have an impact on the cost of spam, either.
You gave no specific answer. Give me a *specific* solution to spam. Stop speaking in generali
I'm skeptical of that 3,000 figure. Is that an average over all the sectors on the drive? Or is just the hottest of sectors on the drive? Seems unlikely that you'd rewrite the full drive 3,000 times every hour. That's insane, if not impossible. I'm going to assume that's a single sector being reweritten 3,000 times in a hour. With flash you use write leveling to spread that all the sectors. I don't think it is as big a deal as it sounds. 5 million writes per sector (or cell) is a LOT.
...or anyone who wants instant-on from hibernation. Imagine never having to worry about how much RAM you have again. Think of the virtualization possibilities.
If you're hitting swap on a regular basis, you need more RAM. Swap is just a backup on most systems.
I like flash, in fact I just bought some SSDs, but it does have some problems that really need addressing long term.
Maybe in theory, but my OCZ Vertex is awesome. I know the cheap SSDs can be a bit flaky if pushed to limits, but Intel and OCZ make some fine SS drives.
I don't think he was predicting the future with that statement. I think he was specifically talking about now. Obviously this solid state technology would get cheaper and storage would become greater over time. It would just be a bit behind spinning disks initially. For me SSD is great for my laptop. Installing it was a huge performance boost and I don't need the same amount of storage as my desktop/media/gaming PC where spinning disks work fine. Though ultimately it would be nice to quiet that sucker down.
Multiply your "minimal investment" by all the other users around the world making the same "minimal investment", and add in all the money spent on hardware, storage, bandwidth, and power for the same, and it is no longer a "minimal investment", is it?
Does it matter? It had to be done anyway. It wasn't like people were going to just live with the spam because someone like you says it won't solve the problem.
Well, if we consider time to be free, or trivially inexpensive enough to be called a "minimal investment", then we should put our time into disrupting the payment system. Spam is sent out because people are paying spammers to send it. Filtering won't stop that, but if the spammers aren't getting paid, they have no incentive to send out the spam. After all, they aren't generally selling the goods themselves - someone else has that duty - nor are they sending out spam just to piss people off (in spite of various claims to the contrary).
If nobody is getting the spam, people won't bother to have it delivered or they won't pay enough to make ti worth anyone to send. At worst, they're just going to find other avenues to get their advertising out there. You know, like blog spam and whatnot. What can you do besides filter it out and try to prosecute egregious offenders when you can?
Perhaps we are looking at obfuscation differently. Spam isn't obfuscated with random jibberish; it is obfuscated by adding in commonly used phrases. It may be trying to sell you counterfeit viagra, but it is using common discussion phrases to evade your filtering rules.
Yeah, they tried that years ago and it worked for filters that were primarily dictionary/token based, but nowadays we rely primarily on sender verification and greylisting. There are many other indicators that a message is spam. You're a little behind.
Filtering is getting better, not worse.
Resource consumption, and FR rates, point to the contrary.
Whatever. I don't get spam and I don't have a problem with false positives. I see no reason to believe that will change.
It doesn't matter how much the software cost, it still required time to set up, consumed CPU time, required storage space, needed to be retrained periodically, and still missed spam, incorrectly tagged legitimate email, or both.
Ok, so what? It isn't like we can NOT use the filters. I dont' really understand what your issue is.
I'm afraid you're wrong on that. If filtering was "one stop ahead" then why does it need to be retrained? The spammers will always find ways around filtering rules. Filters are a band-aid for a massive gushing head wound.
And yet, somehow, mysteriously, the filters work. I don't get spam.
There's no indication that filters will just stop working
That statement only makes sense if you ignore the fact that filters have to be continually adjusted. Eventually they will no longer be useful as the FP rates will become unacceptable.
But FP rates aren't increasing! If anyting, they're much better than when i first started filtering spam 6 years ago.
In the meantime they do nothing whatsoever to discourage spammers from sending out spam.
Read TFA. Spamming is getting less and less profitable every day. If that isnt' discouragement, I don't know what is.
I've laid out my reasoning for you. Just because it doesn't fit your own assumptions about how reality works does not mean it is not reasoning.
Your "reasoning" is entirely based on the general idea that arms races don't/can't work, which I don't entirely disagree with, but you completely ignore the fact that filters are better than they were years ago and spamming is not as profitable as it once was.
You k
I can't even imagine a way for you to be more wrong. Filtering consumes money, time, and resources. It only encourages spammers to further obfuscate their email to find ways around filtering rules.
But it works. They spend time and money figuring out how get around filters while I make a minimal investment in filtering on my end. What solution do ou suggest that doesn't involve any kind of investment?
. Eventually spam becomes obfuscated enough that the false positive rate for filtering reaches completely unacceptable levels
Ah, but that's where you're wrong. The thing about spam is that the more you try to obfusctate it, the less it looks like legitimate email and the easier it sot filter out!
and then people who cling to filtering will have to wake up and realize that they didn't solve the problem, and that with filtering alone they never had any hope to doing so.
But for all intents an purposes, the problem is solved at least for me. I don't get spam anymore. I suppose I would like it if more legitimate senders used an opt-in model, but at least I never have to see the Viagra and porn garbage.
