North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Lazy network operators - NOT

  • From: Doug White
  • Date: Sun Apr 18 21:50:25 2004


:
:
:
: Lou Katz wrote:
: >
: > On Sun, Apr 18, 2004 at 02:01:45PM -0400, Jerry Eyers wrote:
: > >
: > > >Spamming is pervasive mainly due to the inattention or failure to
enforce
: > > >acceptable use policies by the service provider.
: > >
: > > I must point out that this statement is just flat wrong.
: > >
: > > Spamming exists because spamming works.  Why do spammers send
: > > out millions of emails?  Because thousands of people click, look at, and
: > > subscribe to services and products being spewed by the spammers.
: > >
: > > If spamming didn't sell products, spamming would die off.  We must
: > > educate the users to not do anything with spam but delete it.  As from
: > > the sucess of infomercials on television shows, that won't happen
: > > anytime soon.
: > >
: >
: > I think you are 'right on'. I offer this observation, first
: > triggered by a third-hand report from some sociologists:
:
: Perhaps you'd both care to provide a methodology whereby the same fools
: who respond to anatomical enlargement/improvement potions could be
: successfully educated as to the foibles of responding to spam? All 150
: million plus of them?
:
: And then perhaps compare that required effort and potential success to
: that of applying consistent global pressure on the 100 or so networks
: that host the compromised machines that are the unwitting gateways for
: almost all of today's spam. Unfortunately, in many cases, the networks
: do put enormous effort into disconnecting compromised boxes, but the
: numbers are overwhelming (240,000 on one network alone in the last 2
: weeks). That does not appear to be good enough any more.
:
: I'm with Paul.
:
: As Steve Bellovin has so frequently bleated: "Push the responsibility to
: the edges, where it belongs".
:
: -- 
Well, Paul did advance a methodology - blackhole them all <grin>

I prefer to send a

550 IP blocked for USE - for resolution contact your service provider.

Educating the masses who feel anatomically lacking, would be an impossible task
for a server admin.

Blocking the provider will hit them in the pocketbook, and usually gets
attention at the highest executive level, when enough of their customers quit
them.

Remember it took AOL the loss of nearly 10 million subscribers to make them
move against spam  at all.  Of course, we don't all agree with their
methodology, but they are making the attempt.

If just a few admins block Comcast (At&T) they will likely be ignored.  If
thousands of them block Comcast - they will become more pro-active, I submit.

SBC-Yahoo has silently implemented spam filters that add X headers which the
recipient can filter against.  For instance I filter against X-overseas source
blah blah

As for doing something from a provider standpoint against those who will not
install an a/v solution because it slows down their machine - or interferes
with their MP3 files, or graphics editors, is another mountain to climb, but
climb it they must.

The individual mail server admin is a very small part of the big picture, but
is responsible for his users, and must do as needed to re-capture the users'
inbox for their legitimate use.

The job becomes even more difficult when not everyone can agree on what is spam
and what is legitimate.

Maybe more rejects like :  550  postage due for commercial message delivery.
:-)