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Spammed: A costly war of attrition sours the Internet experience
AP ^ | August 4, 2002 | Anick Jesdanun

Posted on 08/04/2002 1:38:54 AM PDT by sarcasm

Edited on 05/07/2004 7:08:56 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

NEW YORK -- Take part in a billion-dollar giveaway for the $49.99 cost of a brochure. Get dental coverage for just $12 a month. Lose 12 pounds in seven days. Join a "Britney Spears Orgy!!"

We're never amazed anymore about what clutters our electronic mailboxes daily. Only bothered.


(Excerpt) Read more at detnews.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 08/04/2002 1:38:54 AM PDT by sarcasm
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To: sarcasm
ISPs have to start blacklisting the individuals responsible for the high volume spam, or congress and the FCC will step in.
2 posted on 08/04/2002 2:09:49 AM PDT by Djarum
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To: Djarum
Cloudmark's SpamNet is a Godsend. It catches about 99% of incomming spam, and hasn't yet filtered out any legitimate emails I've received.
3 posted on 08/04/2002 2:45:04 AM PDT by Monitor
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: patrioticduty
I just wonder what kind of sales they cen get from spam...

I don't know, nor do I care. What I do care about is that I've overlooked important legitimate emails in the past because they were obscured in a sea of spam in my in-box.

5 posted on 08/04/2002 3:14:14 AM PDT by Monitor
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To: sarcasm
The solution is to charge $.37 for each e-mail. That way the bulk mailers will stop sending spam.

Of course this is a Dumocrap idea, not mine.

6 posted on 08/04/2002 3:19:41 AM PDT by Pistolshot
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To: sarcasm
A regular action now when entering my mailbox is to go down the list of emails and dump the spam...except for assholes pushing porn...these I forward to AOL for them to deal with. Yeah, you AOL-haters will say "that doesn't do any good because AOL is actually part of the NWO or whatever, but it makes me feel good to do it.

If we don't self-regulate, the bureaucrats will be happy to do it for us.

7 posted on 08/04/2002 3:29:00 AM PDT by Redleg Duke
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To: Monitor
I figure the only ones making any money are those selling email addresses.
8 posted on 08/04/2002 3:30:22 AM PDT by Redleg Duke
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To: Djarum
"ISPs have to start blacklisting the individuals responsible for the high volume spam, or congress and the FCC will step in."

Nope. ISPs need to start blocking ISPs that don't handle abuse. Blocking individual ip addresses has beeen tried, and it doesn't work.

SPEWS blocks much larger ranges of addresses. Yes, there is collateral damage. I think that's ok. I don't want email form anybody who gives money to a spam friendly ISP. They can move, or convince the ISP to clean house.

This approach has already shown progress. No, it doesn't stop all spam. Even the best ISP will have some go through. The important thing is how they react to it. We need to force ISPs to be violently anti-spam, and to immedietly shut down *any* customer that spams, no matter how big.
9 posted on 08/04/2002 4:21:04 AM PDT by mykej
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To: Monitor
Will SpamNet work on hotmail accounts? Some services I've seen won't.
10 posted on 08/04/2002 4:49:07 AM PDT by serinde
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To: mykej
SPEWS blocks much larger ranges of addresses. Yes, there is collateral damage. I think that's ok. I don't want email form anybody who gives money to a spam friendly ISP. They can move, or convince the ISP to clean house.

SPEWS is the only one that has really worked. The RBL tried to "Educate" spammers. That was stupid, because anyone who has had an e-mail account for a month knows ALL ABOUT spam.

For proof that SPEWS works, read news.admin.net-abuse.email, and watch the ISPs begging to be taken off! It's a wonderful sight.

All this could be avoided just by throttling mail servers, but no one wants to do that.

I think the thing that will finally do it is the flood of porn spam; While spam is not based on content, but on permission, still, some of it is so intrusive and offensive that it will finally put everyone over the edge.

11 posted on 08/04/2002 5:40:15 AM PDT by Gorzaloon
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To: mykej
Nope. ISPs need to start blocking ISPs that don't handle abuse. Blocking individual ip addresses has beeen tried, and it doesn't work.

When I was an ISP between '95 an d'97, I'd notify the upstream provider of the spam originator of the abuse, since it was almost always against the upstream providers AUP to send out SPAM from any of their hosted domains. In the majority of cases, the SPAM came from AOL or an AOL hosted domain. If only we'd have managed to get AOL's upstream providers to cut their internet access off back then! LOL!!!

This usually worked, and the spam stopped - for awhile. The problem is that Spammers are so fleet a-foot that the minute one domain & connection gets shut down they simply pull another out of their back pocket (previously setup) and continued on.

I personally don't rely on email anymore. I have ONE account setup that uses an approved receivers list. Unless you're on my approved receivers list, EVERYTHING you send me goes into the trash. I receive email from less than 20 people, and often go for days to a week without receiving a single email. Suits me just fine. :)

12 posted on 08/04/2002 5:59:09 AM PDT by usconservative
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To: usconservative
My solution was to go with a little known national ISP. $5.95 a month for 200 hours, two email accounts and no spam.
13 posted on 08/04/2002 6:20:38 AM PDT by listenhillary
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To: serinde
Will SpamNet work on hotmail accounts? Some services I've seen won't.

SpamNet integrates in with Microsoft Outlook. If you're using Outlook to access your Hotmail account, then it should work.

14 posted on 08/04/2002 11:46:04 AM PDT by Monitor
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Comment #15 Removed by Moderator

To: Monitor
SpamNet looks good, but I don't use Outlook.
16 posted on 08/04/2002 2:19:37 PM PDT by Djarum
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To: mykej
Nope. ISPs need to start blocking ISPs that don't handle abuse. Blocking individual ip addresses has beeen tried, and it doesn't work.

I meant the name and information of the individual should be blacklisted so that they cannot get service from a legitimate ISP. I'm all for firewalling the ISPs who want to make money by housing these pests.
17 posted on 08/04/2002 2:22:24 PM PDT by Djarum
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