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Has Microsoft 'Solved' Spam?
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Jan 23, 2006 09:37 AM
from the depends-on-your-definition-of-solved dept.
from the depends-on-your-definition-of-solved dept.
MsWillow writes to tell us the Seattle PI is running a story looking back at Bill Gates promise to have the spam problem "solved" in two years. Well, it looks like time is up, and the verdict is -- an emphatic "maybe". From the article: "Microsoft says it sees things differently. To "solve" the problem for consumers in the short run doesn't require eliminating spam entirely, said Ryan Hamlin, the general manager who oversees the company's anti-spam programs. Rather, he said, the idea is to contain it to the point that its impact on in-boxes is minor. In that way, Hamlin said, Gates' prediction has come true for people using the right tactics and advanced filtering technology."
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Same way they solved Virii (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Same way they solved Virii (Score:5, Funny)
Centurion: What's this, then? "Romanes eunt domus"? People called Romanes, they go, the house?
Brian: It says, "Romans go home. "
Centurion: No it doesn't ! What's the latin for "Roman"? Come on, come on !
Brian: Er, "Romanus" !
Centurion: Vocative plural of "Romanus" is?
Brian: Er, er, "Romani" !
Centurion: [Writes "Romani" over Brian's graffiti] "Eunt"? What is "eunt"? Conjugate the verb, "to go" !
Brian: Er, "Ire". Er, "eo", "is", "it", "imus", "itis", "eunt".
Centurion: So, "eunt" is...?
Brian: Third person plural present indicative, "they go".
Centurion: But, "Romans, go home" is an order. So you must use...?
[He twists Brian's ear]
Brian: Aaagh ! The imperative !
Centurion: Which is...?
Brian: Aaaagh ! Er, er, "i" !
Centurion: How many Romans?
Brian: Aaaaagh ! Plural, plural, er, "ite" !
Centurion: [Writes "ite"] "Domus"? Nominative? "Go home" is motion towards, isn't it?
Brian: Dative !
[the Centurion holds a sword to his throat]
Brian: Aaagh ! Not the dative, not the dative ! Er, er, accusative, "Domum" !
Centurion: But "Domus" takes the locative, which is...?
Brian: Er, "Domum" !
Centurion: [Writes "Domum"] Understand? Now, write it out a hundred times.
Brian: Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir.
Centurion: Hail Caesar ! And if it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
Parent
Re:Same way they solved Virii (Score:5, Funny)
Oh come on now. For all intensive purposes it means the same as regardless.
Ugh. now I feel dirty.
Parent
In short... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In short... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Embrace and extend (Score:5, Funny)
Embrace: solve Pronunciation Key (slv, sôlv)
v. solved, solving, solves
v. tr.
1. To find a solution to.
2. To work out a correct solution to (a problem).
Extend: 3. Not actually find a solution to. See half measure, plagarism.
Parent
When you fail, (Score:5, Funny)
Or you can move the goalpost in the middle of the game. That's easier.
Eliminating spam means eliminating spam!
Horse before the cart (Score:5, Insightful)
These technologies wont work until they are nearly 100% effective. If even a few messages slip through to some users, some people will buy things from spam ads. Which is all the economic incentive a spammer needs. So all they do is hide the problem, not really solve it.
Bandwidth is still being wasted.
Michael
A Plan for Spam (Score:5, Informative)
Probably just deferred the responsibility to one of his underlings. Aside from that, he talks about crazy methods such as deciding how much money the sender has to pay you before you open the e-mail [cbsnews.com].
Gates has plenty [microsoft.com] of articles [microsoft.com] which detail how much he hates spam. Anyone can sit down and write this, but Gates gets the high exposure interviews with the Wall Street Journal and the AP.
Gates is all talk. If you want to read some articles from some very interesting people, check out A Plan for Spam [paulgraham.com] by Paul Graham. It talks about simple ways to write Bayesian spam filters and does a very good job at describing how they work. Another valuable member of the anti-spam community is Jonathon Zdziarski [nuclearelephant.com] who has written many books about how to actually get rid of spam. You can also read the Slashdot interview [slashdot.org] with him.
