November 1997 - Test - lists.nanog.org

Re: Spam Control Considered Harmful
by Scott Hazen Mueller 01 Nov '97

01 Nov '97

>From: Phil Lawlor <phil(a)agis.net> Welcome to the discussion, Phil. >>a large-scale re-structuring of Internet mail to provide for secure >>authentication and cost sharing for received e-mail. >What if the equivalent of "caller ID" was built into sendmail? Making sure >that the sender is a valid email address. It's a necessary precondition, but not sufficient by itself. Also, simple address verification may or may not be enough. There is no statute or case law that makes the owner of an address legally liable for the mail emitting from there - this could be an issue for claims of forgery and the like. The above notwithstanding, assume for the sake of argument that one could develop and deploy a secure mail system that authenticated message origin to the account level. This would meet the first requirement, and could *possibly* be the infrastructure for building the second. However, limiting anonymity likely wouldn't provide a strong deterrent by itself, since spammers could still run through multiple non-anonymous dialup accounts over the lifetime of a spam campaign. The other piece that would be needed - in this technological solution world - would be a fast, secure universal electronic payment system such that each mail message would be accompanied by some offer of payment. A friend or some other previous acquaintance would presumably send messages with a 0 cent payment and assume that you would recognize their name and address and accept the message anyway. An advertiser would include some amount and you - or your filters - would decide to accept or reject the message based on that and possibly some other tagging information. The scheme has generally not been sketched in much further detail because the deployment issues typically overwhelm any discussion. -- Scott Hazen Mueller zorch(a)wenet.net +1 415 281 6550 x269 Vice President Engineering, Whole Earth Networks (Hooked and The Well)

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SPAM, IEMMC, and Caller ID
by Steve Sobol 01 Nov '97

01 Nov '97

Hi there -- I subscribed to this mailing list for the express purpose of replying to things that have been said on the subject of unsolicited bulk e-mail. Phil Lawlor of AGIS has suggested that a "Caller-ID" type of functionality be built into sendmail. Do I think that is a good idea? In a general sense, it probably is -- accountability is a Good Thing, and a mechanism such as he suggests will probably help situations where mailbombs, Denial of Service attacks, or harrassment have occurred and the perpetrator has to be found. Will it help reduce spam? Absolutely not. People will find ways to "block" the "caller ID", and not everyone uses sendmail as a mail server anyhow. Phil also mentioned that he spent a sizable sum of money on the IEMMC and it ended up going nowhere. That might possibly be because the IEMMC was run, apparently, by Walter Rines. Walter Rines is owner of Quantum Communications, a big spamhaus that was (until recently) hosted by AGIS. I question the wisdom of putting a spammer in charge of an organization that is supposed to reduce spam levels for people who don't want to be spammed. Would you put a convicted murderer in charge of a program designed to rehabilitate criminals? Probably not. Incidentally, Mr. Lawlor, if you really *are* participating in this discussion because you are interested in lowering the level of spam that gets dumped on the Net on a daily basis, I commend you for your change of heart. Those of us who frequent the news.admin.net-abuse newsgroups would be quite proud of you. -- NACS.NET ** Steve Sobol (sjsobol @ nacs.net) *** 216 619-2000, 1-888-273-NACS Tech Support, Programming, Postmaster, DNS dude, Real-Live Human Abuse Auto- Responder & Spam Fighter who is waiting for his Netscum Page. (Where is it, Boursy??) ** http://www.nacs.net ** Net Abuse Hotline: abuse @ nacs.net

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Thoughts on spam control
by Patrick Lynch 31 Oct '97

31 Oct '97

I saw an interesting link suggested in this group for the spam problem: http://www.e-scrub.com/wpoison/ >From there I saw this program. http://www.e-scrub.com/cgi-bin/deadbolt.cgi/show_demo_entry These are both interesting programs, but may have inherent problems. wpoison: Traps e-mail web crawlers, but what is to stop it from trapping other web crawlers that altavista, webcrawler, excite, yahoo and other people use? It boasts that it can provide an almost infinite number of bogus e-mail addresses as well as hyperlinks. (these hyperlinks point directly back to the same page) Why would you want to trap a web crawler on your site, using your bandwidth and resources almost indefinitely? Deadbolt(tm): This filters out known e-mail spammers, from an automatically update-able lists, provided by E-scrub Technologies. What happens when a majority of ISPs are using a filter like this and a legitimate e-mail address is accidently put in the list? That e-mail address would then be denied by a majority of the ISPs. -- Patrick Lynch -- INDnet Network Engineer E-mail -- plynch(a)ind.net, noc(a)ind.net Phone: 317.263.8966 FAX: 317.263.8831

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to control spam let's break the net?
by Robert Laughlin 31 Oct '97

