[Pactor] No more HOTMAIL messages to me...

[John Farrington]

At 09:28 AM 02/10/2003 Ed Tanton wrote on the Pactor list about spam filtering:

>Hi Dale... I'm certainly interested in the EUDORA plug-in!!!
>
>At 06:21 AM 2003-02-10, Dale Coleman wrote:
>>
>>Hi Ed and the group, FYI earthlink has a nice spam filter that runs on the
>>server. I think it's called Spamanator....
>>There is also a nice plug in for Eudora called spamnix that I'm also testing
>>at work. So far it's doing an excellent job.



A more reliable solution to SPAM is to use a program like Mailwasher to 
manually
inspect and delete SPAM from your ISP's mail server before 
downloading;  you can
get the latest version (2.0.28 beta, I think) at:

     http://www.mailwasher.net/download.php

This program also allows the setting up of filters, but for the reasons listed
below I wouldn't advise it. It also has a bounce function that allows you to
send a fake bounce message to the spammer (if his real address is present),
but that's usually futile, and besides it slows the program way down.

Most of you may already be aware of the following information, but just in 
case:

A word of caution about anti-spam filters that are run on mail servers by ISPs,
and those run by home users:
like all software filters they make mistakes, so a small but variable 
percentage
of legitimate E-mails will be blocked as spam:   for example, one technical
newsletter concerning only computer developments was blocked as being "sexually
explicit".  Hmmm - did I miss something?  Must be getting old.

Unfortunately, recent nation-wide experience with these screening programs and
their use of spammer lists has shown growing problems;  for information on one
see:

http://www.antispews.org/

(1) filters are deleting an increasing percentage of legitimate E-mails
     along with the SPAM - these screening companies make "blacklists"
     (sometimes unverified) of SPAM sources, and have been known to
     delete all messages originating from all users of entire IP
     address blocks instead of just the few guilty spammers;

(2) there have been complaints that some screening companies and
     controllers of mail-servers have been ignoring corporate and
     individual complaints regarding lost legitimate E-mail - one
     tech letter publisher said they finally had to switch providers
     because their complaints were never answered;

(3) software SPAM filters can never keep up with all the tricks
     employed by mass mailers of junk - the possible permutations of
     message formats, originating addresses, and message wordings
     approach infinity, so broad software SPAM filters will only make
     more and more mistakes.

A couple months ago an information technology magazine had an article
about this, and it's available online at:

<http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/11/25/021125opwinman.xml>

FYI, in essence the above article said studies show that 11.7 % of messages
that were requested by e-mail subscribers never reached the recipient's
inbox, 6 % were incorrectly routed to a junk mail folder, and 5.7 % never
arrived in any form. The problem was faulty spam filters put in place by
major ISPs in attempts to reduce UBE (unsolicited bulk e-mail, or spam).
Consequently, users can no longer rely on e-mail delivery. With spam
consuming nearly 50 % of all e-mail traffic, crude spam filters are the
rage, and now online billing, order updates, and other messages crucial
to business can't be counted on. The article also said that spam was
quadrupling annually, and in two years, 16 times more spam may hit your
router, which could lead to gridlock.

So, ISPs should inform their customers that the European Union, unlike the
U.S. Government, has taken steps to outlaw SPAM; the reason this has not
taken place here is because the Direct Marketing Association (representing
about 4700 companies) has successfully lobbied Congress in opposition to
anti-SPAM bills that have been introduced.

On the other hand, Congress did pass a law against junk faxes, mainly
because their own offices and big corporations were being inundated by
unsolicited faxes - they then complained mightily and directly to the
Congressmen. It follows that the only solution against SPAM that will work
will be for enough citizens to repeatedly and vociferously complain to
their Congressional representatives, asking that it be outlawed and
pointing out that Congress has a double standard if it pays attention to
corporations but not to private citizens. (Now, where have I heard that
before?)

73

John



--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
The reason this message is shown is because the post was in HTML
or had an attachment.  Attachments are not allowed.  To learn how
to post in Plain-Text go to: http://www.expita.com/nomime.html  ---