[PLUG] Spam, bogofilter, other

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Mon Sep 29 09:47:02 UTC 2003


> Complaints about spam.

Michael, the spam you are getting is not because you have a male name,
it is because you use a common one.  Initial+name cuts it way down.
Why?  Because sites that respond properly to incorrectly addressed
email let the spammer's bots know that "fred at site.com" "joe at site.com"
"sam at site.com" aren't valid, while passing through "michael at site.com". 
Sadly, adhering to RFCs isn't always wise.

Registered DNS + Common name + No bounce = new victim.  While jeme
probably gets spam, I betcha he doesn't get the 200 per day that he
would get as james.  Unless, of course, we are being less than
fastidious with this mail group, and it is being mined by spammers.

I installed bogofilter.  It is nowhere near perfect (specificially,
it is not tweakable to detect certain things like random title
characters, or html attachments only, as probable spam) but it
does knock out 90% of the stuff.  Keeps me sane.

On the one hand, spammers make me livid and I fear that if I ever
encounter one I would be in deep legal doodoo afterwards.  On the 
other hand, the reason spam happens at all is because a few people
want the products, and right now there is not a better way to serve
these customers.  If those customers could learn about their viagra
someplace else, and if the fraud merchants were identified and
jailed, and countries that ignored local fraud merchants saw
their international communication links go dead,  spam would be
far less profitable.  Most of the trailer-court DSL crowd would
have to find more honorable work, like armed robbery. 

Think about it.  Why would any merchant pay to insert their ads
into my mailflow (at $900/million current pricing, 0.03% response
rate) when they could pay far less for a venue that targets their
demographic?  Spam is ludicrously cheap, but a targeted alternative
with a 0.5% response has got to be a better way to spend a K buck, and
you don't have angry victims ready to run you through a meat slicer.

Spam is the price we pay for ineffectively serving some customers,
and treating some kinds of products with scorn, and not prosecuting
crimes that are already on the books.  

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom           keithl at ieee.org         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs




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