31 Oct '97

Well spam is bad, but I do not think this is the answer either. DataXchange has spent lots of efforts at spam control, but apparently Karl does not think we have done enough. Based on receiving this one email, relayed thru us, he has decided to put a block in place. Most of our customers use portal.dx.net and other machines in the same address block as a mail relay, so he has effectively cut off most of our ISPs and their customers from his net. Of course maybe his network is pure, and he has found the magic bullet that stops any of his customers from spamming or relaying spam from any of his hosts or his customer's hosts. Regards, Robert Laughlin president ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DataXchange sales: 800-863-1550 http://www.dx.net Network Operations Center: 703-903-7412 -or- 888-903-7412 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Fri, 31 Oct 1997, Karl Denninger wrote: > > > Dear Site Administrator: > > Your netblock has been banned from our service for one or more of > the following offenses: > > 1) You have been used as a mail relay for spam or other unsolicited > electronic mail, and we are unable to determine if you are an > unwilling victim or a participant in the scheme. > > 2) Your domain ORIGINATED a spam or other unsolicited transmission > of electronic mail to multiple accounts on our service, and we > have received complaints or otherwise detected this unsolicited > transmission. > > 3) A customer of your service appears to have used *OUR* servers > as a relay for unsolicited email or other traffic to other > unwitting users of the Internet. > > If the offense is (2) or (3), your netblock has been PERMANENTLY blocked > until and unless you do one of the following: > > 1) Identify and remove the perpetrator of this offense. We require > documentation that the perpetrator has been removed from your > service and will not be sold access through your organization > or any affiliate or subsidiary in the future. Note that this > option will be offered only ONCE per perpetrator (ie: if you > misrepresent that a given organization has been removed, we will > not allow you this option a second time) > > 2) Identify *TO US* the source and perpetrator of this offense. > This includes their physical address, telephone number, and > sufficient unambiguous identifying information so that we may > take remedial action ourselves against this party if we so > choose to do so. > > 3) You may choose to pay MCSNet a fee for the processing of the spam > or other UCE which your organization originated, whether by yourself > or on behalf of one of your customers who you choose to protect. > The fee is currently US $500.00, doubled for each offense (ie: the > first offense is $500, the second $1000, the third $2000, etc). > The block will be removed when the fee has been paid in good US > funds. HOWEVER, note that paying the fee does not prevent the > block from being reinstated if you spam us again (in which case > the fee escalates as stated above). > > If the offense is (1) above, the block will be removed when you demonstrate > to our satisfaction that further relaying from the originating source is no > longer possible. > > Since you can no longer transmit email to our domain, to correspond with us > you must call our technical department at +1 312-803-6271 (press "T"). A > technical support representative will assist you. This department is open > from 8:00 AM - Midnight Monday through Friday, and 9-5 on weekends. > > Thank you. > > MCSNet Management > > > -----Forwarded message from 56694256(a)compuserve.com----- > > Received: from portal.dx.net (portal.dx.net [199.190.65.2]) by Mailbox.mcs.net (8.8.7/8.8.2) with ESMTP id EAA05582; Fri, 31 Oct 1997 04:03:14 -0600 (CST) > From: 56694256(a)compuserve.com > Received: from dx.net (ppp-206-171-250-28.vntrcs.pacbell.net [206.171.250.28]) > by portal.dx.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id FAA10023; > Fri, 31 Oct 1997 05:00:10 -0500 (EST) > Date: Fri, 31 Oct 97 01:04:14 EST > To: FreeSatellite(a)aol.com > Subject: FREE SATELLITE DISH > Message-ID: <> > > WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE A FREE SATELLITE DISH ??? > > Sounds too GOOD to be TRUE, right? Believe me, it's not! All you have to do is > call 800-733-8643, tell them that you want special offer # 954123595, leave your > name and telephone number. We will call you shortly and arrange for you to > receive your FREE Satellite Dish. A small $99.00 installation charge is > all that you pay (you will not want to install it yourself!) and the small monthly > television charge just like cable but YOU DO NOT PAY FOR THE DISH! > > Now, you can receive cable channels over a Satellite Dish - pretty hot huh? > And eventually you might use the same dish for high speed internet access. > > Digital clarity, many options, 2 FREE Remotes AND a FREE DISNEY WATCH. > Just in time for the Holidays. There are many more features available to you > for free, but first call 800-733-8643 and remember to mention Special Offer > # 954123595, your name and telephone number. > > SIMPLE - EASY - AFFORDABLE - AND A GREAT DEAL!!! > DON'T DELAY - CALL TODAY!!! > > > -----End of forwarded message----- >

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Re: Spam Control Considered Harmful
by Art Houle 31 Oct '97

31 Oct '97

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Spam Control Considered Harmful
by Daniel Karrenberg 31 Oct '97

31 Oct '97

I am worried about the tools we are developing and deploying to control spam. Some of them are esentially centralsied methods of controlling Internet content. Paul's anti-spam feed for instance prevents users of some providers from seeing spam. The user has no choice; they cannot opt to receive spam other than by switching to another provider. Even worse: they may not even be aware that they are "missing" some content. Combatting spam is considered a Good Thing(TM) by almost everybody here, including myself. However the same technology could just as easily be used to do Bad Things(TM). Even worse: if it works it demonstrates that *centralised control* of the content of Internet services like e-mail is *feasible*. This will give some people ideas we may not like, and sometime in the future we may ask ourselves why we have done this. The end does not always justify the means. I hope that methods like the anti-spam feed will not be taken up widely. Please consider the consequences before you use them. I stress that I do not question the morality or good intentions of those involved. I am just concerned about the almost ubiquitous and apparently unreflected zeal that spam seems to evoke and the danger of it making us accept methods we would otherwise despise. I would prefer to see more work in technology that is less centralised and gives the users a choice of the content they wish to see. Yes this may be harder to do, but the consequences of deploying the easier methods may be just too severe. Waehret den Anfaengen (beware of the beginnings) Daniel PS: I hope this is more coherent than my contribution at the meeting yesterday when my brain failed due to jet-lag while my mouth was still working perfectly ;-).

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