Coming from a person who once offered on slashdot to fake pictures of someone's mother being sodomized by a donkey, I have to say your sudden aversion for name calling and insults is laughable.
Ah, my stalker friend returns. Why don't you put up a link to that supposed offer?
If your middle schooler's grasp of logic and rhetoric can't cash the checks your ego is writing, just leave quietly, but please don't pretend to aesthetic sensibilities you quite obviously have never possessed.
Please don't flatter yourself by pretending that you're my intellectual equal, much less my superior. I was doing you the favor of letting you bow out gracefully rather than having me rub your nose in the the fact that you've switched positions more times than a nymphomaniac with a copy of the Kama Sutra. We'll continue this debate when you answer the following points from my earlier post:
But the article effectively refuted your claim that U.S. ISPs are the primary ones supporting spam. You should concede that point as well as acknowledging that:
1. The foreign language spam which dominates the inboxes of all Yahoo! Groups moderators is strong evidence that spam is not primarily an 'American on American' problem.
2. Spamhaus's statistics are not based on all spam -- only on the spam that is reported to them -- and that such reports are not random. Reporting a spamvertised site on UUNet is far more likely to result in action being taken than reporting one hosted on Chinanet. That makes it more likely that the former will be reported than the latter. People want to feel like their efforts are likely to be rewarded with swift action against the spammer.
3. The ROKSO list only includes spammers who have been kicked off of three or more ISPs, so spammers who rely on zombies to send their spam while hosting their web sites in China won't be listed (since they won't get kicked off).
But of course, irrespective of the nationality of the person who was behind the sending of the spam that fouled your inbox, china is to blame because it didn't do anything to stop it.
If the spam was sent through China or the spamvertised web site was hosted in China, then China shares the blame for the spam. If you knowingly let a pedophile hide from the police in your basement, then you can bet that the local parents will blame you when he molests their children.
So now please explain why the government of france shouldn't be allowed to regulate the activities of american companies on the internet whereas the government of china is somehow being delinquent in not doing so?
The government of France has a right to regulate what French companies do while the government of China has the right to regulate what Chinese companies do. That hardly seems like a difficult concept. The government of China is being delinquent by not regulating what Chinese ISPs do. That's who they have jurisdiction over.
I'm off now, but I look forward to your foam^H^H^H^Hinsightful reply.{snip} Till next time, take care, and watch out for any sneaky asians.
It's been enjoyable debating this with you, but our discussion is rapidly devolving, so let's bid each other farewell rather than letting this turn into name calling and insults.
You submit an article that makes the exact point I started this whole discussion with: that the country of origin of the spam (or the country in which the spamvertized website is hosted) is not synonymous with the nationality of the spammer.
I never disagreed with that and was well aware of it. My domain is anti-spam.org. I am currently providing consulting services to a company that produces spam-blocking appliances and software. You can rest assured that I know more about spam than you do.
But the article effectively refuted your claim that U.S. ISPs are the primary ones supporting spam. You should concede that point as well as acknowledging that:
1. The foreign language spam which dominates the inboxes of all Yahoo! Groups moderators is strong evidence that spam is not primarily an 'American on American' problem.
2. Spamhaus's statistics are not based on all spam -- only on the spam that is reported to them -- and that such reports are not random. Reporting a spamvertised site on UUNet is far more likely to result in action being taken than reporting one hosted on Chinanet. That makes it more likely that the former will be reported than the latter. People want to feel like their efforts are likely to be rewarded with swift action against the spammer.
3. The ROKSO list only includes spammers who have been kicked off of three or more ISPs, so spammers who rely on zombies to send their spam while hosting their web sites in China won't be listed (since they won't get kicked off).
But of course, irrespective of the nationality of the person who was behind the sending of the spam that fouled your inbox, china is to blame because it didn't do anything to stop it.
If the spam was sent through China or the spamvertised web site was hosted in China, then China shares the blame for the spam. If you knowingly let a pedophile hide from the police in your basement, then you can bet that the local parents will blame you when he molests their children.
So now please explain why the government of france shouldn't be allowed to regulate the activities of american companies on the internet whereas the government of china is somehow being delinquent in not doing so?
The government of France has a right to regulate what French companies do while the government of China has the right to regulate what Chinese companies do. That hardly seems like a difficult concept. The government of China is being delinquent by not regulating what Chinese ISPs do. That's who they have jurisdiction over.
Hmmmm - your unsubstantiated anecdotes - sorry, I mean experience - vs. a site ranked top ten out of almost four million by google (search "spam statistics"). Gosh, you'll have to forgive me for taking their word over yours. If I'm wrong in my contention, then I guess ROKSO is wrong as well... you may want to think long and hard before you make that kind of a claim.
I did and I stand by it. You want them substantiated? Fine. Here are the subjects of today's replies from Yahoo!'s abuse department complete with their tracking numbers:
Your problem is that you didn't read the Spamhaus site:
ROKSO is a "3 Strikes" register. To be listed in ROKSO a spammer must first be terminated by a minimum of 3 ISPs for AUP violations.
That means that a Chinese spammer operating on Chinanet -- which never terminates anyone for spam, will not be listed on ROKSO. You are also taking the absurd position that all spam gets reported to Spamhaus. It doesn't. None of the complaints I showed above were sent to Spamhaus. They went to Yahoo! since Yahoo! relayed the spam to me. Yahoo! may have taken action against the senders. Again, without notifying Spamhaus. When Spamhaus has visibility to only a tiny, self-selecting percentage of spam complaints, why do you assume that their statistics are representative of the larger picture?