Except filtering eventually won't do that either
All indicators point to the contrary. Filtering is getting better, not worse.
Wrong. You can repeat yourself, but you won't become right by repetition. Why do people who insist on filtering have to continually spend more time, money, and resources on filtering?
Do they? Maybe Google is, but I'm not seeing the cost since it is a free service. When I worked as a sysadmin, I was able to use free tools to filter out spam for a college. It added a bit to my workload, but it wasn't anything that required any significant increase in resources.
Because you're only taking part in an arms race with the spammers.
Be that as it may, we've been one step ahead of them for years now. At this point spammers are surviving off of the providers that have no yet jumped on the filtering bandwagon or have not been very good at it.
And you cannot win that arms race, not with filtering anyways.
But I have. I haven't gotten more than a handful of spam message in YEARS and my email address is published all over the place. There's no indication that filters will just stop working. They've only gotten better. You have absolutely no basis for any of your predictions other than the idea that "arms races" don't work. You're not applying any reasoning to this particular issue. You're making generalizations. You dont' know what you're talking about.
Gmail.
It isn't common because it is a stupid waste of time. Real spam filters will stop those messages from reaching your inbox in the first place, saving you the time and effort. But hey, if you want to do it manually, whatever..
Because the things they're selling in spam are not things most people want advertised on their site.
WTF? 100 a day? That's crazy. You must be very active on the internet, signing up for a lot of services.
Has the guy emailed you before? (continue test if no)
Greylisting. THough it is a little more complicated than this. There has to be a way to allow people to email you for the first time. So what a greylisting filter does is deny first delivery once with a temporary failure and it keeps denying until a certain time has elapsed. Then it allows the message in. The idea is that most spammers won't bother retrying the delivery, or at least not with the same "From" field and the same botnet node. It is actually pretty effective. Although the initial delay can be a little annoying for users who expect an email to go through within a couple minutes.
Is there a reference to a site selling watches, drugs, or online degrees? (continue test if yes)
Filters do use blacklisted URLs. But usually you want to make this a last resort. Scanning content is CPU intensive.
Is the site from a known legit source, based on popularity of the 'unspam' button for this user? (move to spam folder if no)
It is too easy to spoof the source and chances are that you won't get the same spoofed source twice. You might, but it is like playing whack-a-mole. Spam filters have gotten away from user ratings. It is too much hassle for users and there's not enough reporting of spam to be terribly effective.
It is more effective to force email providers to implement authentication systems like SPF and Sender ID. With these systems, you can at least validate the the domain of the sender's email address matches the server trying to send you the message. This has a dual effect of blocking botnet nodes and makes the send use a specific return address, which can then be blacklisted if necessary. But yeah, mail providers are way ahead of you. Filters are pretty good these days. There's really no reason why the average person should still be getting spam.
Get a new email provider. It is that simple. Gmail filter is awesome.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Very few spammers of any volume use a single relay. Any known relay of spam gets blacklisted in a matter of hours. Bulk of spam is delivered through botnets and between greylisting and SPF, most of that spam doesn't even get through to end users. Less and and spam is getting to end users. Meanwhile, botnets don't come cheap. While this kind of decrease in such a short period of time probably isn't due solely to filtering, I would expect rates to begin a decline.
Filtering works and it is a great long term solution. It is the only solution. You can't stop people from responding to spam. All you can do is stop end users from getting the spam. This has the effect of increasing the cost of sending spam.
spam is so prevalent today because it is so cheap and profitable,
Read TFA. It USED TO BE cheap and profitable. Not so much anymore. The economic incentive is being removed by both saturation and filtering. Do you have any idea how much a decent botnet costs spammers? Gone are the days when you could simply run a couple MTAs and pump out your own spam with little to no cost.
What service are you using? I know gmail's filter is good. I haven't lost any email that I'm aware of. Or do you mean the messages you're sending end up in spam buckets? Do you run your own MTA or something?
The do not call listhas been extremely effective for me.
Have you seen the content of spam? They're not F 001ing Any0n 3!! !!
I suggest you save yourself the hassle and just host your mail domain with Google. It is free and they have excellent filters and support IMAP. While it is neat to tinker with filters and see the tactics first hand, it s really not worth your time.
That $20 a day is a very good job in China. That's $7k a year (spam is a 24/7 business after all) compared to the $3k you'd get working in Foxconn [telegraph.co.uk], for example.
Even $20 is pretty optimistic. You're certainly not going to make that as a casual spammer.
I think you have it backwards. Other avenues of attack will come back now that spam is no longer viable. As far as knowing how to get past filters, the thing is that not all filters are the same. Maybe your company's filter had a hole, but not everyone uses the same techniques. Also, good filters look at more than content. Greylisting, for example, cuts out 80% of spam simply because successful spamming depends on incredibly high volumes and performing the retries required by greylisting is just not feasible. Hell, if you simply block unauthenticated SMTP access to all broadband IPs, you can cut out the majority of SPAM. Bulk of spam depends on botnets. You just can't push the necessary amount of spam through legit channels on a consistent basis. If you abuse someone else's system, they will shut you out. And by the time you build up your own resources to delivery that kind of volume, you'll be blacklisted.