China and its Relation With Spam

smooth wombat writes "Asia Times has a nice article about why China is becoming the spam capital of the world. Steve Linford, of Spamhaus fame, is quoted several times in the article and offers some insight into how the Chinese ISPs operate. Steves quote at the end of the article pretty much sums up why China isn't doing anything to curb the hosting of spam website servers in the country: "They simply don't want to know - China Telecom doesn't care because they're government-owned and there is no pressure coming from the government. Meanwhile, our statistics on spam volumes and the number of spammers setting up in China are going up and up and up.""

Well, okay...

[GillBates0]

But I was thinking more along the lines of Yummy Hot and Spicy Chinese Spam:

SPAM(TM) Hot & Spicy Stir-Fry
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients
1/3 cup reduced-sodium teriyaki sauce
1/3 cup water
2 to 3 teaspoons HOUSE OF TSANG® MONGOLIAN FIRE® Oil
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 (12-ounce) can SPAM® Lite, cubed
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup pea pods
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1 tablespoon plus 1-1/2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 (14-ounce) can whole baby corn, drained and cut in half
1 (7-ounce) jar mushrooms, drained
6 cups hot cooked white rice

In small bowl, combine teriyaki sauce, water, Chinese hot oil and ginger; set aside. In wok or large skillet, stir-fry SPAM®, broccoli, onion, pea pods and bell pepper in vegetable oil 2 minutes. Add teriyaki sauce mixture; cook until bubbly. Add baby corn and mushrooms; heat thoroughly. Serve over rice.

Spam from Confusious

[teiresias]

Which is suprising considering the Government control on all things media.

From: Confusious
To: teiresias

Subject: Ancient Chinese Proverb

Body: "Increase your penis size with ginger root and secret ingredient. Act now and get a free webcam. Did I mention it make your wang huge!"

Governments

[Kipsaysso]

Ironically if the spammers make more money in China then the internet will be more profitable there then in a Capitalist society.

Re:The source?

[Winkhorst]

"As long as people are willing to pay for herbal Viagra...based on spam"

You mean herbal Viagra is made from Spam??! Does the FDA know about this? Why hasn't Spam started an ad campaign about this? "Eat Spam and grow large in TWO places!"

My standard response

[acceleriter]

to a Chinese originated spam or to a Chinese spamvertised website. Since they ignore reports and are happy to collect spammers' dollars, I figure the outside chance one might get a bullet to the head is the best that can be hoped for:

(first in probably very bad Chinese, thanks to Babelfish)

Dear Spamhaus,

You have won our promotion in the FREE TIBET, Falun Gong, Remember Tiananmen, rebellion against the Glorious Communist State Sweepstakes!

The number on the bullet (free to you, billed to your family), which will hopefully go through your head when the censors in your godless heathen illegitimate bastard country who can filter out everything except spam see this, is 7417.

Congratulations!

How to get it

[A nonymous Coward]

Post your email address here. Offers will be coming soon.

You're on slashdot. Why don't you already know this?

Slashbot math lesson

[klipsch_gmx]

the people who are actually buying the crap is very small like 0.001% So that is 1 in a Thousand People who buy this stuff.

I salute you, sir.

Lily Tomlin said it best...

[Samrobb]

They simply don't want to know - China Telecom doesn't care because they're government-owned and there is no pressure coming from the government.

"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."

-

Lily Tomlin [brainyquote.com] (as Ernestine the operator on SNL)

Re:Put the money where they belong!

[taustin]

Your post advocates a

( ) technical ( ) legislative (x) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(x) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Users of email will not put up with it
(x) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(x) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(x) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
(x) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
(x) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
(x) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
(x) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(x) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(x) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
(x) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

Re:no mail of value

[kawika]

Try that in the IT department of WalMart. You'd be booted back to Dogpatch USA when they found out you blocked all the Chinese domains, cutting them off from every one of their suppliers!

Suggested reply to chinese spammer....

[earthforce_1]

I suggest you reply to them in the following manner via a disposable email account:
--
Received your coded message. Operation "Rx Meds" is on track. Further supplies for Tibet liberation front will be delivered via usual contacts when in cases marked "Herbal Viagra" when payment in full received via cook island account.

Long live free Tibet!!
Long live Falun Gong!!

--

Rest assured, with all the net monitoring that goes on, their government WILL put him out of business, or at least you will keep him up at night waiting for a knock on the door.

blocks to boycotts

[rodentia]

Why not consider raising the bar. Rather than firewall Chinese IP blocks, make it a boycott. Block all traffic originating in China. Publicize it and while you're at it, boycott Cisco, Oracle, Bill Clinton and all the freedom loving US corporations and politicians that enabled the Great Firewall of China. Put those bastards behind a global TCP/IP boycott and we can move them off their totalitarian ways right quick.

Should take about a week or two, by my reckoning.

Fight back with sendmail

[Matt Perry]

Add this to sendmail.mc:

# Really give the Chinese Spammers a mouthful...
changequote([[,]])dnl
define([[confSMTP_LOGIN_MSG]], [[EFGIC: U.S. Congress Condemns China's Oppression of Falun Gong on\nU.S. Soil and in China\n\nHouse Concurrent Resolution 304 calls on China's agents in\n the United States to halt all operations being carried out against\n practitioners of Falun Gong on United States' soil, as well as the brutal\n persecution of millions inside China.\n\nLONDON (EFGIC) - Last week, the US Congress introduced a concurrent\n resolution calling on the Chinese government to end its brutal\n persecution of Falun Gong in China and stop all activities against Falun\n Gong practitioners inside the United States.\n House Concurrent Resolution 304 (full text), introduced by Congresswoman\n Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, references China's own constitution and\n international human rights accords in calling for China to uphold\n freedom of belief, assembly, and speech for the millions of Falun Gong\n practitioners in Mainland China.\n Resolution 304 also specifically mentioned section 401(a)(1)(B) of the\n International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401(a)(1)(B)):\n \"Whereas the Constitution of the United States guarantees freedom of\n religion, the right to assemble, and the right to speak freely, and the\n people of the United States strongly value protecting the ability of all\n people to live without fear and in accordance with their personal\n beliefs...\"\n Harassment, libel, and imprisonment have been widespread in\n Jiang Zemin's four-year campaign to eradicate Falun Gong. Torture and\n abuse in custody have led to thousands of wrongful deaths.\n]])dnl
changequote(`,')dnl

Re:Double-sided Great Firewall

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you think that this is something the Chinese might actually LIKE?

If Chinese email to the outside gets blocked on a wide scale, so does email traffic to chinese dissidents on the outside world...


Because no one in China knows about Hotmail. (Or the dozens other webmail sites out there.)

Re:Put the money where they belong!

[taustin]

I left out one item:

[x] You are an idiot. Report for sterlization immediately. Bring any living children with you.