It's interesting that when a foreign government tries to regulate what an american company does on the internet your knee jerk reaction is to howl about foreigners trying to "regulate what U.S. corporations do on a network invented at U.S. taxpayer expense", and yet china (your favorite bugbear it would seem) is somehow at fault because american spammers can host in china without fear of legal reprisals.
What's so "interesting"? Why should any foreign government try to regulate what a U.S. firm does on a network invented at U.S. taxpayer expense? The French are guests on the Internet and apparently need to be reminded of that. (Feel free to launch into your tirade again
Basically, my contention here is that spam is a world problem caused largely by slimy americans preying on stupid americans.
I know that is your contention but you are wrong. I am the moderator on the Exact Audio Copy list at Yahoogroups. As moderator, there is a public address for me that spammers harvest. Want to see the subject lines of the last three spams that I got?
Does that look like spam sent from Americans to Americans? That's typical for the spam I get. For every English language spam I get at that address, I get at least a dozen non-English spams. So that's an English language, U.S. based web site hosting an English language mailing list, and the vast majority of spammers harvesting the addresses and spamming are not Americans (or even English speakers).
For my own domain, did a manual lookup on the IP addresses that tried to send spam to it yesterday. Most tried multiple times. I would have listed the IP addresses but Slashdot considers them to be "junk characters":
USA - Road Runner (rr.com) USA - Mindspring.com USA - Sprintlink.net Brazil - brasiltelecom.net.br Brazil - virtua.com.br Brazil - {domain not obvious} Brazil - {domain not obvious} Brazil - brasiltelecom.net.br Brazil - veloxzone.com.br Brazil - telesp.net.br Brazil - telesp.net.br Brazil - {domain not obvious} Brazil - telemar.net.br Taiwan - unigate.net.tw Taiwan - unigate.net.tw India - vsnl.co.in Taiwan - apol.com.tw Korea - hanaro.com Korea - hanaro.com China - Beijing WANG JU CO.LTD
Three of the IP addresses (15%) were in the USA. The rest (85%) were in Brazil, Taiwan, India, Korea, and China.
Pointing a finger at other countries and claiming that they are somehow just as, if not more, responsible for the world's spam problem is disingenuous. Put your own house in order before you worry about your neighbor's.
If China is providing hosting services to thousands of spammers, they *are* more responsible for the world's spam problem than any one of the spammers they host. Suppose that U.S. corporations were selling weapons to terrorists in your country. Would you feel that you had no right to complain about the U.S. Corporations since the terrorists were citizens of your country attacking citizens of your country? Would you feel that you had no right to complain about those U.S. Corporations until after you captured and jailed all of the terrorists in your country?
Don't blame me for, or tell me that it's my job to police, the spammers in the U.S. There are criminals in every country and those who support them with goods and services are just as guilty as the criminals themselves.
The main problem with the Spamhaus statistics is that they don't have any measure of the quantity of spam related to a tracked case. For instance, if five small-time spammers each send out 20,000 spam e-mails using, say, MCI, then that could be five tracked cases whereas an individual spammer sending out 1,000,000 pieces through Chinanet could be one tracked case. And it's my belief that the big-league spammers have largely gone to Asia for their hosting.
I can only speak for my domains, but I've found that the vast majority of spam that I receive either comes from Asia or relies on Asian web hosting.
Agreed. I used that as an example of a vertical market feature -- not something to be included on Joe Sixpack's mobile phone.
The WAAS enabled GPS would be most beneficial because it WILL help with getting directions and emergency response times.
It would also be a blessing for boaters who now have to carry a backup GPS in case of failures or electrical problems relating to the primary GPS. As a fisherman, I'd love it. I'd also love being able to waypoint neat spots any time I happened across them.
I am still on the lookout for a waterproof compact flip phone. I go fishing in rivers and have drowned my phone a few times( it has survived every try though, after a week of drying!) I don't even need fully waterproof or JIS-7, even though I would appreciate that as a standard.
I don't care if it's a flip phone or not. Just as long as it is compact and waterproof. I think JIS-7 or CFR-46 are perfectly reasonable standards and ones that have already been met by handheld marine radios for years now.
I see something like a ruggedized, rubber-jacketed, waterproof mobile phone as being very marketable to everyone from mountain bikers to hikers to boaters. I'm just amazed that no such phones are readily available.
I think that Linux on a phone is important because of the stability the system offers.
I've got a high-end Sony T610 (Bluetooth, IRDA, camera, PDA functions, games, color screen, etc.) and it's never crashed.
Since Joe Sixpack is going to be the normal user there really is no worry about the additional features that COULD be included. Even the highest Linux Guru will probably not care in the end as long as the phone performs properly.
Agreed.
I hope that my $0.02 is at least worth rubbing together
Well, maybe other people have interests that differ from yours?
I'm aware of that, but I'm having trouble understanding who would find this interesting. Linux proponents can't be surprised that it can do something as mundane as run a cell phone. It's not like a cell phone can be used as a workstation, so people looking for portable Linux workstations won't find this information useful. Economists aren't going to be shocked that cell phone vendors are choosing a free (as in beer) operating system. As I said, it's like a story announcing that cell phones using a MAX712 IC are being released. Whoopee!
I'm not following how this is important. Was there someone who doubted that Linux had the power, or a small enough footprint, to use in a cell phone? Or was there some surprise that a phone maker would be willing to use an OS which cost them nothing? To me, this is like celebrating the release of cell phones using MAX712 ICs (to control the battery charging).
