One more time. Listen up! See A, hit B!"
Professional Internet and government gadfly John Gilmore (He coined the phrase, "The Internet interprets censorship as system damage and routes around it.") is taking spam hysteria to task over on Politech in his note addresssed to Declan McCullagh:On NOT obfuscating email addresses
Why have you fallen into the all-too-common fallacy of thinking that if email addresses aren't published anywhere, that will help "solve" the problem of unwanted communications? .... Have we reached a Brave New World in which we all start rewriting online history to suit today's prejudices?Gilmore takes a lot of positions on a lot of issues and, more often than not, he's right. He's right here as well.Unwanted communications would exist even if every "spammer" was flayedand burned at the stake. You should know -- reporters get more unwanted press releases than anybody.The only viable solution is for the recipient to filter their incoming email. It's the only viable solution because only the recipient knows what they are interested in. The anti-"spam" crowd seems to thinkthat there is a category of communications that NOBODY is interested in, and that therefore should be suppressed. That is obviously false with regard to commercial spam, or the "spammers" would not persist in sending it, since they wouldn't make any money from it. Since some people ARE interested in it, it's our job (if we choose to accept it) to create a cheaper way for senders to reach those people -- cheaper than sending a copy to all of us as well as the recipients who desire it. We cannot compel people to stop communicating, unless we break the basic foundations of our free society. Good luck at finding a cheaper way; my efforts are going into reducing the cost to recipients of unwanted communications, rather than the cost to senders. (There may be religious or political unwanted communications that indeed NOBODY is interested in; these would also be solved by reducing recipient costs to near-zero.)
I've never quite gotten the fuming, sparking and sputtering that takes over otherwise sane individuals when it comes to SPAM. SPAM is merely a bit of static in the background. Arguments that it "injures productivity" are bogus since that presumes that employees don't spend a good part of their day injuring productivity on the job by reading web pages such as Politech. White collar employees will, when given a net connection, always fritter away hours of their day. To presume otherwise is to presume they are all on some sort of cyberassembly line where if the next email message isn't right on target our massive economy is headed down the drain. Some people making their living selling consulting services on productivity to underworked executives may like to pretend otherwise, but the fact of the matter is that there's always been a huge amount of slack in office jobs and SPAM elimination won't make it stop. It will merely be spent on some site that offers flash Tetris.
The Zero-Spam Tolerance cult is just another manifestation of the Nanny Culture where individuals want someone, somewhere (aka "The Government") to solve their quite stupidly simple and simply stupid problems by "passing a law," "making a regulation," and then "enforcing it" across the World Wide Wimpdom. This from a group of users who can actually go in and wade through the process of correcting the Windows Registry? Simps and weaklings the lot of them. Cowboy up, dudes and dudettes!
Indeed, the flaming anti-spammers are more and more looking like online's version of the real world's envirowhackjobs who need to torch anything on the landscape that doesn't map to their fantasy of a perfect humanity free world. "Oh, if only there were no SPAM what a bright cyberworld this would be! EXterminATE them!"
Everybody who is spending endless cycles on SPAMrage needs to step away from the keyboard, take some Tantric breaths and ask themselves...
Two questions:
1) Just how much easier do SPAM filters have to be for you to use them, First Grade or Kindergarten?
2) What do you think God made the 'Delete' key for?
I've been listening to this endless group rant since the dawn of "The Great Green Card" flame war and I've had it up to here with the ceaseless sour, ill-made whine. It sometimes seems that if SPAM did not exist, Wooly Webheads would invent it just so they had something to spew about whenever the latest outrage from Microsoft or the Justice Department paled.
Gilmore has it right. Spam's here. Spam's clear. Filter it. Delete it. Get over it and pour youself a nice hot steaming cup of STFU.
Posted by Vanderleun at September 9, 2003 7:08 AM | TrackBackThe problem isn't deleting the spam. (Well, that is A problem, but it is not THE problem.) The problem is the amount of bandwidth the stuff takes up. When a completely useless glob is using a quarter of total Internet bandwidth, it's also using a quarter of the connectivity budget, a quarter of the server budget, and considerably more than a quarter of the budget for Unix wranglers to deal with the bounce messages, unwedging mailboxes that just fiilled up with two legitimate emails plus three thousand "herbal Viagra" ads, and the rest of it.
By the time the spam hits your inbox, the real damage has long since been done, and not all your hittings of the Delete key will correct it.
Posted by: jeanne a e devoto at September 10, 2003 12:13 PMI have a question for you Vanderleun: What spam filters do you use? More about this and about "Just how much easier do SPAM filters have to be for you to use them, First Grade or Kindergarten?" after I hear what you're using.
