#169363 - 07/07/2003 07:16
Adv: Spam?
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
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In the past week I have received the average amount of spam in my inbox. However, it differed in the subject line because around 50-75% of them now begin with "Ad:" or "Adv:" and then the usual crap they have in their subject lines.
I know that this has been one of the suggestions for laws to be passed against spammers, but as far as I knew, there have been no such laws passed yet.
So what is the reason? Are spammers testing it out to see what kind of business they can still drum up? 'Cause I'm telling you, my webmail and OE are getting some extra added filter entries today 
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Matt
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#169364 - 07/07/2003 07:23
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Actually, I think that law was already on the books. Perhaps the enforcement has changed. Or, with the US National Do Not Call List going up, it has the spammers a little more worried.
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#169365 - 07/07/2003 07:41
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: pgrzelak]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
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All I can say is: Hallelujah!
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Matt
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#169366 - 07/07/2003 07:44
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: Dignan]
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old hand
Registered: 27/02/2003
Posts: 770
Loc: Washington, DC metro
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I think California started it by requiring ADV: on spam, and several other states have joined.
edit (hit wrong continue button): Of course, only the "ethical" spammers follow this law. Those are probably the ones you can successfully unsubscribe from.
-jk
Edited by jmwking (07/07/2003 07:46)
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#169367 - 07/07/2003 10:14
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: jmwking]
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journeyman
Registered: 26/06/2003
Posts: 73
Loc: NVirginial
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All I can say is FINALLY.... it is rediculous the amount of spam I recieve... howwever... hotmail allows a junk mail folder... so in my hotmail account I don't usually recieve to much spam b/c it automatically goes into the junk mail folder... netscape... erols they don't .....
And I haven't noticied too much ADV on sexual related spams yet... so I can't entirly block the m... hopefully soon thoufh
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~Elle~
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#169368 - 07/07/2003 10:17
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: gsm01320]
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old hand
Registered: 27/02/2003
Posts: 770
Loc: Washington, DC metro
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I wouldn't hold your breath were I you. All the spam originating outside the US (or untraceably so) isn't covered. So the spammers who bounce spam of the Chinese servers with no routing info are in the clear to keep spamming away, pretty much beyond the reach of any US or EU laws, even if they are US (as seems to be the case) companies.
-jk
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#169369 - 07/07/2003 12:39
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: jmwking]
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journeyman
Registered: 26/06/2003
Posts: 73
Loc: NVirginial
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I wouldn't hold your breath were I you. All the spam originating outside the US (or untraceably so) isn't covered. So the
spammers who bounce spam of the Chinese servers with no routing info are in the clear to keep spamming away, pretty much
beyond the reach of any US or EU laws, even if they are US (as seems to be the case) companies.
I guess you're right... it still would be nice though.... Its sooo frustrating though... you'd think these people have something better to do with their time then this... how do they manage to send out all of those e-mails anyways?? grrr
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~Elle~
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#169370 - 07/07/2003 12:56
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: gsm01320]
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old hand
Registered: 27/02/2003
Posts: 770
Loc: Washington, DC metro
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how do they manage to send out all of those e-mails anyways??
By sending a single message to thousands of addresses to a server in China (or some other vulnerable server), where it gets split up into all the individual messages and sent on to you and me.
Pure bandwidth thievery.
-jk
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#169371 - 07/07/2003 13:06
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: jmwking]
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old hand
Registered: 18/08/2000
Posts: 992
Loc: Georgetown, TX USA
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And with .1% response considered a wildly successful rate, it gets them to send even more SPAM per day thereby increasing potential revenues. Spammers claim they make from $1000 to $10000 a week. And death threats as well... 
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Dave Clark
Georgetown, Texas
MK2A 42Gb - AnoFace - Smoke Lens - Dead Tuner - Sirius Radio on AUX
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#169372 - 07/07/2003 13:08
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: gsm01320]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
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A thousand monkeys on a thousand kiosks?
