[OT] Finally.. the evil of SPAM is being defeated!

[Harlock]

I've never received a call from a telemarketer.

Much snippage there, but this is what really blew me away. Are the laws different across the pond? I get at least one a day (save Sundays) for everything from reducing debt, getting a subscription to the local newspaper, joining the American Association of Retired People (I'm only 29 for Pete's sake!), to tell me about political candidates, to change long distance, to take out a credit card or to donate to some bogus charity.

I am literally amazed you don't get these calls and I am wondering what you are doing right that I am doing wrong.

As far as spam goes, it's annoying. I get a moderate amount in my spam mail account on yahoo and hotmail. My address on my ISP I seldom give out. I don't mind the spam email so much as long as it does not include explicit pictures. It's one thing to say, "come look at my porno site," it's another entirely to have a deceptive subject line and a lewd graphic picture when I open the mail to see if it is legitimately something I should concern myself with. That is an affront to me as I am vehemently opposed to that sort of image. I mean I don't even watch rated R movies or television programs with what most folks consider mild or tame nudity or sexuality.

Junk mail by regular post is not so bothersome to me either. I get junk all the time, but it's never pornographic. Everyone wants to give me a credit card but I can easily trash those applications. I actually am fond of some advertisements I get in the mailbox. Grocery Store ads that list sale prices for example save me time and money. Coupons for Domino's Pizza saves me money.

I think the reason that email spam is so much more prevalent than phone or snail mail junk is that because email is darn near free. I welcome a law that would clean up email spam.

 

[WizarDru]

I just typed up a huge e-mail detailing many points about Spam, and the boards just ate it, unfortunately. Darned SQL errors.

I'll be brief. I'm a tech person for a firm of 26 people or so. Spam is my personal demon. Over the past four days, we've received 1600 spam messages...that I've caught. Add another 150-300 that I didn't get this time through, as I'm configuring my anti-spam appliance.

Quick summary:

• Spam costs the reciever inversely to the sender
• Spam's success rate is shockingly low, but the low cost makes it worth it: A junk mail sender needs a 3-4% return to make a profit, and requires a good deal of manual labor and infrastructure...a spammer can work alone, spend pennies, and can send out batches of 10,000 mails, hoping to get 0.01% response to make a profit.
• Spam has many hidden costs. Increased internet traffic, increased bandwidth needs, increased time to configure mail and relay servers, router and other devices, increased time to monitor e-mail, deal with issues, and increased software costs to stop it, support said software and continue to advance to deal with changing spam evasive techniques
• Most spam is misleading. Falsified headers, from and to information, intentionally misleading subject/headers, and much of it is patently offensive, if not just annoying.
• Spam, if left unchecked, could turn to darker purposes. Imaging if you got spam 'hate mail' from extreme political hate groups, featuring graphic depictions of lynchings, for example. The possibilities are disturbing, to say the least
• Spammers abuse the available technologies, emphasing a need for the implementation of new technologies, such as IP v6, to remove many of the vulnerabilities associated with IP and SMTP that allow spammers to work from the shadows, without consquences.
• Junk mail would drop dramatically if the USPS were to change class 'D' rates. Such changes, thanks to the likes of AOL, MSN and others, has allowed spammers to employ a 'scorched earth' policy of freebie accounts and wasted bandwidth. Plus it requires technicians to shut those accounts down, and folks like me to deal with the consequences on the receiving end.

Spam is a major problem, and it's only getting worse. Legislation is the only way to get the bottom feeders to move on or back to their pyramid-schemes and other nonsense.

Phew. I'll get off of my soapbox, now.

 

[Tiefling]

Somewhat tangential, but how exactly does anti-spam software work?

 

[Morrus]

Much snippage there, but this is what really blew me away. Are the laws different across the pond?

Guess they must be. I have no idea - it's not something I've ever thought about.

 

[Gez]

I just wanted to post this:

From Irregular Webcomic

 

[Alzrius]

Wait...so this thread isn't about that canned ham being pulled of the shelves finally? Because I think that's much, much worse...

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

I have found that a $30 investment in spam-filtering software has been totally worth it. I would easily pay $30 to filter out telemarketers.

Since you're in Wisconsin, put yourself on the "no call" list. It's reduced the amount of telemarketing calls considerably in our household.

 

[WizarDru]

Somewhat tangential, but how exactly does anti-spam software work?

There are a variety of methods and products, depending on where and how you want to implement it.

Personal Anti-spam software usually comprises plug-ins to your mail product of choice, or failing that, Outlook. Seriously, since Outlook has the highest degree of market penetration, most of the anti-spam products are designed to work with it. Essentially, each offers a bulked-up version of Outlook's inherint 'Junkmail' feature. It doesn't prevent the spam directly, but keeps it from your eyesight, by automatically throwing it into a quarantine or the trash. The more high-profile products will actually produce 'bounce' messages similar to what a server would, to simulate your address being invalid, which DOES help get you off of SOME lists. My personal favorite is Spam Bully.

Server based anti-spam products vary, but all usually drill down to products like MIMESweeper and Ironmail. These use a variety of methods to sniff out the spam. They check the headers for falsified information, scan the actual e-mails for content (such as the presence of specific words, or persistence of same), block specific domains, addresses and ip addresses. Initial setups can be time consuming and painful, as you tend to enter a 'trial-and-error' period of generating false-positives, and then adjusting filters and creating 'white-lists' to compensate.

Services do much the same, but instead act as your actual mail server, and then relays your mail on to you, as opposed to your normal server. This is more cost effective to big companies than to individuals. Brightmail is an example of this. However, many large providers, such as AOL, MSN and Yahoo already subscribe to this service, and as you probably know, it's results are....varied.

All of which may have been more than you wanted to know, or less. I dunno.

 

[Tiefling]

Mostly I was interested in how the software differentiates spam from non-spam, but it's all cool. Thanks.

 

[buzzard]

why is this kind of emotion not felt towards junk mail, which is much more damaging to the environment, or telemarketting, which wastes more time?

why the particular hatred for spam?

There is one fundamental difference between Spam and junk mail or telemarketing. Spam costs the recipient money. The network bandwidth and server space which is used to receive this junk costs money, while the costs of telemarketing and junk mail fall on the sender. Thus there are limiting factors on the traditional annoyances which aren't present in spam.

buzzard