SPAM 1

[SPYDERIX]

Can and will this ever stop? Every day I dread opening my email due to the growing number of spam emails in my junk mail folder. I have to open my junk mail folder because I have a forwarding account that sends mail to my hotmail, so if you aren't on my address book you will go into the junk mail folder. I have to sort out all the crap about: buy this, get this discount, you have won this - now fill out a million forms do this and that and enter to win. I thought you just said I won. What about those people who use an internet cafe or are still on dialup, or use a kiosk? they pay one dollar for 5 minutes, the computer is slow as hell, the mouse never works, and you have to sift through what seems like an endless continuation of crap before you can read relevant emails, by which time you've spent about $10.

Is there anything one can actually do to fight spam. Will you actually be able to go after an individual or organization that likes to play this annoying game. What actions can be taken?

There is a website that I have come across that talks about spam and what it is and what you can do, but will it actually help? The site is

http://www.cauce.org/

Who says that if you go after a spammer, he or she won't sell their master list to someone it attempts to keep spam alive.

It sounds like it's more trouble than it's worth to actually go after these people. An obvious solution is to just create a new email account and be very vary about when you use it online and if you should hyperlink it anywhere online. I don't want to have to continuously create new accounts. I shouldn't have to, no-one should! Spammers know that not everyone is going to come after them, which makes spamming so vicious.

It's comparable to major software companies and piracy. A major software company isn't going to come after John Doe 123 Easy St. for a pirated copy of X-program, it's not worth the time, money or effort, and it's the same with spam. Most of you probably just deleted the spam or filter it to the trash immidiately and never do anything about it.

Can this and will this ever stop? Will the world ever be rid of spam?

NATE
design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[Tarwn]

One point I though I would mention...
I would rather ISP's not start blocking content they believe is Spam. I hate spam with a passion, so lt me give an example:
Last week I was in Atlanta on business and tried to write an email to my girlfriend from the hotel room (we work opposite schedules). I plugged in and set up my connection at the hotel and emailed out a quick letter. It came back from a postmaster. So I tried again (of course) this time typing her name very carefully rather than using the one in my old contact list. It to came back. When I got home I had both emails sitting in my inbox on my home machine as well, which I thought was rather odd. Well, come to find out my girlfriend was having trouble mailing me as well and when I logged into her account I noticed several returned emails from road runner (home account). Turns out that the online service she uses for mail has been classified as a spammer and/or unprotected network by road runner, so now they block every single letter. I did not receive notice that they would do this and since have sent in a very nasty complaint (the basis being that 90% of my firewall traffic is from their ip address range).
Since then they have not contacted me, but amazingly she can email me again.

Basically the point is that I don't want my ISP blocking mail for me. What if my e-bills start being blocked by some program because they mail out "bulk mail", or someone makes the mistake of mailing jokes out to me on a regular basis, always with a large list of addresses?

The worst thing is that spammers will find away around it. This is pretty near free advertising that, even though the return is amazingly low, still geneerates more business per dollar than a lot of other forms of advertising.

Just my outlook,
-Tarwn The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch, and a user with an idea
-computer saying (Wiz Biz - Rick Cook)

 

[johnny99]

You are very lucky.
I also have my own domain on my own small linux box.
I get more then 1.000 spam emails a day. (last 24 hours more then 4.500) but at least I can filter something like 90% out.

I filter it out using access.db in sendmail and ordb.org and others.

I normaly use Outlook, but I only read mail from my own domain using Eudora because there is not so many worms that go after Eudora.

Getting ISP's to handle the problem will be very difficult. The few ISP's that try to do something about the problem is also the ISP's that have the smallest problem.

At my domain I have cut out big parts of Korea and China and that helps, but the real big problem is mostly some of the large ISP's in the US.

/johnny

 

[Tezdread]

This is why I love forums )

Good points, and angels that I had not previously looked at.

50 emails a day! hey would rather that than 1000... It probably takes just a couple of mins to go through so I shouldn't be complaining.

