There is one group of people who are fond of using the word "anti" to describe those who dislike spam.
No, there are two groups. Spammers use it, and so do anti-spammers. I'm an anti-spammer.
Overall, I agree with you. He's a self-admitted spammer, and it sounds like he's just doing PR work. Not too bright, that - spammers do better when they hide like cockroaches. They can't live in the light of day.
Many ISP's do scan emails for viruses. I know this because those ISP's then send emails to me about how I'm distributing viruses. The ISP's are smart enough to protect their users, but stupid enough to bother the people who are forged in the FROM line. It gets very irritating.
I think it's intentional on the part of the anti-virus companies. It's a way for them to essentially spam their advertisement without sending it themselves. They should, of course, know that most viruses are going to fake the From line and leave the person alone. If they want to try to fix the problem, they should find out who owns the IP address where the virus originated and email them.
Re:Annoyance to those who do legit mass emails
on
Spam Bits
·
· Score: 1
Some people will make errors when they write down their email address - or they won't want to give you their real address, so they'll write down a "made up" address. This leads to you sending unwanted, unasked for email to someone else.
The same thing happens if your data entry person makes a typo while entering the information.
Software is available to handle double-opt in processing without any manuall involvement, so claiming it takes "too much time" isn't a very good answer.
The way you are doing it, at least some recipients are going to feel they are being spammed - and some have probably never heard of your organization outside of the spam you've sent them.
Re:Combating SPAM is easy, if you have the technol
on
DSPAM v2.10 Released
·
· Score: 1
I don't get SPAM. I don't have SPAM filters.
You don't have any public email addresses. But if you want the general public to be able to easily email you, your "they don't know my email address so they can't spam me" system doesn't work. If you register a domain, you have to make an address public - and it will get spammed.
Hiding from spammers will certainly limit how much spam you get. But it has other drawbacks. Some people need to have a public address, one that doesn't change every week, and they need to be able to find the legitimate mail sent to that address.
This is better than the "small price" schemes because it doesn't cost anything. Well, unless you're A) a spammer or B) sending email to dickheads.
or C) Some spambag forges your address.
Not to mention that in order to do this, someone has to administrate it, handle the payments, etc, and they are going to charge for every email they have to process. Microsoft is *begging* to get a fraction of cent for every email sent. They'll love you for supporting them.
But who gets to decide who hosts spammers and who doesn't? Most of the spam comes from infected and/or compromised machines, or misconfigured proxies etc. so you can't really block those.
Why the hell not? They are, in your own words, infected/compromised, correct? Why would I want those machines talking to mine? If the user of that machine is sending legitimat mail, he's sending it via his ISP's mailserver, not direct. Anything that machine is sending directly is crap.
Re:I want a filter dammit. Server side doesn't cut
on
DSPAM v2.10 Released
·
· Score: 1
www.mailwasher.net. That's the tool I've found most effective for windows users. YMMV.
He's 42 years old, lives with his dad, and is surprised that large companies are jumping his ass just because he's been giving their software away to as many people as possible.
What did he expect? They were going to send roses? Poke the bear, and the bear doesn't like you...
Quote from the article:
"Their preliminary data suggest that a coin will land the same way it started about 51 percent of the time. "
Your 80% figure is a lie. You have honesty issues.
Re:Wow, they requested this?
on
Spam Bits
·
· Score: 1
I began the post you replied to by saying "Many of the spammers make money by..."
Don't go pretending that I said that spammers never make money - I said the exact opposite. I have no question that some of them make money, and I know several different ways they can do it.
Re:I can't stand it anymore!
on
Spam Bits
·
· Score: 1
How eloquent and so full of undisputable reasoning.
I agree with him. Either your ignorant, or your a troll. I tend to beleive that the correct answer is "both".
Re:Boycott of Microsoft caller ID for email
on
Spam Bits
·
· Score: 1
On the boycott-email-caller-id.org page, it says "No other anti-spam technologies are covered by patents."
