Who's Really To Blame For All The Spam

Empath

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Who\'s Really To Blame For All The Spam

The blame is really dead center on those that buy and respond to spammers. The financial gain in spamming far exceeds the trouble it brings to the spammer.

Don't support spammers.

Look at the big money to be made.
 

PaulW

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Mar 23, 2003
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Re: Who\'s Really To Blame For All The Spam

It's the same with telephone solicitors. If no one responded, they'd stop calling.
 

kakster

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Feb 6, 2003
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Re: Who\'s Really To Blame For All The Spam

I think the governments/authorities also share some of the blame for dragging their heels about legislation to control this type of thing. Europe has outlawed spam, but it only applies to spam that originated in the EU. More countries need to get on board for it to be effective, but at least its a start.
I think it is something that will be with us for a long time, its already branched out into other forms of media (cellphone text spamming).
 

eluminator

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Re: Who\'s Really To Blame For All The Spam

Well there is a way to eliminate the pain of telephone solicitors. Rather drastic though, but I've considered it.
Get a 900 number. That way anyone who calls you will pay for the privilege.

Now can someone invent a similar mechanism for e-mail?
 

Al_Havemann

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Re: Who\'s Really To Blame For All The Spam

In my office, until recently we were receiving tons of spam. This is a problem in more ways than is obvious since many government branches (like ours) still use old Lotus CC:Mail that dates back to the early 90's. CC:mail can't read HTML or display graphics and spam is a real headache since the routers and rule agents have trouble reading them. Often they end up corrupting our mail database.

I began a program back in January of tracing and contacting spammers when it was possible and requesting our domains be removed from all lists. It was often very difficult to get valid address or phone number but with persistence it can be done. I trained a couple of staff members on how to do it, formulated a very nice letter, sent via snail mail on our formal letterhead and envelope explaining our situation and requesting removal. If we still received spam a second time, a more demanding letter went out. If that didn't work then we listed the domain(s) in the MAPS Real Time Black Hole list. As a government agency in the judiciary, we can list addresses and entire domains directly without formal approval.

This resulted in some really hairy situations. In one instance, a major ISP's primary domain and POP's were listed and their entire mail system ground to a stop. There were "some cross words" exchanged as I explained that one of their customers was a major spammer and it was their duty to exercise control. Their opinion differed and it took almost a week of "discussions" before we reached an agreement where they would place strict limits on email quantities and transmission rates and I would remove the Black Hole listing. They threatened legal action but backed away when faced with who we were and the facts of the situation.

Most spam originates from a few dozen mail pumps, some of the biggest are in Florida but some are from abroad. Those in Ft. Lauderdale and St. Pete, Florida were, to say the least, very, very annoyed with me, to the point of finally contacting me via telephone to threaten to sue over being black listed. I explained that they were welcome to pursue any legal recourse they felt appropriate, while mentioning that we have offices in every state and major city and that we had an office only a few blocks away from them. I also mentioned that there are approximately 3800 attorneys in our organization, many of whom have very little to do.

Many of these spammers have multiple addresses that they send from but usually only a few domains overall. Listing their domains kills their entire pump. Our spam has since dropped to just a few pieces a day.

Since we didn't contact every major mail pump out there, this leads me to believe that there is another list being passed around the spam houses and ISP's listing trouble making addresses and domains to avoid.

This may seem like overkill but somewhere, somehow you have to take a stand and do something. Anyone can do the same thing by tracing and reporting spammers whenever they find them. Go to http://mail-abuse.org and see how it's done.

Because we are a government agency, I can't provide be very specific as to who or how without violating management policy. I have probably stretched things to the limit as it is and I've gotten away with it only because so far, no one has attempted a legal challenge. Any legal challenge would be difficult at best and necessarily place the spammer at a distinct disadvantage since they would have little to gain, their complaint would face prejudice and they would have to absorb substantial, non-recoverable costs (as a government agency, we're never liable for legal costs of the opposition).

On some of the foreign pumps there was little I could do, but in some cases I was able to get a valid mail address and took a page from their own book by writing a bash script on a Linux workstation that constructed a reply message with a somewhat randomized subject line, then sent the message, using send mail and looped with a counter set to expire at 25,000. Spamming the spammer, so to speak. Crude, but surprisingly effective.

Al
 

X-CalBR8

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Re: Who\'s Really To Blame For All The Spam

Over the past few years, China has been in the news as a major source of the open mail relays that spammers use, but in the last year or so, the situation has begun to change.

China first started out by spamming primarily the western world, but then they started to spam one another really badly so it's funny to note that China has decided to clean up a lot of it's own mess in the last year or so without even the usual threats from western countries. It also helped to speed the process along that western countries began to ban practically all chinese mail servers with their spam filters so if they wanted to do any business at all with the west, they first would need to clean house of all the spammers.

This was all a funny situation to watch to me because it all played out almost like a soap opera. Of course, the non-funny part was all of the spam that I used to get before my ISP adopted a spam filter strong enough that I rarely am ever bothered with the plague that is known as spam anymore.

Of course there is my backup Hotmail account that is still a spam nightmare to try to deal with, but I rarely ever use it because it is very difficult to separate any real e-mail that I get from all of the massive amounts of spam that I get on that account. I hear that Microsoft (wouldn't you know that they had a hand in it) even sells your hotmail e-mail address to certain of their business associates (spammers). Of course, I originally got the account before Microsoft bought/tainted Hotmail in the first place or I would have probably not touched it with a 10 foot pole. Maybe it's past time that I find a new secondary free e-mail address that is a bit lighter in the spam/scumminess department.
 

Charles Bradshaw

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Re: Who\'s Really To Blame For All The Spam

Spamming the Spammer.... LOVE IT!!! Gives them a taste fo their own medicine. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Now, i love SPAM (R), but passionately hate spam.
 

Kiessling

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Nov 26, 2002
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Old World
Re: Who\'s Really To Blame For All The Spam

Al, I appreciate it VERY much when you do harm to those spammers! makes me feel warm inside /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
bernhard
 

SilverFox

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Jan 19, 2003
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Bellingham WA
Re: Who\'s Really To Blame For All The Spam

Hello Al,

Thanks for you help in eliminating spam.

I am going to look into the information on mail-abuse.org to see if there is something I can do also.

Tom
 
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