Re: [Nolug] Cox's idea about fighting spam

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003, Scott Harney wrote:

> Heck, it does make sense. What doesn't make sense is that there's no way out.
> And that's just one more filter. From the user's side, you have to wonder
> where it will stop. I want high speed and I don't want my ISP doing any
> filtering on my behalf. So it looks like I'll be seeking a new ISP since Cox
> appears to offer no alternative for consumers.

I see both sides of this.

We had to start blocking SMTP when we started getting increased SpamCop
type messages. And started reading articles saying spammers are getting
creative and offering University students up to $20/month and all they had
to do was "run this little program" on the PC in the dorm. The "little
program" connects back to the spammer's server and says 'here i am, ready
to relay'. They're creating zombie relay networks ala the DDoS networks
we are all familiar with. We allow exceptions for people i know are
competent to run a mail server, but Cox doesn't have that luxury.

So who wants to opt-out so spammer.com can keep sending you the $20/month?

Blocking ports is only a stop gap. The next version of spammer.com's
software will look in your Outlook settings for your SMTP server, and just
relay through there. What will we do then? Limit the number of SMTP
transactions? "You can only send 1 email every 5 minutes..."

We can keep playing this cat and mouse game forever. Spam is the core
problem, and needs to be stopped. Anything else is just a band-aid. We
need effective legislation to outlaw spam. There needs to be major fines.
We need the big corporations like Cox to stop penalizing their customers,
and use their huge legal departments for something useful: start suing
the living shit out of the spammers that pose as "advertising companies".
It's all about money. As long as sending spam is practically free, it
will not stop. But if sending spam might also land you a multi-million
dollar lawsuit from Cox, Charter, AOL, etc... the spammer might think
twice.

ray

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Ray DeJean  				       	 http://www.r-a-y.org
Systems Engineer                    Southeastern Louisiana University
IBM Certified Specialist  	      AIX Administration, AIX Support
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