Thanks,
Nancy
author of the "Filtering Mail FAQ" and "Reverse Spam Filtering: Winning Without Fighting" and a lot more.
How to address so many errors? 1) For a start, spam isn't "static" - it's now 50% and heading upwards. It's the foreground, not the background, meaning twice as much is spent on mail servers as needs to be. That sucks up admin time that could be spent fixing your futzing machine.
2) How do you KNOW that there are people who do want the stuff advertised in spams? Are you sure that every single campaign gets a response from people sincerely interested in them? If not, then some must be a complete waste.
3) Rather than reducing the cost for spammers, why not RAISE the cost of using random spamming to them - by passing a law requiring double-opt-in listings, with big fines for those who don't. That would even things out nicely.
4) "Just hit delete" *and* kindergarten spam filters? So which do you use? I'm guessing the first. And have you noticed that filters which worked a few months ago now don't? Certainly I have.
5) Viruses get spread by spam too. Spammers get viruses written for them. Let's not tolerate them.
6) Gilmore's point about obfuscation is true to the extent that, as already happens, spammers would just blast random addresses at mail servers. That doesn't mean it's right just to allow parasites. If you had tapeworms, would you delight in being so thin, or wonder if it was entirely a good idea? Seems you're opting for the tapeworms. I'll give you a wide berth in future.
Charles
Spam should be easy to get rid of.
Right.
If a Spam message is selling Brand X. GO to brand X and tell them to stop PAYING the spammers for their advertising, or be shut down. Spammers dont do it for free do they ? Stop paying them and they will have no choice but to stop. Grade 2 economics
Or is that too high up the ladder for the current US government ?
Scott
> That is obviously false with
>regard to commercial spam, or the "spammers" would not persist in sending
>it, since they wouldn't make any money from it. Since some people ARE
>interested in it, it's our job (if we choose to accept it) to create a
>cheaper way for senders to reach those people -- cheaper than sending a
>copy to all of us as well as the recipients who desire it.
The fact that there's a sucker born every minute does not imply that all non-suckers should be the target of hundreds of people knocking on our door, calling our phone, and sending us email asking "are you a sucker?". When did it become a requirement for us to assist the marketing machine in order to restore the effective communication we had before they "discovered" our latest communication medium?
>I've never quite gotten the fuming, sparking and sputtering that takes over
>otherwise sane individuals when it comes to SPAM. SPAM is merely a bit of
>static in the background. Arguments that it "injures productivity" are
>bogus
I received 2000 email messages yesterday. If no one was trying to sell anything by email, I would have received about 100. No reasonable person could define 95% of my email as "a bit of static in the background".
>there's always been a huge amount of slack in office jobs and SPAM
>elinination won't make it stop. It will merely be spent on some site that
>offers flash Tetris.
So the author argues that since the office isn't a perfectly efficient system, some added inefficiency shouldn't bother anyone. I don't think I can even respond to such ignorance.
>The Zero-Spam Tolerance cult is just another manifestation of the Nanny
>Culture where individuals want someone, somewhere (aka "The Government") to
>solve their quite stupidly simple and simply stupid problems by "passing a
>law," "making a regulation," and then "enforcing it" across the World Wide
>Wimpdom.
Yeah. Like we did with the laws about mail fraud, truth in advertising, and identity theft. Boy, we're just a bunch of sissys.
>Two questions:
>1) Just how much easier do SPAM filters have to be for you to use them,
>First Grade or Kindergarten?
>2) What do you think God made the 'Delete' key for?
Messages such as yours, sir.
Posted by: Jason Jenkins at September 12, 2003 7:20 PMWell, you obviously have failed to use it. Either that or the difference between a link and a delete key needs to be pointed out to you.
Posted by: Vanderleun at September 12, 2003 8:20 PMQuit trolling, Vanderloony. You're worse than Ted Frank.
Posted by: Spam Nazi at September 12, 2003 10:42 PMOne of the differences between junk (snail) mail and spam is cost, so direct mail marketers use a variety of techniques to target their mailings in an effort to control that cost. But email is "free," so no controls. I think spam is an unintended consequence of the goofy pricing model we have for the internet--pay one monthly fee and send/receive (nearly) unlimited spam. To use a hackneyed and moronic meme: "If we can put a man on the moon, we can figure out how to bill individual emails!" I vote for for 1 cent per email.
Posted by: slimedog at September 13, 2003 5:06 AMThe Supreme Court determined in the Central Hudson case that are 3 tests for restricting free commercial speech. But before those three tests are done, the first test is, "Is the speech legal?" If it is not, then the speech is not free. The FTC said that 2/3 of spam involved fraud or deception. Well, then all that spam is not free commercial speech, since it's illegal.
