Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
Gil Hamilton wrote: > Hence, the obvious solution is to make it *cost money to send mail* > (or to use any other network resource). Combine that with automated > reputation handling -- charge a small fee to accept mail from > "unknown" parties -- and this both reduces spam and shifts the cost of > resource usage to those using the resources. Of course, this won't > completely eliminate spam -- nor arguably *should* it -- but it has > the potential to make it less cost-effective that it is now -- where > the cost is effectively zero once you've amassed your list of > addresses. This would at least make spammers aim at a more > tightly-focused target market. nice idea - micropayment and all. (i.e. a mail would cost $0.0001 so that ordinary people don't exactly pay anything). however - here's a bummer: you've got a chance of pretty much 0.00% to move into that direction, because a different system is already in place. since it works reasonably well, it'll not get replaced, not even by a vastly superior one. that's just how things work. unfortunately.
Re: Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
- Original Message - From: Alex B. Shepardsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, Kevin Elliott wrote: > > > You know, I don't like spammers any more than the next guy, but come > > on. Unethical? we're not talking genocide and it's not like it > > We ought to be. If spammers feared death as a result of their actions, > they would be a lot less likely to spam. I've got a solution to thatoh, never mind. If "spammers" attached a digi-nickel to each spam, you'd only have to get 300 such pieces per month (10 per day) to pay for the typical ISP account monthly cost. Jim Bell
Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
At 11:36 AM -0800 11/3/00, Bill Stewart wrote: (about AT&T knowingly supporting Spam sites) > >Fortunately, somebody got this to the right people at AT&T; >otherwise I was going to have to contact the Sales VP (Hovancak) >whose name was on the contract and ask him to find the sales rep >who got fast-talked into signing that contract. >AT&T's privacy policies mean that we can't reveal information on >our customers' networks, so it's the PR folks' problem >to tell you that we've learned the error of our ways, Oh, I doubt AT&T has "learned the error of its ways." This is just their spin control. Like Esther Dyson's spin control..."I won't let it happen again." Until, of course, the next mass mailing to her "Dear Friends" goes out. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
At 07:40 AM 11/1/00 -0800, James Wilson wrote: >If any of you get services from AT&T you might want to start looking for a >more ethical carrier (if one exists) - AT&T has been caught red handed >hosting spammers and promising not to terminate their services. >-Original Message- >From: Spam Prevention Discussion List >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Steve Linford >A copy of this fax is now at http://spamhaus.org/rokso/nevadahosting.jpg Fortunately, somebody got this to the right people at AT&T; otherwise I was going to have to contact the Sales VP (Hovancak) whose name was on the contract and ask him to find the sales rep who got fast-talked into signing that contract. AT&T's privacy policies mean that we can't reveal information on our customers' networks, so it's the PR folks' problem to tell you that we've learned the error of our ways, as revealed in the CNET article below. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3369773.html AT&T admits spam offense after contract exposed By Paul Festa Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 3, 2000, 9:30 a.m. PT update - AT&T acknowledged Thursday that it had violated its own spam policy by providing Web-hosting services to a purported sender of unsolicited commercial email. The admission came after an English anti-spam organization publicly posted what it termed a "pink contract" between AT&T and the alleged spammer, Nevada Hosting. AT&T had been hosting the group's Web site. "This proves that AT&T knowingly does business with spammers and shows that AT&T makes 'pink' contracts with known spammers to not terminate the spammers' services," Steve Linford of The Spamhaus Project wrote in an email interview. AT&T confirmed Thursday the authenticity of the contract and said it had been discontinued. "That document represents an unauthorized revision to AT&T's standard contract and is in direct conflict with AT&T's anti-spamming policies," wrote AT&T representative Bill Hoffman. "The agreement has been terminated, and the customer has been disconnected." AT&T's spam policy specifically rules out contracts like the one it signed with Nevada Hosting. Nevada Hosting could not be reached for comment. Anti-spam groups have long suspected the existence of pink contracts that allow spammers to promote their Web sites provided they send their unsolicited emails through other Internet service providers, according to Linford. The AT&T contact confirmed those suspicions. The Spamhaus Project's success comes as anti-spam groups increasingly bypass spammers themselves and instead target those who facilitate the dissemination of unsolicited commercial email. Those groups--mostly ISPs and server administrators--are relatively few and are easier to hold accountable than spammers. Another such pressure group is the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS), which maintains the Realtime Blackhole List (RBL). The MAPS RBL blacklists servers left open to abuse by spammers. While the group's stated goal is to pressure server administrators to close avenues for spammers, the MAPS RBL has weathered criticism that it has limited effectiveness in actually blocking spam. The Spamhaus Project, based in London, positions itself as kind of spam Purgatory on the way to the MAPS RBL. Spamhaus targets entities that send spam with forged addresses and the ISPs that do business with them. "When it finds a 'stealth' spamming service, or an outfit selling stealth spamware, The Spamhaus Project sends a notice to the ISP and requests the service or site be terminated," Linford wrote. "Ninety-five percent of spam sites are terminated this way, and those that aren't are then escalated to the MAPS RBL team. "MAPS are very much our heroes." AT&T representatives have taken to Internet discussion forums in an attempt to placate spam foes and reassure them that the company's stated anti-spam policy will be enforced in future contracts. "Our sales agents have been instructed as to the correct procedure to follow and have been reminded of our existing anti-spamming policies," AT&T customer care manager Ed Kelley wrote in a posting to the "news.admin.net-abuse.email" newsgroup. "AT&T is making every effort to ensure that this does not occur again in the future." Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
RE: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