I buy cell phones for the features and performance. I want to hear about cell phones with 3+mp cameras that use SD cards. Tell me about cell phones that double as WAAS-equipped GPS receivers. Put up a story when there is a cell phone that includes an EPIRB. Tell me about cell phones which include laser pointers, LED flashlights, high-end MP3 capabilities, and WiFi. I have no interest in what OS they run.
Although I have no definitive statistics with which to counter that, I can tell you that, almost without fail, the spamvertised web pages that I track down almost always lead to Asia. I have to wonder if the Spamhaus reference you cited is somewhat dated -- based on my personal experience.
In fact, Chinanet is the most common offender and I'll point you to this link: http://www.chinanetspam.com/ as evidence . From what I've seen, Chinanet hosts more spammer web sites than any other country.
As to the source of the spam, most seems to be sent by zombie machines, so those are all over the globe, but most are still from Asia. My domain will frequently get hit by a dozen or more zombies each trying to deliver the same message in succession. They normally all fail.
It sounds bad on paper, but the fact of the matter is, the days of universally good manufacturers are gone.
So how many times should you let Company X give you junk for your hard-earned money? If you don't vote with your wallet, what incentive is there for them to stop releasing substandard products?
He's taking the other approach and rewarding them for producing crap. The guy has gone through two ~$200 HPs already and has had problems with both. He's looked at another, but has heard that it, too, has major problems. So now he is thinking about giving HP $650 for a higher end printer in the hopes that it will work better. Maybe that one won't work and he can give them $1,250 for an HP 4250n in the hopes that spending even more will resolve the problem.
He is acting like HP is the only manufacturer on the planet. This isn't 1985. There are lots of manufacturers producing high-quality laser printers -- most selling for a lot less than $650. He should be reading reviews of all laser printers, not going to HP's web site and saying "maybe this one will work better." Frankly, I think that HP has been coasting on their reputation in laser printers for years, selling stuff that's not nearly as good as what the competition has at the same price point.
Irrespective of where they send or host from, the _overwhelming majority_ of spam is sent by americans to americans
So what? The vast majority of Amercans are opposed to spam and don't wish to receive it. Or are you suggesting that we should blame the victims for the actions of a handful of criminals?
If the foreign countries that host the spamvertised web sites and provide e-mail services to spammers were taken off of the net, the spam problem would shrink to a tiny fraction of what it is now. American ISPs, by and large, don't provide mail service or hosting to spammers. Those that do are quickly blacklisted.
But, from what I've seen, there is a tremendous quantity of Brazillian spam and Asian language spam. That has been the majority of what's been sent to my domain and has been the hardest to quash.
If you are so good and you are the only one who build up the internet, why the US didn't keep the network for themselves?
They should have. Instead, they made the mistake of generously letting other countries access it. And now those countries are trying to regulate what U.S. corporations do on a network invented at U.S. taxpayer expense.
Like that we shouldn't have to hear such stupid opinion like that.
I agree that we shouldn't have to hear your stupid opinion, but you posted it, so it's too late for that now.
Why don't we split the internet in half, US and the rest of the world. NO MORE SPAM for people outside the US! wahooo
The spam that people in the U.S. get is mostly sent through other countries. Want to see a spam haven? Look at Chinanet. I run anti-spam.org and I have the logs to show just how much spam is coming from China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Brazil, etc. And plenty comes from Wanadoo.fr, too.
Close down all Google offices in France and tell the French court to go fsck themselves. Then display whatever the h*** you want to, Google.
If the French want to regulate the an international computer network, I suggest that they spend their citizens' tax dollars to fund the development of it. In case they didn't notice, the Internet was developed by the U.S. at taxpayer expense. And don't tell me about HTTP being developed outside of the U.S. That's like claiming Ford should have regulatory rights over the U.S. highway system because some of the cars that use it are Fords.
I don't think spammers usually manually go through their lists and disqualify messages based on the domain
No, because most address CDs sent to spammers are divided out by domain already. See this.
I have heard about a list of known anti-spammers which is used to clean spam lists (since those people will certainly react harshly to any spam they get). Sort of a private "do not spam" thing, but maintained by the spammers themselves.
That's why I usually request that the ISP tell the spammer that I'm the one who complained.
I received an e-mail from MALLAM ADAMU MUSA CIROMA in which he proposed paying for my help in transferring funds out of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN). To make a long story short, he got me to send him $25,000 and I've not heard from him since. Some weeks later, I got e-mail from Prince Soki Mobutu of Zaire. He offered me $2.1 million to help him claim family money from a vault in holland. After sending him over $17,000, he disappeared and e-mails to him bounce.
Now I've just received an e-mail from Mr. Bayo Adeoni, Bank Manager of Union Bank Plc of Nigeria. He is offering me 40% of $20 million dollars if I pose as next of kin to the person who left the money in the bank account. He just needs money up front to pay taxes or fees of some kind. Should I send cash in an envelope or just give him my bank account number? What do the Slashdot readers think?
I wonder if that's as true as it used to be? Not that AOL users have gotten any smarter, but rather that other "run of the mill" ISPs have gotten easier and more user friendly - and connecting a windows pc to the internet is much much easier than it used to be.
"Unlimited" dial-up service can be had for under $7/month. AOL is charging $20/month on a one year contract. Why would an Internet-savvy person spend almost three times as much for a non-standard service like AOL? While the bar has been lowered at all ISPs, AOL continues to cater to the newbies, with reassuring messages about how "safe" their service is. Then there is the AOL content. Let's get real: Anyone who can find their way to Google can dig up much better content than AOL offers.