Hotmail's Spam Filter is TOO Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Customer with a hotmail address emails me with a question.
I hit reply and give them my answer
A few days later they write me again asking why I haven't responded.
I reply again. They don't get my response. They then get pissed and I lose the sale.
The problem is that Hotmail errs on the side of filtering out too much when you can't even reply to a hotmail user. And many people don't even bother to check their "spam" folders.
I'm no computer engineer, but I would think that merely replying to an email should make it through a spam filter 100% of the time. It's amazing that a company like Microsoft can't hire engineers competent enough to figure that out.
Well as a computer engineer (Score:5, Insightful)
I am to unpopular to get a lot of spam but the few I get on my gmail account all seem to be beginning with "Re:" clearly seeking to trick me into believing it is a reply.
Of course you could check the headers but these could easily be faked. In seen spams in the past that got through where I had real trouble figuring out where the fuck they came from. Some I even seemed to have sent myself.
The only real way to check it would be for hotmail to keep a track record of everyone you send mail to, add them to your adress book and then let those emails bypass your spam filters.
Silly Hotmail for not doing that. OH wait, they do! When you send an email via hotmail you are asked wether you want to add that person to your contact list. Most people don't bother.
My tip to you? Make it very clear that if they contact you via hotmail it may be filtered. Also check why you are being spam filtered. Is it based on your hostname or is the content of your email to spammy?
I know your pain, I dealt with it myself although in my case I am not depended on hotmail users so simply don't care that much. It is a lot of extra work but that is the cost of spam. No spam, no spam filters. It is something people often forget, it is not just the bandwidth cost and the time wasted sorting through spam but also the fact the real emails get lost in the mess. But don't worry, Bill Gates promised he would solve it. Has he ever lied before?
Parent
Re:Well as a computer engineer (Score:5, Informative)
You're a computer engineer and you don't know about the "In-Reply-To" smtp header?
I don't know whether I'm being Informative or Flamebait here...
Justin.
Parent
Re:Well as a computer engineer (Score:5, Informative)
Using the In-Reply-To: header flag, perhaps? It uses the unique Message-Id. That's how threading works (in good MUAs - Thunderbird has it's own very very strange message threading). Save the message-id for outgoing e-mails, for each user. When a message is received, match the In-Reply-To header against the list of Message-Ids. If it's there, whitelist.
Easy.
Parent
Lies, Damn Lies, and Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
Spam still chokes mail gateways and causes everyone who uses email a hassle. You still can't advertize your email address. Upwards of 90% of the mail that reaches my mail server is spam, usually. Mail filters have been there for more than two years, though they've gotten better as spam has gotten better.
Spam volume has leveled off, but that's mostly because the system is already saturated.
If Microsoft really wanted to do something about spam, they'd fix the bugs and unthinkable design decisions that has allowed their software to be taken over and used to send it.
Microsoft? More likely everyone else. (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, and that prediction I made 5 years ago about reducing telemarketers' phone calls? You can all thank me now.
What to do with SPAM when you get it (Score:5, Funny)
Here [pitt.edu] is an idea:
THREE BEAN SALAD w/SPAM!
7-oz can SPAM, cubed 1/2"
1/3 cup choppd onion
16-oz can cut green beans, drained 1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup cooking oil
16-oz can yellow wax beans, drained
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/4 tsp pepper
16-oz can kidney beans, drained
1 tbsp stone ground mustard
In medium bowl combine SPAM, green beans, wax beans, kidney beans and onion. In small bowl combine remaining ingredients; pour over SPAM mixture. Stir gently, mixing thoroughly. Cover; refrigerate 2 to 3 hours or until serving time. Yield: 6 servings.