However, challenge response is an anti-spam technique that
has patent issues. (Not that I'm advocating challenge-response.)
Similarly, Microsoft has a patent which they could probably
argue covers bayesian filtering (though they have not, to
my knowledge, tried to enforce anything on this patent) and
patents have been filed for limited use email addresses.
More information here.
Re:Wow, they requested this?
on
Spam Bits
·
· Score: 1
Many of the spammer make money by convincing some company that this will be effective advertising. The company pays for the spam, the spammer sends the spam. The spammer makes a profit, regardless of whether the company actually gets any business out if it. For that matter, it may do some major harm to the companys reputation - but the spammer still made a profit, and he'll continue to fleece other suckers.
Re:Annoyance to those who do legit mass emails
on
Spam Bits
·
· Score: 1
I belong to a club that does mass emails to our members and to folks that members have invited to our club functions. Everyone on our email list gave us their email in writing and every email we send allows opt out.
Do you require the people who you add to your email list to respond to a confirmation message when they join your list? If so, then you know that those people really asked to be on your mailing list, and you can prove that you aren't spamming.
On the other hand, if your "member" invites a "friend" to a function, and you sign up the friends address and start sending emails to them, then you are spamming, and I don't blame people for complaining.
The marketers like to call this "double opt in", because they hate to admit that without confirmation, any "opt in" list is, at least to some of the recipients, just spam.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you are probably spamming.
This link will help explain it.
There are a large number of email programs out there, yes. Most just try to do what all the others already do.
But try to do something that isn't already common, and I'll lay you odds you would have patent issues. I mentioned using challenge/response as a tool against spam. Try sticking "challenge response patent" into Google and you get 285,000 hits, for instance.
That's one example. For all I know, there are patents to keep you from auto-white-listing addresses you've talked to, patents on how the user-interface looks/feels/works, etc.
Sure, you could write an email program that just does the basics, like every other email program. But try to do any inovation, and I bet you get stuck. It wouldn't surprise me if that is why there has been such little progress in email programs in the last 5 years - if you do more than that, you get sued.
My email program example is just an example. My main point is that patents, as currently used, are a hinderance to innovation.
In such an environment, almost nobody will be willing to innovate.
As things are going, the patent system makes it darn near impossible to innovate.
I think email programs have been stuck for a long time. I can think of a number of things I'd like them to do that they don't do currently. So lets say I write my own, with plans to sell it. I'd want it to have some protections to help get rid of spam, to help avoid the common viruses, etc, in addition to some things that would simply make email more useful. I'd also probably want it to be able to do essentially the same thing with usenet messages - usenet isn't that different from email, so go for the gusto, right?
How long before I get hit with a ton of "You used our patent here" stuff? Not long after it went public, I suspect.
Companies have filed suits claiming they own patents to HTML links, for god sakes. And to websites that use a menu system which stays the same as you go from page to page. And all kinds of other things. More than one company using Challlenge/Response as a solution to spam (nothing more than a hand-shake, IMO) have claimed that they own the patent to that.
If patents had been available for software back then, Visicalc would probably still be the best spreadsheet program around, as nobody else would be allowed to design a spreadsheet. Lord knows what we would be limited to when it comes to word processors and databases.
I can understand a reasonable amount of protection for non-obvious ideas that take a lot of time and effort to make work, but the way the patent system is going is *not* going to increase the number of people/companies who develop technology, it's going to limit the number who can do it.
Only companies with lots of money and good lawyers are going to even have a shot. How does that help anyone except a select few?
The Finns have noticed that no-one understands Finnish, so they've become extremely good at putting things in more popular languages. For example you can get the news in Latin courtesy of Finnish Radio
They want more people to understand, so they go to Latin, a dead language? That's so very sad.
Having never received legitimate mail from Russia, China, or Korea, I say to hell with all of them. Yeah, I'd block them. They can block me back - won't bother me a bit.