Spammers are not only liars, they are vandals, quickly sending a once functioning medium on its way to a path of ruin.
Posted by: Acme Fixer at September 13, 2003 1:27 PMHello again,
Above I asked what spam filters you use Vanderleun and I'm still curious. I wasn't being rhetorical or trolling for a flame war. I'm genuinely interested in this because I write about spam filtering and mail filtering in general and learning about how people like you deal with spam will help me to improve my writing.
Thank you,
Nancy
PS - your site is very interesting!
Posted by: Nancy McGough at September 14, 2003 7:02 AMHello once again,
I keep visting this Comments page hoping to have a conversation with V about the spam-filtering tools he uses that are so easy. I'm genuinely curious, but now I'm starting to think that maybe V doesn't use any spam-filtering tools and doesn't know anything about how easy or hard they are to set up and use. That was what I suspected when I read this article but I was hoping to have a discussion about it because there are some interesting issues that need to be discussed. Anyway, I'll keep wandering by here hoping for a conversation. Another thing that keeps me coming back are some of the blog entries, for example the delightful "Road Tales: Where the Buffalo Roam" -- thank you for that!
-Nancy
Posted by: Nancy McGough at September 17, 2003 3:25 AMMs. McGough, Vanderloony is a troll. Do a Google search for his name, or, better, a search at groups.google.com and you will immediately see what I mean. I personally wonder whether he exists at all, or whether he's one of the many pseudonyms of legendary Internet supertrolls Ted Frank or Ron Ritzman.
By "troll" I mean someone who says deliberately obtuse and/or outrageous things in an online forum not because he honestly believes them, but because he is entertained by the manner in which people react.
By giving him attention, you feed his ego. Please do not feed the trolls.
Posted by: Spam Nazi at September 17, 2003 4:02 PMWow, what a perfect illustration of the wrong way to approach IT problems. As a sysadmin I'd love to be able to tell my users to just get shut up and get over it. That's not my job though. My job is to listen to them and help them with the technology they need to do their work. If they say spam is a problem, then it is, and it's my problem to solve.
Posted by: Mark B at September 18, 2003 2:39 PMHello Spam Nazi,
Thanks for responding. I spend a lot of time on Usenet so I'm quite familiar with "trolls" and I have now come to believe that you're absolutely right about V. The thing that confused me is that his blog postings are thought-provoking and he seems to have the soul of an artist, which appeals to me. I don't mind provocative people, I actually embrace them, so I'm willing to put up with some obnoxiousness if there's a possibility of an interesting conversation!
Posted by: Nancy McGough at September 19, 2003 12:52 AMi for one hate spam, and would be quite willing to pay a buck per email i send if that would mean a whopper bill for the spammer ...however, i doubt that any system like that would work, as the spammer would find a way to send his spam in a different way...maybe in a way to make someone else pay for it, obviously .
so what do we do? filters arent the answer, ive tried that route, and you cant filter fakenamegoeshere@fakedomain.com it just dont work, cus the next email will just be fakenamegoeshere1@fakdomain1.com and you'll just fill your filter options up by trying to block a fake mail addy. you can try to filter certain words, like viagra, but what if your aunt tilly mentions the word and you've lost her email because she wanted to know what viagra was? so filters can actually end up blocking mail you WANT. next lame answer to a problem you havent studied fully? please, i'm all ears, and cant wait to see your ludicrous "easy" solutions you come up with next.....should be kindegarten level.... yea. right.
ok , i have a nasty! and since i know almost nothing about how to report a spammer, i'm gonna post it on this thread and hope someone does it for me, lazy? yes.... but very pissed off and hope someone can help. here's the only info i have on this spammer/virus spreader, and far as i know it is pretty tricky, as it even opens a save dialog box and if a person werent careful, would just hit ok and save the dang thing to his HD!