James Wilson writes: >Does shifting the cost of millions of dollars every month on to other >businesses, individuals and governments qualify as "significant (heck, >even measurable) harm"? Yes. > >Spam is VERY EXPENSIVE -- this document explains why... >http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?INW19980504S0003 > >Spam has also been defined, *in multiple court cases*, as "trespassing >upon a chattel", as denial of service attacks (from the flood of >bounces from the fake return addresses crippling third party servers, >)fraud and damaging business reputations (when spammers use fake >addresses to blame innocent 3rd party businesses), and as theft of >service. Do you consider trespassing, denial of service attacks, >fraud, damaging reputations, and stealing services ethical behavior? I have no doubt that spam *does* cost millions of dollars every month to handle. However, describing it as "trespassing", "stealing" and so forth is simply an attempt to demonize it with emotionally loaded terms. It's amazing to me that anyone can get away with accusing someone else of "stealing" a resource the accuser is giving away for free. Consider ordinary snail-type junk mail: many think it's annoying, wish they didn't have to deal with it, and often try to block its transmission. Nobody calls it stealing or trespassing, however, because the junk mailer has to pay to send it (in the same way that anyone else has to pay to send a piece of mail). Hence, the obvious solution is to make it *cost money to send mail* (or to use any other network resource). Combine that with automated reputation handling -- charge a small fee to accept mail from "unknown" parties -- and this both reduces spam and shifts the cost of resource usage to those using the resources. Of course, this won't completely eliminate spam -- nor arguably *should* it -- but it has the potential to make it less cost-effective that it is now -- where the cost is effectively zero once you've amassed your list of addresses. This would at least make spammers aim at a more tightly-focused target market. - GH _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
RE: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Does shifting the cost of millions of dollars every month on to other businesses, individuals and governments qualify as "significant (heck, even measurable) harm"? Yes. Spam is VERY EXPENSIVE -- this document explains why... http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?INW19980504S0003 Spam has also been defined, *in multiple court cases*, as "trespassing upon a chattel", as denial of service attacks (from the flood of bounces from the fake return addresses crippling third party servers, )fraud and damaging business reputations (when spammers use fake addresses to blame innocent 3rd party businesses), and as theft of service. Do you consider trespassing, denial of service attacks, fraud, damaging reputations, and stealing services ethical behavior? "All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." - -Edmond Burke "Shut up and eat your spam" - -Anonymous Spammer - - James D. Wilson, CCDA, MCP "non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem" William of Ockham (1285-1347/49) - -Original Message- From: Kevin Elliott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 1:40 PM To: James Wilson; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers At 07:40 -0800 11/1/00, James Wilson wrote: >If any of you get services from AT&T you might want to start looking for a >more ethical carrier (if one exists) - AT&T has been caught red handed >hosting spammers and promising not to terminate their services. You know, I don't like spammers any more than the next guy, but come on. Unethical? we're not talking genocide and it's not like it cause significant (heck, even measurable) harm. - -- "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." - -- Justice William O. Douglas Kevin "The Cubbie" Elliott <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ICQ#23758827 -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 6.0.2 Comment: I live for the sound ... of nothing but net iQA/AwUBOgLZWiavYwibXjmcEQKPFwCg6h4ZhSCJF2qBkUzFfdf/Tifx9gQAoNgS GBc8d1bx/SKe5ovFcMmA4gaa =x7sP -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
Sampo A Syreeni wrote: > I think it's more about the principle of it. No sane, sensible, tolerant > person would go as far as to try to regulate spam. Or, indeed, UBE-friendly > ISPs. But bulk mailing is such reprehensible behavior that it surely > deserves a pile of social and technological sanctions. Blacklisting, > shunning, DoS attacks and teergrube-kinda software immediately spring to > mind, a combination of the first and last perhaps being the least > intrusive. I totally fail to grasp why governments seem so intent on > criminalizing most such measures. To me they seem like the essential > ingredients of basic cyber-hygiene. I guess it's just that govs see that they're losing power and thus are scrambling to get themselves involved everywhere. or, on a slightly less malicious scale, they're equally desperately trying to show that they *do* have something of consequence to contribute. maybe DMCA (as much as I hate it) and the breaking of micro$oft (as much as I love it) both stem from the same emotional source.
Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Tom Vogt wrote: >> You know, I don't like spammers any more than the next guy, but come >> on. Unethical? we're not talking genocide and it's not like it >> cause significant (heck, even measurable) harm. > >as a matter of fact, it does. the quantity of it, you know. if your 1 >mio spam mails cause every receipient half a sec (on average) to >discard, you've just wasted roughly a week of worktime. I think it's more about the principle of it. No sane, sensible, tolerant person would go as far as to try to regulate spam. Or, indeed, UBE-friendly ISPs. But bulk mailing is such reprehensible behavior that it surely deserves a pile of social and technological sanctions. Blacklisting, shunning, DoS attacks and teergrube-kinda software immediately spring to mind, a combination of the first and last perhaps being the least intrusive. I totally fail to grasp why governments seem so intent on criminalizing most such measures. To me they seem like the essential ingredients of basic cyber-hygiene. Sampo Syreeni <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university
Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
Kevin Elliott wrote: > You know, I don't like spammers any more than the next guy, but come > on. Unethical? we're not talking genocide and it's not like it > cause significant (heck, even measurable) harm. as a matter of fact, it does. the quantity of it, you know. if your 1 mio spam mails cause every receipient half a sec (on average) to discard, you've just wasted roughly a week of worktime. then again, 90% of your receipients will most likely waste much more time every evening *willingly* subjecting themselves to advertisement (and a little entertainment between the spots) on tv anyways.