Business plan (Score:5, Funny)
Step 2: Make sure the media pick it up and spread it around
Step 3: Do nothing
Step 4: Redefine what you meant 2 years on
Step 5: Profit!
A bit more complicated than the underwear gnomes' business plan, but much more profitable.
Supply and Demand? (Score:5, Interesting)
Spam continues to be produced because it is generating income. I like to don my black hat and look at the spam forums and see that there still are people making boatloads of money for little investment. Investing US$10,000 in a spam campaign has net some people US$50,000 in a few months!
Why does spam generate income? Users continue to click. I have e-mail relationships with people all over the world on a daily basis, and it really blows my mind how some very bright people seem to be Internet morons. I honestly believe that the great majority of the world's Internet users have no idea how to properly browse or read e-mail.
Turning off images is a huge step in the right direction (I had already told many people to turn them off if the e-mail programmed allowed it). What other things have you told your friends or family to do to prevent the dreaded "my computer is so slow" phone call? How many times have you EVER clicked spam? The ratio is the answer to the question: teach others proper Internet usage techniques.
Spam is not 'solved' by filtering (Score:4, Insightful)
The Microsofts (and Ciscos, etc...) of this world probably think that once e-mail spam stops reaching peoples inboxes, the incentive for spammers to spam will vanish, and with it, the problem of spam. WRONG.
Marketing and salesforces all over the world have somehow gotten it into their heads that they have some God-given right to pester and harass consumers anytime, anyplace to beat them over the head with whatever they have around that should make you empty your pockets. And e-mail has been a relatively cheap way for them to harass us. But if that won't last, they will find newer, even more intrusive ways to get into our wallets^H^H^H^H^H^H^H hearts. Texting my mobile phone, calling me with product advertisements, harassing me while I'm shopping for groceries, Inserting picture-in-picture commercials during television, etc, etc, etc... I could go on for hours about how evil everything involving marketing and sales is, but hey, we all know that don't we?
My point is: Spam is not solved by either filtering messages, or making unsollicited commercial e-mail impossible. If Microsoft really wants to enhance the quality of my life, make sure I can for instance enjoy a half hour of television without being constantly interrupted by commercials, and keep those salesdroids away from my favorite supermarket, and away from my phone. Thank you.
Wrong, wrong, wrong (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft spams me (Score:5, Interesting)
In the past, though not for this issue, I have sent unsubscribe requests to Microsoft by registered mail and THOSE were ignored as well.
How can me possibly expect Microsoft to solve the spam problem if they themselves resort to spamming users and refusing unsubscription requests?
Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
There's only one way to solve spam. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Execute all spammers.
2) Execute all the imbeciles who buy from them.
Spam is a human problem, not a technology problem. Think of it as the black market, only even sleazier.
Re:close as i get (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:My Hotmail Inbox (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not "solving" spam, that's masking it. My company uses RBLs at the external mail gateways to try and control the flow of spam into our network. 80% (200,000 of 250,000 daily messages) is directly blocked via this method... that bandwidth is still being used, but we halt the flood of the e-mail to our internal mail servers before it can be a burden to our users.
Of the mail that does get through, another 20% is still spam that didn't get blocked by an RBL so it has to pass through another anti-spam gateway (spamassassin) that does analysis and tagging of the message before passing it on to the internal mail server. Of the mail that gets through, roughly 5-10% is probably mismarked as not being spam when it is. That ends up being a shitload of mail that still gets through into a user's inbox that they have to review and delete. Spread that across thousands of users and you have a very real problem.
What we really need are vigilantes to go out and kill the spammers. We have their names and their addresses on the ROKSO list. Kill those 200 spammers and it'll prove a powerful lesson to the remaining ones that haven't popped up on the radar yet. People need to learn that if they spam they will die. Without that threat I'm afraid spam will only become an ever-increasing problem until there will come a point where e-mail is a completely useless medium to use for communications without redesigning the protocol.
So, anyone got an ex-con brother who doesn't care whether he lands back in prison or not? ;-)
Parent