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Matt
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#169373 - 07/07/2003 14:45
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: jmwking]
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journeyman
Registered: 26/06/2003
Posts: 73
Loc: NVirginial
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By sending a single message to thousands of addresses to a server in China (or some other vulnerable
server), where it gets split up into all the individual messages and sent on to you and me.
so... I guess I should stop "unsubscribing" to them b/c then they'll know it was a "good" address and send it to other places.. and then I get even more?
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~Elle~
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#169374 - 07/07/2003 15:01
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: gsm01320]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/06/2000
Posts: 1682
Loc: Greenhills, Ohio
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Yes, I did that once and now I receive at least 50 spam messages a day. Before doing that I received very few.
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Laura
MKI #017/90
whatever
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#169375 - 07/07/2003 15:15
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: gsm01320]
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old hand
Registered: 27/02/2003
Posts: 770
Loc: Washington, DC metro
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Generally, unsubscribing only works with reputable organizations.
I don't think a "donotspam" list analogous to the "donotcall" list will work, and would probably backfire, as there is no mechanism for stopping international spam and it gives spammers a ready-made list of addresses. (sigh)
I think we can hope for an opt-in only law (which will slow domestic spam) with no misleading routing allowed and with stiff penalties, or a whole new RFC for email to kill spam for anything but opt-in.
-jk
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#169376 - 07/07/2003 16:22
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: Laura]
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journeyman
Registered: 26/06/2003
Posts: 73
Loc: NVirginial
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Yes, I did that once and now I receive at least 50 spam messages a day. Before doing that I received very few.
Yea... I did that for my moms e-mail... only to like 3 different ones... now she gets so many (like 100) e-mail spams a day... its rediculous to keep tabs on them... she warned me too..lol... and it takes sooo lonf to load them all
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~Elle~
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#169377 - 07/07/2003 16:23
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: jmwking]
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journeyman
Registered: 26/06/2003
Posts: 73
Loc: NVirginial
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I think we can hope for an opt-in only law (which will slow domestic spam) with no misleading routing
allowed and with stiff penalties, or a whole new RFC for email to kill spam for anything but opt-in.
I sure hope so
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~Elle~
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#169378 - 07/07/2003 16:53
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: gsm01320]
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old hand
Registered: 27/02/2003
Posts: 770
Loc: Washington, DC metro
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But I'm not holding my breath - MS, AOL and Yahoo seem to be doing their best to kill any opt-in only legislation.
-jk
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#169379 - 07/07/2003 17:37
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: gsm01320]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5540
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
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and it takes sooo lonf to load them all
My ISP is experimenting with a new spam control system that so far, at least, seems to be effective.
They are doing their spam control at the server level -- messages that are deemed to be spam are refused by the server so the end user never has to deal with them at all.
Even at the least aggressive setting, my spams have gone from 50-60 per day down to 5--6, and so far I don't know of any refusals of genuine emails that I wanted to receive.
With server side spam prevention, it becomes economically feasible to have and maintain an extremely sophisticated and effective spam filter, where the time and cost can be "shared" across tens of thousands of subscribers.
tanstaafl.
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
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#169380 - 07/07/2003 18:47
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: tanstaafl.]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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If your ISP implemented IMAP (or, more generally, some mail system where you could have more folders than just an inbox on the mail server, and of which IMAP is the only nonproprietary one), it could deliver the ones it deemed to be spam into a different folder, so that you didn't have to deal with it until you felt like it. That way, legitimate emails that got misidentifed wouldn't be bounced.
Of course, it might be better to bounce them. That way the sender would know immediately that you didn't get it instead of having it languish in that spam folder for months, only to be automatically deleted.
So nevermind.
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Bitt Faulk
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#169381 - 07/07/2003 19:19
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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Get your own domain name and use throw-away addresses for everything except personal communication. I was getting CRAZY spam at my bruno@hybrid8.com address. Now anyone mailing that only gets an auto-responder telling them to email a TEMP address to get my attention.