I think these days the "spammability" of your email is more related to where it was harvested (eBay and other auction sites giving a strong positive, NANAE postings a strong negative) than what domain comes after the at sign.
I get spam sent to the postmaster and abuse accounts at anti-spam.org. The spammers seem to have become less careful in their spamming.
Once again we're talking AOL - 40 or 50 or whatever million email accounts - vs. more run of the mill ISPs which do proportionately more of their business in hosting.
AOL has also been the target of spammers because the average AOL user is less experienced, lacks computer-savvy, and is, therefore, more likely to respond to spam. One spammer said that he'd be out of the spam business if it wasn't for AOL users.
And I don't think it's fair to say that the abuse desk personnel don't have the business acumen to realize that their employers should be cutting off access to bulk friendly hosters: firstly because pretty much everybody with half a brain can figure out the economics behind spam and how order websites fit in and secondly because abuse desk personnel work to guidelines written by other people - and those people certainly do understand how it all works.
Sounds like they need to start looking for other employment. "Just following orders" is a rather weak defense.
But your characterization is really not true. I attended a spam conference in the Washington D.C. area and there were attorneys from AOL present. They had a clue. Then there was a head of an abuse department at a big ISP (not Earthlink size, but the next tier down). He resisted all suggestions to combat spam other than looking at headers and sending complaints. He didn't want to change contracts so that the identity of spammers could be released to spam recipients. He didn't want a contract clause allowing them to fine spammers to recoup investigative and bandwidth costs. He did not want to block access to the spamvertised sites. He didn't want to educate users against responding to spam. He wanted to sit at his desk and continue to draw a paycheck by sending ineffectual e-mails of complaint.
Not too long ago, ISPs have been known to sign so called "pink contracts" with spammers - selling them hosting for spamvertized websites as long as the spam mail doesn't originate from their network. Any abuse mails that make it back to their desks get forwarded to the actual spammers (who can then promote the address to a "confirmed active" list). And we're talking *BIG* ISPs. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory straight out of the X-Files, but there is a major, MAJOR difference in how an ISP treats one of its customers for sending spam from their network vs. hosting sites on their network spamvertized from somewhere else.
I'm well aware of that. I own and run the domain anti-spam.org.
Not to mentiona the fact that ISPs don't seem to want to get into a "tit-for-tat" blacklisting battle because their users can't behave - to the point where they don't even blacklist the majority of offshore, one hundred percent specialized, pure spam hosting operations - people who's every site is some spammer and his stupid penis pills.
Really, how would it hurt, say, Comcast if Chinanet blacklisted them? It just wouldn't put a big economic hurt on Comcast, whereas the spammers would flee Chinanet like rats from a sinking ship if no one on Comcast, AOL, Cox, Earthlink, MSN, etc. could get to web sites on Chinanet. So would legitimate Chinese businesses flee.
Why? Because it isn't in their interest to block it. Spam *mail* costs ISPs a fortune, so it's worth their time to go after that (which is why you see people like Hotmail and AOL going after spammers), but try getting a major ISP to block off traffic to a website on another network.
It is in their interests to block traffic to the websites but the abuse personnel at most ISPs don't have the business acumen to realize that. AOL actually has a clue and is blocking access to spammer web sites. Think about the economics: If you are a major ISP and you block access to spamvertised web sites within minutes of the spam being reported, how effective is such spam to your domain? The ISPs are so busy playing whack-a-mole with the spammers that they are missing the bigger picture: The spammers are doing this as a for-profit business.
The way that the average abuse department operates is analogous to a few people running around swatting flies while ignoring the big, stinking pile of manure in the middle of the room. Why do the spammers send spam to the users? So that the users will visit the spamvertised web sites and order goods and services. Make it impossible for your users to visit the web sites and the incentive to spam your users is gone.
Since US law doesn't apply there, the only option left is to black list their networks.
You are absolutely right. But we need the big ISPs to cooperate. If, say, Chinanet won't take down spammers' web sites, then we need the Chinanet IP blocks cut off at the big pipes. We need the routers configured to redirect web requests (port 80) to a "Chinanet traffic being blocked due to their continued support of spamming." If you shut down an ISP's ability to serve web pages to U.S. users, then you will force the ISP to take action.
While there is no question that there are cases which are not "open & shut", but such cases are, as you point out, in the minority. In those cases, you err on the side of the accused. But if you get complaints about a spamvertised web site from multiple users on AOL, Earthlink, University of Idaho, and Rutgers University, then it's probably pretty easy to classify that as legit and to shut down the offending site.
Basically, your firm is already doing what many would codify into law.
Once you create a law requiring ISPs to monitor and manage email passing through their systems, another law will come right behind it requiring ISPs to monitor and manage all traffic passing through their systems.
No one suggested such a law. The other poster suggested a law that would force ISPs to remove spam support sites. This would include sites advertised through spam. It's not like there are a lot of "enlarge your penis with these pills" sites which are advertised through legitimate means, so if an ISP gets a complaint that they are hosting such a spamvertised site, they have to take action. Simple enough. No monitoring of e-mail is necessary -- or even beneficial.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, my stalker friend returns. Why don't you put up a link to that supposed offer?
If your middle schooler's grasp of logic and rhetoric can't cash the checks your ego is writing, just leave quietly, but please don't pretend to aesthetic sensibilities you quite obviously have never possessed.
