Re: Mail with no purpose?
On 1-apr-04, at 18:49, Michel Py wrote: In other words: if you're already to the point where you are using a text-mode mail client or disabling HTML and/or other stuff in a GUI client, you are no loss to the spammer if your email does not confirm as valid (because you would not even read it nor buy any of their crud in the first place). So what you're saying is that these validation schemes are a good thing?
RE: Mail with no purpose?
>> Michel Py wrote: >> In other words: if you're already to the point where >> you are using a text-mode mail client or disabling >> HTML and/or other stuff in a GUI client, you are no >> loss to the spammer if your email does not confirm >> as valid (because you would not even read it nor buy >> any of their crud in the first place). > Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote: > So what you're saying is that these validation schemes > are a good thing? I was not thinking in terms of being good or not, as these schemes exist and will likely continue whether we like it or not. Trying to answer the question anyway: It is clear that there is room for improvement in making these address validation schemes less efficient. I will let the reader make their own opinion whether this would be a good thing or not. It would be a good thing in the sense that it would reduce the spammer's ability to focus spam on known existing email addresses. It would be a bad thing in the sense that in order to reach the same number of valid targets the spammer would then send a lot more email, knowing that large numbers are invalid. The lesser of two evils: let's say that potentially we could force spammers to send 100 times more emails for the same result. Some will. Are we ready to bounce 99% of email traffic? Michel.
Re: Mail with no purpose?
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 17:15:10 UTC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't quite understand how that would work. ... > unless instead of using something like > "http://spammersserver.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]" > they rewrite it into "http://emailidstring.spammerserver.com"; > and use some custom dns server that can log all such requests. That is precisely what they are doing. > But I really dont see how this would be any different then just > logging with cgi, it'll result in positive logging for exactly > same set of people. In pure logging terms there is no difference. However a filtering mailserver may do a lookup on the URL to see if the IP is listed as problematic, and that will register the DNS access whereas it would not register the CGI. The thinking being that the filter would be unlikely to check the content if the address was invalid anyway. Also, the IP of the URL target is more likely to be identifiable, and the site taken down, than any nameserver that might be used. (It's all relative - no absolutes here) -- Richard Cox
RE: Mail with no purpose?
> William Leibzon wrote: > But I really dont see how this would be any different then just > logging with cgi, it'll result in positive logging for exactly > same set of people. > For example as I'm using PINE from unix shell, all those html > images are not referenced in any way, nor are there requests > set for them in dns. Although this is true, the relevance of it is low. From the smart spammer's prospective, sending spam to people that use Pine makes no sense in the first place: people that use Pine are 1,000 times less gullible than the general population WRT to spam, therefore having their email addresses not confirm with cgi or whatever does not change the big scheme of things. I don't know about you, but the volume coming to my various "postmaster" or "administrator" is decreasing, as the ROI of spam sent to these must obviously be very low. In other words: if you're already to the point where you are using a text-mode mail client or disabling HTML and/or other stuff in a GUI client, you are no loss to the spammer if your email does not confirm as valid (because you would not even read it nor buy any of their crud in the first place).
Re: Mail with no purpose?
To pick on one bulk political mailer, Kintera.Org, mail from [EMAIL PROTECTED] contains a tracking gif, a 1x1, within the html portion of a multipart MIME payload. Voila: http://www.kintera.org/omt/70069677.gif'> Yes I've kevetched to the Kucinich campaign that putting tracking gifs in political marketing is dumb, but to no avail. Of course the html contains more URLs than just the one into Kintera's mail delivery and click-through tracking playpen. Wrong community I know (ASRG is over there) but something like DCC that catches the "twinkle" of a spam's URL payload by nsen niggles me. Eric
Re: Mail with no purpose?
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Eric A. Hall wrote: > On 4/1/2004 11:15 AM, william(at)elan.net wrote: > > > Where as WYSIWYG html email client (no matter if its web-based or > > outlook or mozilla) will reference and display all images contained in > > email > > You can turn it off in Mozilla and some MS clients. It's a pretty common > feature nowadays. Yeh, good. My point still stands though, your email client will either try to resolve the url and try to get the image or it will not (in which case there would be no dns request either). -- William Leibzon Elan Networks [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Mail with no purpose?
On 4/1/2004 11:15 AM, william(at)elan.net wrote: > Where as WYSIWYG html email client (no matter if its web-based or > outlook or mozilla) will reference and display all images contained in > email You can turn it off in Mozilla and some MS clients. It's a pretty common feature nowadays. -- Eric A. Hallhttp://www.ehsco.com/ Internet Core Protocols http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/
Re: Mail with no purpose?
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Richard Cox wrote: > Some times the request goes to the website, sometimes a DNS request to > nameservers is sufficient to cause the account to be tagged as active. I don't quite understand how that would work. DNS Request does not contain name of who the email is addressed to unless instead of using something like "http://spammersserver.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]" they rewrite it into "http://emailidstring.spammerserver.com"; and use some custom dns server that can log all such requests. But I really dont see how this would be any different then just logging with cgi, it'll result in positive logging for exactly same set of people. For example as I'm using PINE from unix shell, all those html images are not referenced in any way, nor are there requests set for them in dns. Where as WYSIWYG html email client (no matter if its web-based or outlook or mozilla) will reference and display all images contained in email -- William Leibzon Elan Networks [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Mail with no purpose?
(Subject line changed to comply with Merit's AUP) On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 13:28:31 UTC Jerry Eyers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > it sends a request to the sender's specified website to get the pixel > thus showing them which email accounts are active. Some times the request goes to the website, sometimes a DNS request to nameservers is sufficient to cause the account to be tagged as active. False tagging can occur if a mailserver or other scanner looks up the IP of URLs found in mail messages On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 15:03:35 UTC Randy Bush <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > except for those of us who don't use browsers to read mail and have > html turned off in our mail readers. After the last batch of worms that found their way here, it's a bit disappointing that Merit hasn't yet blocked HTML mail to this list. -- Richard Cox
