atw: Re: Moving at the speed of spam -AGAIN in TEXT

Not really. Its simple - spam is sent to so many addresses that the first
simple test is

"Is this SAME email being sent to more than <x> addresses"

Not addresses in one post, but across multiple posts. The side effect is the
chain joke letters will get hit, bit again, a simple nak from teh service
means human readers can get around the issue simply.

The hubs have the advantage of seeing multiple recipient's mail, we dont.

Steve Hudson

Word Heretic, Sydney, Australia
Tricky stuff with Word or words for you.
Email:      steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Products:   http://www.geocities.com/word_heretic/products.html
Spellbooks: 728 pages of dump left and dropping...


-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Peter G. Martin
Sent: Wednesday, 24 September 2003 12:19 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Moving at the speed of spam -AGAIN in TEXT


Excuse me -- I'll try to say that again !

[I thought I was sending in plain text format. Maybe I was=
 wrong.
This +should+ be plain text ]

On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 14:22:43 +1000, Steve Hudson wrote:
>You are all missing the basic point here. I am just one user, I=
 have
>had several MVP buddies yacking with me with the same problem.=
 There
>are MILLIONS of dud emails, weighing in at 150kb, being sent=
 every
>hour across the net because none of the hubs want to filter. So=
 the
>world suffers. These packages of crap could be stopped in their
>tracks almost after the point of origin. No-one would notice,=
 within
>a few days of a new outbreak every filter would know what to=
 block
>at the flood STOPS. We need an anti- dns type broadcast and the
>desire to maintain it by all companies.
>
>Unfortunately, they make money off bandwidth. The more spam you=
 get,
>the more bandwidth you need to buy off them. QoS is merely=
 something
>to whip the end user with.
>


Maybe not so much missing your point, Steve, as despairing of=
 the
option of getting ISPs to do it effectively, and moving on to=
 other
defensive strategies?

Mind you, I think there's a philosophical problem involved,=
 which
also has legal implications:

I don't +want+ my ISP deciding for me what I can read, any more=
 than
I want my government to decide it.

And the best and best-intentioned of spam filters still make=
 mistakes
-- of an occasionally funny kind.

A better solution would be if ISPs were to offer standardised
(therein lies a problem) filters which simply categorised emails=
 on a
probabilistic basis (as in Bayesian tests like SpamAssassin uses)=
 and
then provlde the option for users to make their own choices for
applying that filter, and if it is applied, limited their=
 downloading
-- based on (overridable) categorisations.

In other words, the ISP pre-processes content automagically to=
 apply
spam tests, then labels the dubious ones in one or more=
 categories :
a la "Probably SPAM", "Possibly SPAM", "Could be SPAM" etc...

All that takes is a SpamAssassin task running on the server, and
maybe the establishment of another standard mailbox for likely=
 spam,
for those who opt for that service.

But if an automatic checker totally blocked my access to an=
 email
that maybe looked like spam, but was actually an urgent business
communication, and I didn't receive it, I'd be shitty.

And if a lover decided to get explicit and tell me what she=
 really
wanted to do....   and that  was stopped, I'd be bereft,=
 particularly
if I never found out how she planned to increase the leng..... =
 --
never mind...

And ISPs know that. Well, they should.

-Peter G. Martin,
Technical writer, Proxima Technology


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