My spam increased dramatically a few weeks ago. Don't know why. I now use a different temp address for domain registrations, mailto: links, any online purchasing, etc. Never give my email address on any paper-based form for any company. That will ALWAYS lead to spam. That's how I got my first work email address in the spam field. Gave email address to bank when applying for account.
Bruno
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#169382 - 07/07/2003 21:40
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: wfaulk]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 20/01/2002
Posts: 2085
Loc: New Orleans, LA
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Of course, bouncing is of very little use as most of these people use a false reply-to address anyway, so all you really get is 4 times the messages as the servers bounce back and forth to each other. At work, I send all suspected spam messages to a spam user. This allows me to make sure that nobody screams that an important email got tagged. We have ~150 users and we recieve about 9000 spam messages a day. That is just unbelieveable to me. That averages to a spam message caught every 9.6 seconds. I add about 10-15 domains to my blacklist every day, and they keep coming up with new names.
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#169383 - 08/07/2003 08:28
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: lectric]
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old hand
Registered: 27/02/2003
Posts: 770
Loc: Washington, DC metro
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We've just gotten to the point that we use three (reputable) RBLs, and reject connections if they show up in any of them. About once a month, I have to whitelist a mail server (a client or vendor), but I let them know that they were in a black list and point them towards it so they can fix it (or find a new mail provider). It's reduced our spam (we have about 500 mailboxes) by about two thirds.
We're investigating other filter possibilities. Anyone have good results with any content filters? It seems the spammers change content faster than the filters can keep up.
-jk
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#169384 - 08/07/2003 14:39
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: jmwking]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5540
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
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It seems the spammers change content faster than the filters can keep up.
This is where a server-side spam filter can be advantageous. In the case of an ISP with tens of thousands of subscribers, they could literally afford to hire somebody full time to do nothing but tweak their spam filters for maximum effectiveness.
tanstaafl.
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
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#169386 - 09/07/2003 07:24
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: tanstaafl.]
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old hand
Registered: 27/02/2003
Posts: 770
Loc: Washington, DC metro
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In the case of an ISP with tens of thousands of subscribers...
Unfortunately, it's just me and 500 mailboxes, and a small IT budget (mid-size companies really are between that rock and hard place). Sigh.
-jk
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#169387 - 09/07/2003 07:31
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: ninti]
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old hand
Registered: 27/02/2003
Posts: 770
Loc: Washington, DC metro
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I've read a little about Bayesian filters. I'm about to plunge into learning my way around linux to start playing with various filter technologies. We don't use exchange/outlook (we're on Groupwise and a little Notes with a third party smtp/domino/groupwise gateway), so the canned packages are not easy to work with.
I think I'll have to put something in front of our existing gateway, get it to do an ldap lookup on said existing gateway to validate addresses (I think I can tweak it for this), and do the spam checking there.
It's getting really annoying, I have no money, and not much spare time. But isn't that true for all of us?
-jk
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#169388 - 10/07/2003 11:58
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: ninti]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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I am currently using POPFile Bayesian filter (open source, Perl, works as POP proxy) with very good results. Dead simple, too.
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Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Q#5196
MkII #080000376, 18GB green
MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue
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#169389 - 10/07/2003 12:08
Re: Adv: Spam?
[Re: bonzi]
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old hand
Registered: 27/02/2003
Posts: 770
Loc: Washington, DC metro
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I am currently using POPFile Bayesian filter (open source, Perl, works as POP proxy) with very good results. Dead simple, too.
I run an SMTP gateway, on a corporate level. I'll need something that will intercept the inbound SMTP connections, spam check with various tests (rbl, bayesian, whatever), then hand off to our main gateway. Ideally, something that would allow the users to train their profile with their own spam, with little interference from me.
-jk
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