This is interesting because it brings up the different reasons one could use a service like MAPS.
The first goal (and the one I was addressing) is to correctly identify the IP addressess from which spam originates. Clearly, MAPS did a miserable job in this case. Even with the possibiility that someone with a large number of IPs in the block could have been reassigning them to spammers (the observed behaviour that you mention), there is still no way my IP or the original poster's IP could have ever become spam sources. We had the rights to our IPs and were not using them for spam. Thus, even if they were trying to take action based on historical patterns of spammer/ISP relationships, they apparently vastly overshot the mark and failed to select appropriate IPs for blacklisting. (Aside: the True Positive Fraction/False Positive Fraction is one of the standard numbers used by both the military and medical communities to evaluate the usefulness of a test. It's a good standard for measuring spam blocking as well.)
The second goal (and the one I believe you are addressing) is an activist role. In this case the internet community agrees, by following the MAPS blacklist, to take direct action against certain companies with the aim of damaging them financially. This is a political tactic with a long history in different communities and locations and one that should be evaluated carefully (e.g., is this the best tactic? is MAPS the best group to be following blindly?). I certainly don't have the answer.
My concluding point is that a lot of people suggest using organizations like MAPS because they are effective at identifying sources of spam. Clearly this is not the case. Alternately, people who want to use their email servers to particiapte in political action against spammers and their associates may find MAPS useful. As long as we keep our goals straight, then I totally with your argument (being an admin dealing with the spam headache as well).
The False Positive/True Positive Ratio
on
Should You Trust MAPS?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I'm an admin on another small service who was hit by the same MAPS tantrum. Some people on here seem to be posting comments that illustrate confusion about what went on. In the simplest terms it is this: a large number of IPs were blacklisted by MAPS even though the vast majority of those IPs were allocated to servers with responsible admins that had never sent spam. Many of the IPs in those blocks had been leased to smaller co-lo sites and then leased again to organizations like my own. Apparently, though, the decision was to block all IPs belonging to the highest-level organization; a completely ridiculous decision.
Once more to make it clear: many of the blocked IPs were in no way related to spamming. Please do not respond by saying "you've admitted there was some spam". The truth is that many people were punished because they happen to share the same block.
Say what you want about the need to fight spammers. Any system that produces 180,000 false positives to get one true positive is not useful. MAPS has clearly demonstrated that they are not a useful system for preventing spam.
Re:So why the US don't follow Canada's steps...
on
NYT on EA Games
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· Score: 1
Short Answer: you don't want to do that because the Canadian system is toothless and/or specifically biased against programmers.
EA in Burnaby, British Columbia *should* follow the rules you link to since those are BC provincial laws. Knowing people who work at EA in Burnaby, it's quite clear that those laws don't mean jack and are not enforced. The process for actually asserting your labour rights is not in your favour unless you've got a large organization (e.g., a union) to support your claim.
At the federal level, the Canadian government is helping the exploitive employer even more. Federal labour law specifically *excludes* programmers and IT people from labour protection laws. My introduction to this was when I worked as a programmer at Mitra in Waterloo, Ontario writing medical software. Managment kindly posted a summary of the applicable labour laws in the lunch room. They even went to the trouble of highlighting the portions that showed the list of normal labour laws (like caps on working hours, pay for overtime, etc.) that did not apply to programmers.
So Canada demonstrates that US workers shouldn't look to the government for help because the government lacks effective enforcement and usually would rather help employers. Workers should rely on the tested-and-true solution: organize to deal with abusive employers.
Slashdot Mirror
This is interesting because it brings up the different reasons one could use a service like MAPS.
The first goal (and the one I was addressing) is to correctly identify the IP addressess from which spam originates. Clearly, MAPS did a miserable job in this case. Even with the possibiility that someone with a large number of IPs in the block could have been reassigning them to spammers (the observed behaviour that you mention), there is still no way my IP or the original poster's IP could have ever become spam sources. We had the rights to our IPs and were not using them for spam. Thus, even if they were trying to take action based on historical patterns of spammer/ISP relationships, they apparently vastly overshot the mark and failed to select appropriate IPs for blacklisting. (Aside: the True Positive Fraction/False Positive Fraction is one of the standard numbers used by both the military and medical communities to evaluate the usefulness of a test. It's a good standard for measuring spam blocking as well.)
The second goal (and the one I believe you are addressing) is an activist role. In this case the internet community agrees, by following the MAPS blacklist, to take direct action against certain companies with the aim of damaging them financially. This is a political tactic with a long history in different communities and locations and one that should be evaluated carefully (e.g., is this the best tactic? is MAPS the best group to be following blindly?). I certainly don't have the answer.
My concluding point is that a lot of people suggest using organizations like MAPS because they are effective at identifying sources of spam. Clearly this is not the case. Alternately, people who want to use their email servers to particiapte in political action against spammers and their associates may find MAPS useful. As long as we keep our goals straight, then I totally with your argument (being an admin dealing with the spam headache as well).
I'm an admin on another small service who was hit by the same MAPS tantrum. Some people on here seem to be posting comments that illustrate confusion about what went on. In the simplest terms it is this: a large number of IPs were blacklisted by MAPS even though the vast majority of those IPs were allocated to servers with responsible admins that had never sent spam. Many of the IPs in those blocks had been leased to smaller co-lo sites and then leased again to organizations like my own. Apparently, though, the decision was to block all IPs belonging to the highest-level organization; a completely ridiculous decision.
Once more to make it clear: many of the blocked IPs were in no way related to spamming. Please do not respond by saying "you've admitted there was some spam". The truth is that many people were punished because they happen to share the same block.
Say what you want about the need to fight spammers. Any system that produces 180,000 false positives to get one true positive is not useful. MAPS has clearly demonstrated that they are not a useful system for preventing spam.
Short Answer: you don't want to do that because the Canadian system is toothless and/or specifically biased against programmers.
EA in Burnaby, British Columbia *should* follow the rules you link to since those are BC provincial laws. Knowing people who work at EA in Burnaby, it's quite clear that those laws don't mean jack and are not enforced. The process for actually asserting your labour rights is not in your favour unless you've got a large organization (e.g., a union) to support your claim.
At the federal level, the Canadian government is helping the exploitive employer even more. Federal labour law specifically *excludes* programmers and IT people from labour protection laws. My introduction to this was when I worked as a programmer at Mitra in Waterloo, Ontario writing medical software. Managment kindly posted a summary of the applicable labour laws in the lunch room. They even went to the trouble of highlighting the portions that showed the list of normal labour laws (like caps on working hours, pay for overtime, etc.) that did not apply to programmers.
So Canada demonstrates that US workers shouldn't look to the government for help because the government lacks effective enforcement and usually would rather help employers. Workers should rely on the tested-and-true solution: organize to deal with abusive employers.