anyhow the details i managed to copy/paste are :
Return-path:
Received: from ms-mta-01 (ms-mta-01-smtp [10.10.4.5]) by ms-mss-02.nyroc.rr.com
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.12 (built Feb 13 2003))
with ESMTP id for
ikol%twcny.rr.com@ims-ms-daemon; Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:32:26 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from nymx02.mgw.rr.com (nymx02.mgw.rr.com [24.92.226.159])
by ms-mta-01.nyroc.rr.com
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.12 (built Feb 13 2003))
with ESMTP id for ikol@twcny.rr.com
(ORCPT ikol@twcny.rr.com); Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:32:26 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from imf24aec.mail.bellsouth.net
(imf24aec.mail.bellsouth.net [205.152.59.72])
by nymx02.mgw.rr.com (8.12.8p1/8.12.8) with ESMTP id h8L3WOjX021256 for
; Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:32:24 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from oytdut ([66.20.136.194]) by imf24aec.mail.bellsouth.net
(InterMail vM.5.01.05.27 201-253-122-126-127-20021220)
with SMTP id ;
Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:31:47 -0400
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:32:23 -0400
From: admin
Subject: bug announcement
To: email client
Message-id:
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary=efglpmairyub
X-Virus-Scanned: Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine
X-Virus-Scan-Result: Repaired 42036 Worm.Automat.AHB
Original-recipient: rfc822;ikol@twcny.rr.com
Return-path:
Received: from ms-mta-01 (ms-mta-01-smtp [10.10.4.5]) by ms-mss-02.nyroc.rr.com
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.12 (built Feb 13 2003))
with ESMTP id for
ikol%twcny.rr.com@ims-ms-daemon; Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:32:26 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from nymx02.mgw.rr.com (nymx02.mgw.rr.com [24.92.226.159])
by ms-mta-01.nyroc.rr.com
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.12 (built Feb 13 2003))
with ESMTP id for ikol@twcny.rr.com
(ORCPT ikol@twcny.rr.com); Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:32:26 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from imf24aec.mail.bellsouth.net
(imf24aec.mail.bellsouth.net [205.152.59.72])
by nymx02.mgw.rr.com (8.12.8p1/8.12.8) with ESMTP id h8L3WOjX021256 for
; Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:32:24 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from oytdut ([66.20.136.194]) by imf24aec.mail.bellsouth.net
(InterMail vM.5.01.05.27 201-253-122-126-127-20021220)
with SMTP id ;
Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:31:47 -0400
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:32:23 -0400
From: admin
Subject: bug announcement
To: email client
Message-id:
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary=efglpmairyub
X-Virus-Scanned: Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine
X-Virus-Scan-Result: Repaired 42036 Worm.Automat.AHB
Original-recipient: rfc822;ikol@twcny.rr.com
--efglpmairyub
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
ALERT!!!
This e-mail in its original form contained one or more attached files that were infected with a virus or worm, or contained another type of security threat.
The following attachments were infected and have been repaired:
No attachments are in this category.
The following attachments were deleted due to an inability to clean them:
1. grkgtb.com: Worm.Automat.AHB
The Following attachments were not delivered due to inbound mail policy violations:
No attachments are in this category.
Road Runner does not contact the sender of the infected attachment(s) in the event that they were not actually sent from the indicated party.
Please contact the sender directly to alert them of their issue with infected files if you wish to do so.
For more information on Road Runner's virus filtering initiative, visit our Help & Member Services pages at http://help.rr.com, or the virus filtering information page directly at http://help.rr.com/faqs/e_mgsp.html.
------------ Original message text follows ------------
This is the qmail program
I'm sorry =
I wasn't able to deliver your message =
to the following addresses:
Undeliverable mail to atgribpcw@aol.com
--efglpmairyub
Content-Type: text/plain;
name="DELETED0.TXT"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Id:
ZmlsZSBhdHRhY2htZW50OiBncmtndGIuY29tDQoNClRoaXMgZS1tYWlsIGluIGl0cyBvcmln
aW5hbCBmb3JtIGNvbnRhaW5lZCBvbmUgb3IgbW9yZSBhdHRhY2hlZCBmaWxlcyB0aGF0IHdl
cmUgaW5mZWN0ZWQgd2l0aCB0aGUgV29ybS5BdXRvbWF0LkFIQiB2aXJ1cyBvciB3b3JtLiBU
aGV5IGhhdmUgYmVlbiByZW1vdmVkLg0KRm9yIG1vcmUgaW5mb3JtYXRpb24gb24gUm9hZCBS
dW5uZXIncyB2aXJ1cyBmaWx0ZXJpbmcgaW5pdGlhdGl2ZSwgdmlzaXQgb3VyIEhlbHAgJiBN
ZW1iZXIgU2VydmljZXMgcGFnZXMgYXQgaHR0cDovL2hlbHAucnIuY29tLCBvciB0aGUgdmly
dXMgZmlsdGVyaW5nIGluZm9ybWF0aW9uIHBhZ2UgZGlyZWN0bHkgYXQgaHR0cDovL2hlbHAu
cnIuY29tL2ZhcXMvZV9tZ3NwLmh0bWwuIA0K
--efglpmairyub--
kantrax:
Spam isn't viruses and viruses aren't spam. Spam is UCE: Unsolicited Commercial Email. Go to http://www.cauce.org/ for more information on this.
