Re: surge in spam email (fwd)
At 3:54 PM -0700 8/9/00, Nicole Harrington. wrote:
The real need is to crack down on the websites and email domains that they are promoting. 99% of which are here in the US. Abovenet for one.. albeit a little gung ho, will shutdown any website advertised in a spam unless the owner can prove it wasn't them who did or authorized the spam. Unfortunatly, this is what is needed in most cases.
Not to sound dense... how do you prove that you DIDN'T pay someone to spam for you? Me: See, here's my company's bank statements, we didn't pay them a thing. AboveNet: You could have paid cash. Me: See, here's my personal bank statement. AboveNet: What's this ATM transaction? What did you use that cash there for? Me: That was to have some spending cash at the ballpark. AboveNet: Do You have receipts for the refreshments to show that this money had nothing to do with the spam? ...etc. While I commend the anti-spam attitude, "prove you had nothing to do with it" is impossible, meaning "if you're an abovenet customer, your connectivity is subject to the whim of any spammer you piss off somehow who decides to get you kicked off by spamming your name around the world." (Presuming that your statement re: abovenet's policy is an accurate synopsis) D
On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, Derek J. Balling wrote:
While I commend the anti-spam attitude, "prove you had nothing to do with it" is impossible, meaning "if you're an abovenet customer, your connectivity is subject to the whim of any spammer you piss off somehow who decides to get you kicked off by spamming your name around the world."
What Steve Sobol uttered earlier is actually quite true: Spammers are dumb. Many a bozo in our turf was careful enough to use his dialup ISP to spamvertize a site, but then made the fatal mistake of checking his pop3 box from the same dialup node around the same time. Baddaboom! The average spammer we run into is just clueless. Most of the times not even aware of doing anything wrong. Some 'attitude readjustment' over the phone (and they usually do call in very quickly once their website goes 404 on them) is usually enough to make them change their tune. Same goes for subscribe-without-confirm mailinglists. Repeat offenders end up with their heads stuck to a wooden pike in front of our co-lo PoP to scare away nosey visitors, of course. Alternatively, if they have good lawyers, we disband their contract and just imagine the bit about the pike. Cheers, Pi -- Odd things animals. All dogs look up to you. All cats look down on you. Only the pig looks at you as an equal. - Winston Churchill
participants (2)
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Derek J. Balling -
Pim van Riezen