"What you see as valuable information may be seen as spam to another user on your ISP's server." Well put wullie.

I am in the process of setting up a SuSE linux box myself and hope to use this to host my own site, not sure if I will bind it or use DYNDNS services so it is good to see that I may be able to get extra help with the filtering of spam. Would like to know more about this, if you have any links/info.


Tezdread
"With every solution comes a new problem"

 

[johnny99]

If the people that use mass-mailing would follow the basic rules in this document:

http://mail-abuse.org/manage.html

the problem would be very small.

Sometimes a list owner writes back to me and tells me that I myself opt-ed in to their mailing lists.

When I ask them to send something that will document their claim they don't have it. In a few cases they send me an IP-number and date/time but they never have any verification.

Telling me that someone entered my email address in their systems doesn't give them right to bomb me with junk mail.

If someone wrote my name on a check that bounces will also not make me pay for it.

/johnny

 

[SteveTheGeek]

Nothing irritates me more than reading "you've elected to receive this by signing up [or whatever] with us or one of our business associates..." Those lying sacks of dung! It remains inconceivable to me that anyone would actually express interest in the 940th advertisement for viagra, bad sites, low-cost mortgages, or be-your-own-boss stuff. If they were interested, one of the first dozen offers would have hooked them by now, right? You'd think they'd have reached all the morons/prospective customers on the planet at least ten times over at this point...
-Steve

 

[petermeachem]

The thing has got to be addressed sometime and fixed. I don't know how but the avalanche of junk means that e-mail is going to be devalued. My children get spam offering them American mortgages and worse. It is getting worse week by week.
I would rather like to send an advert to about 1000 potential customers. I was going to buy a pukka list of real people who run real businesses in this country of the type I need to contact, send them a flyer and ring them all up afterwards. I'm not so sure now. They would probably just take it as spam and put them right off the product. Peter Meachem
peter @ accuflight.com

 

[MasterRacker]

Here's an article in Network World. He's probably right - the war's already lost.

http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2002/0902gibbs.html

Jeff
No matter how bad it is, it can always get worse ....

 

[garwain]

The war may seem already be lost, but there are still battles being fought. Most of the time I'm buisy, and just go through deleting the bombardment of spam that I receive, but I will continue use my spare time tracking down spammers and sending emails to abuse departments to make life as miserable as possible for the spammers. I will also continue to keep my hotmail account alive and use them to collect the majority of my spam (I'll use my hotmail addresses for every chatroom, and newsgroup I post in...)
Let Microsoft sell my hotmail address, they are the ones who are paying for the bandwidth the spam wastes, and their filters will delete it anyway.

 

[Tarwn]

Just as a sidenote, just received this interesting spam:

From :
george123w2000@yahoo.com
To :
tarwn@hotmail.com
Subject :
MASS EMAIL CAN WORK 4 YOU- GET A FREE MILLION 1:45:08 AM
Date :
Fri, 20 Sep 2002 01:45:10 -0700

We offer some of the best bulk e-mail prices on the Internet. We do all
the mailing for you. You just provide us with the ad! It's that simple!
prices start at $200.00 for 1-million e-mails sent. or 10 million + 5
million free for $1000.00 our target list start at $400.00 for
1-million e-mails sent.
WE GIVE YOU A FREE MILLION IF YOU ORDER WITHIN 2 DAYS (SPECIAL)

209-656-9143

to leave list noefran343@excite.com

Maybe we should start directing large numbers of telemarketers to his phone number that he so kindly included in this email

Seriously though, this shows the kind of advertising these companies get for a much lower price. Each ad costs them 2/100ths of a cent or less. So if they only get a 1 percent return on their investment for a $15 sale, they are looking at a gross of $15,000 or a net of $13,000 after the cost for 1 million emails.
-Tarwn "The problem with a kludge is eventually you're going to have to back and do it right." - Programmers Saying (The Wiz Biz - Rick Cook)
"Your a geek!" - My Girlfriends saying