Please don't flatter yourself by pretending that you're my intellectual equal, much less my superior. I was doing you the favor of letting you bow out gracefully rather than having me rub your nose in the the fact that you've switched positions more times than a nymphomaniac with a copy of the Kama Sutra. We'll continue this debate when you answer the following points from my earlier post:
Have fun!
I'm off now, but I look forward to your foam^H^H^H^Hinsightful reply.{snip} Till next time, take care, and watch out for any sneaky asians.
It's been enjoyable debating this with you, but our discussion is rapidly devolving, so let's bid each other farewell rather than letting this turn into name calling and insults.
You submit an article that makes the exact point I started this whole discussion with: that the country of origin of the spam (or the country in which the spamvertized website is hosted) is not synonymous with the nationality of the spammer.
I never disagreed with that and was well aware of it. My domain is anti-spam.org. I am currently providing consulting services to a company that produces spam-blocking appliances and software. You can rest assured that I know more about spam than you do.
But the article effectively refuted your claim that U.S. ISPs are the primary ones supporting spam. You should concede that point as well as acknowledging that:
1. The foreign language spam which dominates the inboxes of all Yahoo! Groups moderators is strong evidence that spam is not primarily an 'American on American' problem.
2. Spamhaus's statistics are not based on all spam -- only on the spam that is reported to them -- and that such reports are not random. Reporting a spamvertised site on UUNet is far more likely to result in action being taken than reporting one hosted on Chinanet. That makes it more likely that the former will be reported than the latter. People want to feel like their efforts are likely to be rewarded with swift action against the spammer.
3. The ROKSO list only includes spammers who have been kicked off of three or more ISPs, so spammers who rely on zombies to send their spam while hosting their web sites in China won't be listed (since they won't get kicked off).
But of course, irrespective of the nationality of the person who was behind the sending of the spam that fouled your inbox, china is to blame because it didn't do anything to stop it.
If the spam was sent through China or the spamvertised web site was hosted in China, then China shares the blame for the spam. If you knowingly let a pedophile hide from the police in your basement, then you can bet that the local parents will blame you when he molests their children.
So now please explain why the government of france shouldn't be allowed to regulate the activities of american companies on the internet whereas the government of china is somehow being delinquent in not doing so?
The government of France has a right to regulate what French companies do while the government of China has the right to regulate what Chinese companies do. That hardly seems like a difficult concept. The government of China is being delinquent by not regulating what Chinese ISPs do. That's who they have jurisdiction over.
I did and I stand by it. You want them substantiated? Fine. Here are the subjects of today's replies from Yahoo!'s abuse department complete with their tracking numbers:
Re: Spam Complaint: ÀÁ±øÀÎÀÚÝÁõ "ÀÅëü®ç" ç½ÅÀÇ ÌÂà½ÀÏÙ (KMM17769819V75273L0KM)
Re: Spam Complaint: [spam] Á÷ÀåÀÎ ÃÖÀú±Ý®Î ÃÖíÀÇÇýÅÃÀåÏÙ! (KMM17769825V75298L0KM)
Re: Spam Complaint: ÀüļÖ2+Ä©¼Öð4+Ä©¼ÖÅÃëë1=9900ø (KMM17769823V75283L0KM)
Re: Spam Complaint: [spam]
Re: Spam Complaint: ÀÁ±øÀÎÀÚÝÁõ "ÀÅëü®ç" ç½ÅÀÇ ÌÂà½ÀÏÙ (KMM17769817V75265L0KM)
Re: Spam Complaint: Òðåíèíã "Õî÷ó, Ìîãó, Èìå" (KMM17769814V75244L0KM)
Re: Spam Complaint: [spam] " À ±À¼¼ä ! ëÃâÀ 100% ÇØåÏÙ. "
Re: Spam Complaint: [spam] ÃàÇÏÇÕÏÙ. áëÃâóã Àü®¼ñ½ çÃǼ̽ÀÏÙ.! (KMM17769831V75315L0KM)
Re: Spam Complaint: [spam] 1¾ï øø, Á÷ÀåÀÎ, ãë.Ãâ,Ä.åÀÚ±Ý.. ÃÊ£Æí ÀÎÅÍÝë.Ãâok! (KMM17769830V75311L0KM)
Any of those look like English subjects to you?
Your problem is that you didn't read the Spamhaus site:
That means that a Chinese spammer operating on Chinanet -- which never terminates anyone for spam, will not be listed on ROKSO. You are also taking the absurd position that all spam gets reported to Spamhaus. It doesn't. None of the complaints I showed above were sent to Spamhaus. They went to Yahoo! since Yahoo! relayed the spam to me. Yahoo! may have taken action against the senders. Again, without notifying Spamhaus. When Spamhaus has visibility to only a tiny, self-selecting percentage of spam complaints, why do you assume that their statistics are representative of the larger picture?
It's interesting that when a foreign government tries to regulate what an american company does on the internet your knee jerk reaction is to howl about foreigners trying to "regulate what U.S. corporations do on a network invented at U.S. taxpayer expense", and yet china (your favorite bugbear it would seem) is somehow at fault because american spammers can host in china without fear of legal reprisals.
What's so "interesting"? Why should any foreign government try to regulate what a U.S. firm does on a network invented at U.S. taxpayer expense? The French are guests on the Internet and apparently need to be reminded of that. (Feel free to launch into your tirade again
Basically, my contention here is that spam is a world problem caused largely by slimy americans preying on stupid americans.
I know that is your contention but you are wrong. I am the moderator on the Exact Audio Copy list at Yahoogroups. As moderator, there is a public address for me that spammers harvest. Want to see the subject lines of the last three spams that I got?
