Spammers on the Run

ericald writes "An interesting update from Blue Security, the group that introduces the Blue Frog initiative to fight spam, claims that during the past few days at least one spammer had frequently deleted domains he owned as a result of their system. In another update in their blog they report they have already recruited over 21,000 users. It's about time spammers start feeling the heat! I'm just surprised they show results so soon."

Excuse me...

[JonN]

Is it just me, or does anybody else think that these attempts might show some promise, but in the long end probably won't work. Basically this is the spamming world versus an organization which, in reality, uses spam right back to get the results they wish. Yes yes, I know you will all say they are using spam in the 'name of good' and all that, however, an organization without political ties will not be able to battle all those companies responsible for the spam in the first place. Until we see more government movement against spammers, I don't see much of a dent on the spam I am getting in my Inbox...

...Unless of course Blue Security would like a list of the spammers who are filling my email, then perhaps I will change my opinion ;)

Re:Spammers fate

[quasi_steller]

But wouldn't it be better to make spam unprofitable [paulgraham.com] by creating better spam filters? This way so very few people even see the spam that no company will even invest in this sort of marketing anymore.

On the use of this to decrease your competition

[Haiku 4 U]

If I was the King
of Spam, I would send email
for competitors.

More people will hire
me - my competition is
DOSed to death!

Poor solution

[gr8_phk]

This solution to spam is one that could at best reach an equilibrium with less spam but still plenty around. If people have to DDOS the spammers to make the problem go away, then it will never go away. If it did, people would stop being prepared to DDOS them and the problem will come back. This is not likely to be cyclical, but rather reach an equilibrium. It also doesn't account for zombies sending spam - unless you DDOS the sites that are advertised, and that's got another whole set of legal issues.

IMHO, sender pays (ala hash-cash or something like it) is the only way to make a meaningful dent in the spam problem. I know this fails one or two of the "reasons" on that list as to why it won't work, but doing nothing also doesn't work. Why don't Free programs implement this so people at least have the option of using it? I'd actually prefer a problem that can scale much larger - like taking a minute or even an hour on todays computers - so it will still be viable in the future. Yes, there are issues (like mailing lists) with this approach, but there are ways around those too. People have to be willing to do SOMETHING. If someone doesn't do something, someone else (think MS) will. Then we'll have a proprietary "standard" for dealing with it. You folks maintaining the software just have to get some nads and take a little initiative on this. If you wait for some company to devise a solution, they aren't going to just give it to you.

Re:Blue Security

[amliebsch]

How is Option #2 any different than the sit-ins done during the 1960's civil rights movement to businesses in Alabama?

Those are lauded in all of the history books as an application of peaceful economic pressure.

Peaceful, yes; lawful, no.

Re:Excuse me...

[hackstraw]

Is it just me, or does anybody else think that these attempts might show some promise, but in the long end probably won't work.

This may not work. I don't know.

The thing here is that there are basically 3 types of SPAM.

1) Annoying mails from a legitimate company that you may or may not have explicitly told them they could spam you, or you are just being punished for being their customer. The difference here is that they _DO_ comply with opting out.

2) Annoying mails from a semi-legitimate company that will not unsubscribe you without physical intervention with a baseball bat. Ticketmaster is a prime example of this, and my baseball bat is ready.

3) Annoying mails from a non-legitimate company or other entity, often outside of your country, that will never stop sending you more and more mail until your email address does not work. Even then, they will probably send mail, it just will not be delivered.

Number 2 is very annoying, but hey, maybe I will or some bozo like me might actually want to see Britney Spears someday, and a reminder that she is coming to town from Ticketmaster will bring out my weakness for such a thing. You never know.

Number 1 is tolerable.

Number 3 is not. This is were all of the phishing scams come from, the V_1_@_G_8_A, the black market software sales, rolex watches, pr0n, Nigerian scams, and whatnot. These mails often have either a deceptive subject and/or to or from address. The domain names are registered in bulk and do not have an index page at the top level of the website. The domains often have inaccurate information in the registrar's records. The products are either nonexistent, illegal, quasi-illegal, or simply a front to confirm your address so you will get more.

There are 2 things in common with the Number 3 group that do not exist in the others. A need for anonymity via email and the web as part of their "business model" and a need for that 1 in a million sale to that 1 in a million moron, so a million mails are required for one sale, and X times a million mails for enough sales to make money. In my opinion, if registrars did their job by validating the authenticity of a domain name request, a vast majority of the spam domains would no longer exist.

I don't get hardly any spam in my inbox because of a tuned installation of spamassassin. I've also reduced the amount of incoming spam by using spamgourmet from http://www.spamgourmet.com/ [spamgourmet.com]. Its an excellent way to easily and dynamically create disposable addresses that will not receive spam after a configurable number of mails have been forwarded to you. It also lets you look to see who has tried to spam you! So far, the leader is the email address I used for an NYTimes registration. About 40 mail a month try to get to that address (I just use one of those random ones now).

I hate spam. I will foe anybody that puts spam in their slashdot sigs like for the "free" stuff like iPods or Minis. I have nothing against you wanting to make money, but if I'm not interested in either your product or helping you make money and I ask you to leave me alone, do it. DO NOT SHOUT LOUDER THINKING I WILL NOW RESPOND. DO NOT KEEP SHOUTING AND SHOUTING LOUDER THINKING I WILL RESPOND.

Re:Spammers fate

[Flendon]

Annoying Commercial Emailer: ACE has a more positive tone to it that the spammers would flock to and everyone prefers acronyms that spell words.

Re:Spammers fate

[budgenator]

In many jurisdictions it's not illegal to send unsolicited bulk email
WRONG, it's a violation of federal law, specificaly a violation of the federal anti-junk fax law, computers are capable of sending and recieving faxes, violators are subject to a $500.00 fine per message.

47 U.S.C. Section 227. Restrictions on Use of Telephone Equipment
(a) Definitions. As used in this section -
(2) The term ''telephone facsimile machine'' means equipment which has the capacity
(A) to transcribe text or images, or both, from paper into an electronic signal and to transmit that signal over a regular telephone line, or
(B) to transcribe text or images (or both) from an electronic signal received over a regular telephone line onto paper. ...
(4) The term ''unsolicited advertisement'' means any material advertising the commercial availability or quality of any property, goods, or services which is transmitted to any person without that person's prior express invitation or permission. ...
(3) Private Right of Action. A person or entity may, if otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of a State, bring in an appropriate court of that State -
(A) an action based on a violation of this subsection or the regulations prescribed under this subsection to enjoin such violation,
(B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such violation, whichever is greater, or
(C) both such actions.
If the court finds that the defendant willfully or knowingly violated this subsection or the regulations prescribed under this subsection, the court may, in its discretion, increase the amount of the award to an amount equal to not more than 3 times the amount available under subparagraph (B) of this paragraph.

see Junk Fax Law [keytlaw.com] for complete verbage.