[TheForge] MORE OT - spamming, and such troubles (was Re: OT Al McClure)

Mon Jul 21 13:21:00 2003

Comments inline...

<quote who="terry l. ridder">
> hello;
>
> with all due respect, this type of spam blocker is doing nothing to
> really stop spam.

Agreed.

> the spammer does not care if you read the spam or not,
> that is immaterial, what matters to the spammer is if it was delivered.

That's not necessarily true... The goal of a spammer is to generate
click-throughs to their customers so they gain reputation as a valueable
ally in advertising.  The more successful delivery *that are read*, the
better the spammer's rep. in that community.

> we have gone over to a complete whitelist for e-mail. everyone is
> blocked from even delivering e-mail. only those e-mail addresses
> explictly entered in the whitelist will be be accepted for delivery and
> only from the domain name service list 'mx' host. there are two e-mail
> addresses which are required by various 'rfc's to accept e-mail no
> matter what, those are 'abuse' and 'postmaster'. so now the spammers are
> spamming those. there are some good free spam delivery blocking services
> out there. in my opinion, spews.org is the best of the pack.
>
> http://www.spews.org.

I must disagree with regards to spews:
   1.  Spews does not account for the source of their complaints
   2.  Many valid providers are listed in spews.

> since going over to a complete whitelist, none of the end-users receive
> spam. a whitelist does mean that the sendmail logs need to be monitored
> for valid e-mail which is being rejected. those log entries which may
> indicate that a valid e-mail message was rejected are tagged and it is
> up to the end-users to tell us whether to whitelist them or not.
>
> what is needed is a federally sponsored signup list. similar to the new
> 'do not call' list, except those e-mail addresses entered would accept
> spam. if the e-mail address is not in the list do not send spam. any
> federal action also needs to allow the end-user to seek civil
> penalties if someone does spam them. those penalties need to go after
> the isps which are harboring the spammers and issuing those 'pink'
> contracts.
>
> with the new 'do not call' list the amount of spam is just going to
> continue to increase. they may not be able to call you but they can sure
> spam you. the intent of the 'do not call' list is basically correct the
> follow through sucks. the feds are just moving the problem from the
> telephone to the mailbox.
>
> On Sun, 20 Jul 2003, Harland Johnson wrote:
>
> harland>
> harland> Sounds like Al McClure may have adopted the same spam blocker
> that my Rev  harland> friend has.   I and many others may be forced to
> adopt one similar.  harland>
> harland> Spam blockers  work several ways.  One subscription spam
> blocker that a  harland> preacher friend of mine uses, sends an email
> reply to every "new" email  harland> address received asking "who they
> are and why" they wish to be added to his  harland> recipient list.
> harland>
> harland> If a live person respondes to the email, then the Rev gets to
> see it, and  harland> future emails go through immediately.  If not, the
> email remains simply  harland> remains blocked, and will be deleted in
> 72 hours.
> harland>
> harland> When I got the "Who are  you letter" from his spam blocker, I
> wrote a short  harland> note, and got my usual warm responce from the
> Rev.  He said that his  harland> software was now blocking upto 5,000
> spam mails per week.  As I am running  harland> about 200 spam emails
> per day, (spams that make it threw my  anti spam junk  harland> mail
> software),   I have been thinking of purchasing the same antispam
> harland> software that he has.  At least that way those spam with
> spoofed and fake  harland> return emails offering me larger breasts and
> bigger male parts, etc harland> would never waste my time deleting them.
>  I am running 70 to 80 percent  harland> spam, and it is becoming quite
> a waste, and worse as it camiflages the good  harland> stuff.
> harland>
> harland> Dann Johnson
> harland>
>
> Jerry Frost writes:
>
> frosty> >
> frosty> > I got an E-mail from Al McClure and when I replied I got a
> spamblocker frosty> > message from his ISP. It wanted me to ask to be
> added to a recipient list. frosty> > Being the naturally suspicious
> character I am I'd rather not get added to frosty> > another spam list.
> It'd be different if I recognized the name.  frosty> >
> frosty> > So, Al, if you're on one of the lists you can ask your
> questions here. or frosty> > add me to your recipient list and resend to
> me off list. Either is fine with frosty> > me.
> frosty> >
> frosty> > Frosty
> frosty> >
> frosty> >
>
> --
> Terry L. Ridder ><>
>
> --
> Terry L. Ridder ><>
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