Subject: ÃÖíÀ ÀÌÀ ©± ÃʽÇÇå ëÃâ, Á 1À
Subject: =?Windows-1251?B?Q2FyZ28g6Ocg0djA?=
Subject: ëÃâ½ÂÀÎÀ1À-Á÷ÀåÀÎëÃâ(ÀÇà±Ç/ÃÖÀú±Ý®)
Does that look like spam sent from Americans to Americans? That's typical for the spam I get. For every English language spam I get at that address, I get at least a dozen non-English spams. So that's an English language, U.S. based web site hosting an English language mailing list, and the vast majority of spammers harvesting the addresses and spamming are not Americans (or even English speakers).
For my own domain, did a manual lookup on the IP addresses that tried to send spam to it yesterday. Most tried multiple times. I would have listed the IP addresses but Slashdot considers them to be "junk characters":
USA - Road Runner (rr.com)
USA - Mindspring.com
USA - Sprintlink.net
Brazil - brasiltelecom.net.br
Brazil - virtua.com.br
Brazil - {domain not obvious}
Brazil - {domain not obvious}
Brazil - brasiltelecom.net.br
Brazil - veloxzone.com.br
Brazil - telesp.net.br
Brazil - telesp.net.br
Brazil - {domain not obvious}
Brazil - telemar.net.br
Taiwan - unigate.net.tw
Taiwan - unigate.net.tw
India - vsnl.co.in
Taiwan - apol.com.tw
Korea - hanaro.com
Korea - hanaro.com
China - Beijing WANG JU CO.LTD
Three of the IP addresses (15%) were in the USA. The rest (85%) were in Brazil, Taiwan, India, Korea, and China.
Pointing a finger at other countries and claiming that they are somehow just as, if not more, responsible for the world's spam problem is disingenuous. Put your own house in order before you worry about your neighbor's.
If China is providing hosting services to thousands of spammers, they *are* more responsible for the world's spam problem than any one of the spammers they host. Suppose that U.S. corporations were selling weapons to terrorists in your country. Would you feel that you had no right to complain about the U.S. Corporations since the terrorists were citizens of your country attacking citizens of your country? Would you feel that you had no right to complain about those U.S. Corporations until after you captured and jailed all of the terrorists in your country?
Don't blame me for, or tell me that it's my job to police, the spammers in the U.S. There are criminals in every country and those who support them with goods and services are just as guilty as the criminals themselves.
The main problem with the Spamhaus statistics is that they don't have any measure of the quantity of spam related to a tracked case. For instance, if five small-time spammers each send out 20,000 spam e-mails using, say, MCI, then that could be five tracked cases whereas an individual spammer sending out 1,000,000 pieces through Chinanet could be one tracked case. And it's my belief that the big-league spammers have largely gone to Asia for their hosting.
I can only speak for my domains, but I've found that the vast majority of spam that I receive either comes from Asia or relies on Asian web hosting.
Most people will never have use of an EPIRB.
Agreed. I used that as an example of a vertical market feature -- not something to be included on Joe Sixpack's mobile phone.
The WAAS enabled GPS would be most beneficial because it WILL help with getting directions and emergency response times.
It would also be a blessing for boaters who now have to carry a backup GPS in case of failures or electrical problems relating to the primary GPS. As a fisherman, I'd love it. I'd also love being able to waypoint neat spots any time I happened across them.
I am still on the lookout for a waterproof compact flip phone. I go fishing in rivers and have drowned my phone a few times( it has survived every try though, after a week of drying!) I don't even need fully waterproof or JIS-7, even though I would appreciate that as a standard.
I don't care if it's a flip phone or not. Just as long as it is compact and waterproof. I think JIS-7 or CFR-46 are perfectly reasonable standards and ones that have already been met by handheld marine radios for years now.
I see something like a ruggedized, rubber-jacketed, waterproof mobile phone as being very marketable to everyone from mountain bikers to hikers to boaters. I'm just amazed that no such phones are readily available.
I think that Linux on a phone is important because of the stability the system offers.
I've got a high-end Sony T610 (Bluetooth, IRDA, camera, PDA functions, games, color screen, etc.) and it's never crashed.
Since Joe Sixpack is going to be the normal user there really is no worry about the additional features that COULD be included. Even the highest Linux Guru will probably not care in the end as long as the phone performs properly.
Agreed.
I hope that my $0.02 is at least worth rubbing together
It was insightful and thought-provoking. Thanks.
Well, maybe other people have interests that differ from yours?
I'm aware of that, but I'm having trouble understanding who would find this interesting. Linux proponents can't be surprised that it can do something as mundane as run a cell phone. It's not like a cell phone can be used as a workstation, so people looking for portable Linux workstations won't find this information useful. Economists aren't going to be shocked that cell phone vendors are choosing a free (as in beer) operating system. As I said, it's like a story announcing that cell phones using a MAX712 IC are being released. Whoopee!
Twenty New Linux Cell Phones On The Way
I'm not following how this is important. Was there someone who doubted that Linux had the power, or a small enough footprint, to use in a cell phone? Or was there some surprise that a phone maker would be willing to use an OS which cost them nothing? To me, this is like celebrating the release of cell phones using MAX712 ICs (to control the battery charging).
I buy cell phones for the features and performance. I want to hear about cell phones with 3+mp cameras that use SD cards. Tell me about cell phones that double as WAAS-equipped GPS receivers. Put up a story when there is a cell phone that includes an EPIRB. Tell me about cell phones which include laser pointers, LED flashlights, high-end MP3 capabilities, and WiFi. I have no interest in what OS they run.