Or use a "sender pays but only if the recipient wants to charge" scheme.
It is currently not possible to tell who sent the mail. Spammers send mail claiming to be from my domain quite often. Are you planning to charge me when they spam you? Screw that.
Until email has a way to verify who actually sent it, you can't even start talking about billing for it. Once you can verify who sent it, I believe spam gets a lot easier to deal with.
Even without looking at the problems associated with "who does the billing, who tracks it, how do you avoid spammers joe-jobbing someone then billing Joe for the spam that he supposedly spent, etc, pay to email simply isn't ready.
And I seriously doubt that it will be needed or useful once the verification is possible - because it gets a lot easier to solve the problem then.
Sounds like you should vote to raise taxes and hire some more police.
If they hire more police, they'll just write more speeding tickets and complain about houses with weeds too high in the alley and arrest people for smoking pot and such. The cops don't attempt to catch plain-old-regular criminals, because they don't find it profitable.
Slashdot Mirror
No, there are two groups. Spammers use it, and so do anti-spammers. I'm an anti-spammer.
Overall, I agree with you. He's a self-admitted spammer, and it sounds like he's just doing PR work. Not too bright, that - spammers do better when they hide like cockroaches. They can't live in the light of day.
I think it's intentional on the part of the anti-virus companies. It's a way for them to essentially spam their advertisement without sending it themselves. They should, of course, know that most viruses are going to fake the From line and leave the person alone. If they want to try to fix the problem, they should find out who owns the IP address where the virus originated and email them.
The same thing happens if your data entry person makes a typo while entering the information.
Software is available to handle double-opt in processing without any manuall involvement, so claiming it takes "too much time" isn't a very good answer.
The way you are doing it, at least some recipients are going to feel they are being spammed - and some have probably never heard of your organization outside of the spam you've sent them.
You don't have any public email addresses. But if you want the general public to be able to easily email you, your "they don't know my email address so they can't spam me" system doesn't work. If you register a domain, you have to make an address public - and it will get spammed.
Hiding from spammers will certainly limit how much spam you get. But it has other drawbacks. Some people need to have a public address, one that doesn't change every week, and they need to be able to find the legitimate mail sent to that address.
or C) Some spambag forges your address.
Not to mention that in order to do this, someone has to administrate it, handle the payments, etc, and they are going to charge for every email they have to process. Microsoft is *begging* to get a fraction of cent for every email sent. They'll love you for supporting them.
I'll pass, thanks all the same.
Why the hell not? They are, in your own words, infected/compromised, correct? Why would I want those machines talking to mine? If the user of that machine is sending legitimat mail, he's sending it via his ISP's mailserver, not direct. Anything that machine is sending directly is crap.
www.mailwasher.net. That's the tool I've found most effective for windows users. YMMV.
What did he expect? They were going to send roses? Poke the bear, and the bear doesn't like you...
"Their preliminary data suggest that a coin will land the same way it started about 51 percent of the time. "
Your 80% figure is a lie. You have honesty issues.
Don't go pretending that I said that spammers never make money - I said the exact opposite. I have no question that some of them make money, and I know several different ways they can do it.
I agree with him. Either your ignorant, or your a troll. I tend to beleive that the correct answer is "both".
However, challenge response is an anti-spam technique that has patent issues. (Not that I'm advocating challenge-response.)
Similarly, Microsoft has a patent which they could probably argue covers bayesian filtering (though they have not, to my knowledge, tried to enforce anything on this patent) and patents have been filed for limited use email addresses. More information here.
Many of the spammer make money by convincing some company that this will be effective advertising. The company pays for the spam, the spammer sends the spam. The spammer makes a profit, regardless of whether the company actually gets any business out if it. For that matter, it may do some major harm to the companys reputation - but the spammer still made a profit, and he'll continue to fleece other suckers.
Do you require the people who you add to your email list to respond to a confirmation message when they join your list? If so, then you know that those people really asked to be on your mailing list, and you can prove that you aren't spamming.