That having been said, it's not difficult to report the spammer. Learn to read headers.
Look at the header lines that begin with the word Received: and find the IP addresses in them. The IP addresses are allocated to Internet service providers, and the IP address of a mail server is added to the headers when it passes through a mail server.
In your case it looks like the virus originated with a BellSouth customer. However, the person may not know that he has a virus; some of them spread all by themselves, without the carrier's knowledge or permission.
In any event, try subscribing to SpamCop (but be aware that SpamCop is for spam only, not for virus reports). http://www.spamcop.net/ can help automate the complaint process. Learn to use the Sam Spade tools, particularly the ones for IP addresses: http://www.samspade.org/
Oh, and don't put your email address on the Web; spammers will get it.
Posted by: Spam Nazi at September 21, 2003 2:30 PMMs. McGough, I believe that the spam problem is soluble but it's going to take multiple simultaneous approaches from multiple angles.
First and foremost is the technical angle.
I believe there isn't going to be any solution to the spam problem that doesn't start with very aggressive server-side IP-based blacklisting, not only to block spam at the source but also to punish ISPs that harbor spammers and governments that refuse to do anything about the spam problem. It's going to have to be far more draconian than any blacklist any ISP I know of will publicly admit to using today--and some blacklist operators are going to have to get over their squeamishness. "But UUNET is too big to block!" "But we can't block all of China!" The hell we can't. The Internet was designed to survive a nuclear war and it automatically routes traffic around damage. If UUnet continues harboring spammers, if China refuses to crack down on spammers, then they can wither on the vine and enjoy their brand new Intranets. Wall them off completely from the Internet until they learn to play nice.
Second, it's going to take more common use of very aggressive client-side content-based spam filtering; perhaps it should even be built into email software and enabled by default, or even run on the mail servers. And it's going to have to get more aggressive--for instance, for my own use, I personally block all HTML email. Hardly anyone uses HTML for mail but spammers, and spammers rarely use anything else. This one step alone cut my spam load back by 95% or more.
Finally, it's going to take aggressive legal action on a Federal level by the US government. Spam is a Denial-of-Service attack against the nation's information and communications infrastructure, and Federal prosecutors are going to have to start treating it that way. Not just for the guy in the trailer park in Florida who sends out the mortgage spam, either but also the bank for which it's advertised, too. Federal marshals are going to have to start kicking down doors, confiscating computer equipment, and hauling spammers off to do ten-year stretches of felony time in a maximum-security facility full of rapists and axe murderers, and judges will have to start levying fines that are big enough to be a real deterrent to the huge multinational corporations. When Kraft gets hit with a twenty billion dollar fine for their constant Gevalia Kaffe coffee maker spam, and the managers in their marketing department who hired the spammers get to spend the next ten years locked in a six-by-eight-foot cage with half a dozen Aryan Brotherhood thugs, they'll stop hiring spammers and this will put the fear of God into all the rest. When a big bank gets wiped out completely by the fines for hiring spammers to send mortgage spam, that sends the right message.
So I'm optimistic about the spam problem but attitudes are going to have to change before we can do what we know we're going to have to do. Technically, we already have the means and the tools, but a full solution will require the participation of politicians who have the moral strength to tell the Direct Marketing Association to go straight to Hell.
Posted by: Spam Nazi at September 21, 2003 2:54 PM"going to take aggressive legal action on a Federal level by the US government"
Sounds pretty narrow sighted....I don't see how legal action in the US is going to have any effect on what is now global problem.
Posted by: Ihate itToo at September 26, 2003 7:30 PMUnfortunately, to the extent that spam is a global problem, it is because spammers and businesses based in the US who hire spammers are putting their Web pages on servers in China and proxy-raping SOBIG-infected machines in Brazil. Go to http://www.spamhaus.org/ROKSO/ and have a look. Almost all of them are Americans.
Almost all the businesses that hire spammers to advertise for them are in the US, and therefore within reach of US law. Almost all the world's spammers are in the US, and therefore within reach of US law. Aggressive legal action right here is therefore going to be a necessary part of any solution--because I believe there can't be any comprehensive solution that doesn't include severe unpleasant public consequences for both spammers and those who hire them.
If we do not make examples, there can be no deterrence. Aggressive technical means of blocking spam and punishing spam-friendly ISPs are necessary but not in and of themselves sufficient.
It is not enough for justice to be done; justice must be seen to be done. Fiat iustitia, ruat coelum.
Posted by: Spam Nazi at September 29, 2003 1:25 PM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.