Although I have no definitive statistics with which to counter that, I can tell you that, almost without fail, the spamvertised web pages that I track down almost always lead to Asia. I have to wonder if the Spamhaus reference you cited is somewhat dated -- based on my personal experience.
In fact, Chinanet is the most common offender and I'll point you to this link: http://www.chinanetspam.com/ as evidence . From what I've seen, Chinanet hosts more spammer web sites than any other country.
As to the source of the spam, most seems to be sent by zombie machines, so those are all over the globe, but most are still from Asia. My domain will frequently get hit by a dozen or more zombies each trying to deliver the same message in succession. They normally all fail.
It sounds bad on paper, but the fact of the matter is, the days of universally good manufacturers are gone.
So how many times should you let Company X give you junk for your hard-earned money? If you don't vote with your wallet, what incentive is there for them to stop releasing substandard products?
He's taking the other approach and rewarding them for producing crap. The guy has gone through two ~$200 HPs already and has had problems with both. He's looked at another, but has heard that it, too, has major problems. So now he is thinking about giving HP $650 for a higher end printer in the hopes that it will work better. Maybe that one won't work and he can give them $1,250 for an HP 4250n in the hopes that spending even more will resolve the problem.
He is acting like HP is the only manufacturer on the planet. This isn't 1985. There are lots of manufacturers producing high-quality laser printers -- most selling for a lot less than $650. He should be reading reviews of all laser printers, not going to HP's web site and saying "maybe this one will work better." Frankly, I think that HP has been coasting on their reputation in laser printers for years, selling stuff that's not nearly as good as what the competition has at the same price point.
The idea of spammers getting spammed with offers for a cd full of emails to send spam to - it's like some kind of f***ed up Escher print.
Well put! It's sort of like the pre-Internet 'make money stuffing envelopes' scam.
To think we all crawled out of the oceans for this.
Given my recent flame wars with the creationists, I'm not even touching that line!
Irrespective of where they send or host from, the _overwhelming majority_ of spam is sent by americans to americans
So what? The vast majority of Amercans are opposed to spam and don't wish to receive it. Or are you suggesting that we should blame the victims for the actions of a handful of criminals?
If the foreign countries that host the spamvertised web sites and provide e-mail services to spammers were taken off of the net, the spam problem would shrink to a tiny fraction of what it is now. American ISPs, by and large, don't provide mail service or hosting to spammers. Those that do are quickly blacklisted.
But, from what I've seen, there is a tremendous quantity of Brazillian spam and Asian language spam. That has been the majority of what's been sent to my domain and has been the hardest to quash.
If you are so good and you are the only one who build up the internet, why the US didn't keep the network for themselves?
They should have. Instead, they made the mistake of generously letting other countries access it. And now those countries are trying to regulate what U.S. corporations do on a network invented at U.S. taxpayer expense.
Like that we shouldn't have to hear such stupid opinion like that.
I agree that we shouldn't have to hear your stupid opinion, but you posted it, so it's too late for that now.
Why don't we split the internet in half, US and the rest of the world. NO MORE SPAM for people outside the US! wahooo
The spam that people in the U.S. get is mostly sent through other countries. Want to see a spam haven? Look at Chinanet. I run anti-spam.org and I have the logs to show just how much spam is coming from China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Brazil, etc. And plenty comes from Wanadoo.fr, too.
Close down all Google offices in France and tell the French court to go fsck themselves. Then display whatever the h*** you want to, Google.
If the French want to regulate the an international computer network, I suggest that they spend their citizens' tax dollars to fund the development of it. In case they didn't notice, the Internet was developed by the U.S. at taxpayer expense. And don't tell me about HTTP being developed outside of the U.S. That's like claiming Ford should have regulatory rights over the U.S. highway system because some of the cars that use it are Fords.
I don't think spammers usually manually go through their lists and disqualify messages based on the domain
No, because most address CDs sent to spammers are divided out by domain already. See this.
I have heard about a list of known anti-spammers which is used to clean spam lists (since those people will certainly react harshly to any spam they get). Sort of a private "do not spam" thing, but maintained by the spammers themselves.
That's why I usually request that the ISP tell the spammer that I'm the one who complained.
What Linux Distribution is the Best for Games?
And which Lotus is best for off-roading?
You hit that one on the head. What a dimwit!
Dear Ask Slashdot,
I received an e-mail from MALLAM ADAMU MUSA CIROMA in which he proposed paying for my help in transferring funds out of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN). To make a long story short, he got me to send him $25,000 and I've not heard from him since. Some weeks later, I got e-mail from Prince Soki Mobutu of Zaire. He offered me $2.1 million to help him claim family money from a vault in holland. After sending him over $17,000, he disappeared and e-mails to him bounce.
Now I've just received an e-mail from Mr. Bayo Adeoni, Bank Manager of Union Bank Plc of Nigeria. He is offering me 40% of $20 million dollars if I pose as next of kin to the person who left the money in the bank account. He just needs money up front to pay taxes or fees of some kind. Should I send cash in an envelope or just give him my bank account number? What do the Slashdot readers think?
I wonder if that's as true as it used to be? Not that AOL users have gotten any smarter, but rather that other "run of the mill" ISPs have gotten easier and more user friendly - and connecting a windows pc to the internet is much much easier than it used to be.