On the other hand, if your "member" invites a "friend" to a function, and you sign up the friends address and start sending emails to them, then you are spamming, and I don't blame people for complaining.
The marketers like to call this "double opt in", because they hate to admit that without confirmation, any "opt in" list is, at least to some of the recipients, just spam.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you are probably spamming. This link will help explain it.
And you believed them? Shame on you. The can-spam act was widely discussed before the vote.
But try to do something that isn't already common, and I'll lay you odds you would have patent issues. I mentioned using challenge/response as a tool against spam. Try sticking "challenge response patent" into Google and you get 285,000 hits, for instance.
That's one example. For all I know, there are patents to keep you from auto-white-listing addresses you've talked to, patents on how the user-interface looks/feels/works, etc.
Sure, you could write an email program that just does the basics, like every other email program. But try to do any inovation, and I bet you get stuck. It wouldn't surprise me if that is why there has been such little progress in email programs in the last 5 years - if you do more than that, you get sued.
My email program example is just an example. My main point is that patents, as currently used, are a hinderance to innovation.
As things are going, the patent system makes it darn near impossible to innovate.
I think email programs have been stuck for a long time. I can think of a number of things I'd like them to do that they don't do currently. So lets say I write my own, with plans to sell it. I'd want it to have some protections to help get rid of spam, to help avoid the common viruses, etc, in addition to some things that would simply make email more useful. I'd also probably want it to be able to do essentially the same thing with usenet messages - usenet isn't that different from email, so go for the gusto, right?
How long before I get hit with a ton of "You used our patent here" stuff? Not long after it went public, I suspect.
Companies have filed suits claiming they own patents to HTML links, for god sakes. And to websites that use a menu system which stays the same as you go from page to page. And all kinds of other things. More than one company using Challlenge/Response as a solution to spam (nothing more than a hand-shake, IMO) have claimed that they own the patent to that.
If patents had been available for software back then, Visicalc would probably still be the best spreadsheet program around, as nobody else would be allowed to design a spreadsheet. Lord knows what we would be limited to when it comes to word processors and databases.
I can understand a reasonable amount of protection for non-obvious ideas that take a lot of time and effort to make work, but the way the patent system is going is *not* going to increase the number of people/companies who develop technology, it's going to limit the number who can do it.
Only companies with lots of money and good lawyers are going to even have a shot. How does that help anyone except a select few?
Sounds to me like they've solved that old problem about people who won't vote... :^)
Not all Americans speak English. Trust me on this - I live in Texas. :^)
They want more people to understand, so they go to Latin, a dead language? That's so very sad.
Having never received legitimate mail from Russia, China, or Korea, I say to hell with all of them. Yeah, I'd block them. They can block me back - won't bother me a bit.
It is currently not possible to tell who sent the mail. Spammers send mail claiming to be from my domain quite often. Are you planning to charge me when they spam you? Screw that.
Until email has a way to verify who actually sent it, you can't even start talking about billing for it. Once you can verify who sent it, I believe spam gets a lot easier to deal with.
Even without looking at the problems associated with "who does the billing, who tracks it, how do you avoid spammers joe-jobbing someone then billing Joe for the spam that he supposedly spent, etc, pay to email simply isn't ready.
And I seriously doubt that it will be needed or useful once the verification is possible - because it gets a lot easier to solve the problem then.
I hate PDF's. Hit page-down, wait 5 seconds (sometimes longer) for the next page to show. Hit page-up, wait again. They drive me crazy.
When the usable goods belong to someone who wants them, and a thief steals and sells them, you're whole theory pretty much false apart.
I hope someone robs your house and steals your car. You deserve it.
If they hire more police, they'll just write more speeding tickets and complain about houses with weeds too high in the alley and arrest people for smoking pot and such. The cops don't attempt to catch plain-old-regular criminals, because they don't find it profitable.