"Unlimited" dial-up service can be had for under $7/month. AOL is charging $20/month on a one year contract. Why would an Internet-savvy person spend almost three times as much for a non-standard service like AOL? While the bar has been lowered at all ISPs, AOL continues to cater to the newbies, with reassuring messages about how "safe" their service is. Then there is the AOL content. Let's get real: Anyone who can find their way to Google can dig up much better content than AOL offers.
I think these days the "spammability" of your email is more related to where it was harvested (eBay and other auction sites giving a strong positive, NANAE postings a strong negative) than what domain comes after the at sign.
I get spam sent to the postmaster and abuse accounts at anti-spam.org. The spammers seem to have become less careful in their spamming.
Once again we're talking AOL - 40 or 50 or whatever million email accounts - vs. more run of the mill ISPs which do proportionately more of their business in hosting.
AOL has also been the target of spammers because the average AOL user is less experienced, lacks computer-savvy, and is, therefore, more likely to respond to spam. One spammer said that he'd be out of the spam business if it wasn't for AOL users.
All in all, it's just a little too cosy.
On that, we can agree 100%!
And I don't think it's fair to say that the abuse desk personnel don't have the business acumen to realize that their employers should be cutting off access to bulk friendly hosters: firstly because pretty much everybody with half a brain can figure out the economics behind spam and how order websites fit in and secondly because abuse desk personnel work to guidelines written by other people - and those people certainly do understand how it all works.
Sounds like they need to start looking for other employment. "Just following orders" is a rather weak defense.
But your characterization is really not true. I attended a spam conference in the Washington D.C. area and there were attorneys from AOL present. They had a clue. Then there was a head of an abuse department at a big ISP (not Earthlink size, but the next tier down). He resisted all suggestions to combat spam other than looking at headers and sending complaints. He didn't want to change contracts so that the identity of spammers could be released to spam recipients. He didn't want a contract clause allowing them to fine spammers to recoup investigative and bandwidth costs. He did not want to block access to the spamvertised sites. He didn't want to educate users against responding to spam. He wanted to sit at his desk and continue to draw a paycheck by sending ineffectual e-mails of complaint.
Not too long ago, ISPs have been known to sign so called "pink contracts" with spammers - selling them hosting for spamvertized websites as long as the spam mail doesn't originate from their network. Any abuse mails that make it back to their desks get forwarded to the actual spammers (who can then promote the address to a "confirmed active" list). And we're talking *BIG* ISPs. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory straight out of the X-Files, but there is a major, MAJOR difference in how an ISP treats one of its customers for sending spam from their network vs. hosting sites on their network spamvertized from somewhere else.
I'm well aware of that. I own and run the domain anti-spam.org.
Not to mentiona the fact that ISPs don't seem to want to get into a "tit-for-tat" blacklisting battle because their users can't behave - to the point where they don't even blacklist the majority of offshore, one hundred percent specialized, pure spam hosting operations - people who's every site is some spammer and his stupid penis pills.
Really, how would it hurt, say, Comcast if Chinanet blacklisted them? It just wouldn't put a big economic hurt on Comcast, whereas the spammers would flee Chinanet like rats from a sinking ship if no one on Comcast, AOL, Cox, Earthlink, MSN, etc. could get to web sites on Chinanet. So would legitimate Chinese businesses flee.
Why? Because it isn't in their interest to block it. Spam *mail* costs ISPs a fortune, so it's worth their time to go after that (which is why you see people like Hotmail and AOL going after spammers), but try getting a major ISP to block off traffic to a website on another network.
It is in their interests to block traffic to the websites but the abuse personnel at most ISPs don't have the business acumen to realize that. AOL actually has a clue and is blocking access to spammer web sites. Think about the economics: If you are a major ISP and you block access to spamvertised web sites within minutes of the spam being reported, how effective is such spam to your domain? The ISPs are so busy playing whack-a-mole with the spammers that they are missing the bigger picture: The spammers are doing this as a for-profit business.
The way that the average abuse department operates is analogous to a few people running around swatting flies while ignoring the big, stinking pile of manure in the middle of the room. Why do the spammers send spam to the users? So that the users will visit the spamvertised web sites and order goods and services. Make it impossible for your users to visit the web sites and the incentive to spam your users is gone.
Since US law doesn't apply there, the only option left is to black list their networks.
You are absolutely right. But we need the big ISPs to cooperate. If, say, Chinanet won't take down spammers' web sites, then we need the Chinanet IP blocks cut off at the big pipes. We need the routers configured to redirect web requests (port 80) to a "Chinanet traffic being blocked due to their continued support of spamming." If you shut down an ISP's ability to serve web pages to U.S. users, then you will force the ISP to take action.
While there is no question that there are cases which are not "open & shut", but such cases are, as you point out, in the minority. In those cases, you err on the side of the accused. But if you get complaints about a spamvertised web site from multiple users on AOL, Earthlink, University of Idaho, and Rutgers University, then it's probably pretty easy to classify that as legit and to shut down the offending site.
Basically, your firm is already doing what many would codify into law.
Once you create a law requiring ISPs to monitor and manage email passing through their systems, another law will come right behind it requiring ISPs to monitor and manage all traffic passing through their systems.
No one suggested such a law. The other poster suggested a law that would force ISPs to remove spam support sites. This would include sites advertised through spam. It's not like there are a lot of "enlarge your penis with these pills" sites which are advertised through legitimate means, so if an ISP gets a complaint that they are hosting such a spamvertised site, they have to take action. Simple enough. No monitoring of e-mail is necessary -- or even beneficial.