Re: Dealing with Spam

From: Steve Werby <steve-lists_at_befriend.com>
Date: Mon 05 Aug 2002 12:45:05 -0500

"Ryan Gibson" <ryan_at_kbitraining.com> wrote:
> I have complained to everyone involved in the spam chain for the company
> Equat.com,(aka freeview.com and mailbank.com)

equat.com is listed in Osirus and SPEWS. If your incoming mail server was
configured to check blacklists (those or others) or other server or user
anti-spam solutions were in place it's likely that their email would be
blocked or filtered depending on how your software was configured.

> How do you stop them?

Without legislation, enforcement and a lot of others like you making
yourselves heard and making sure you don't spend money with companies that
promote, facilitate, condone or turn a blind eye to spam, you really can't.
But I've said it before and I'll say it again - it's not technically that
difficult to implement software solutions on the server hosting your email
account to block or filter email that's sent from open relays, spammer
domains / IPs / email addresses, is scored as spam due to matched patterns,
etc. If you can't do that and the person/group in charge of hosting your
email can't I suggest either finding a new provider who can and does or
ask/demand that the decision maker(s) implement a solution.

> I ran into the same problem with Frontlinelearning.com, netcorps and
> netcentric are too happy with the bandwidth payments made by their
> spammer Frontlinelearning...they aren't going to budge, and Arpnet is
> too large to care, they expect netcentric to take action...what do you
> do? (Online Conflicts of Interest)

Again, without legislation and angry ethical customers leaving en masse many
companies will turn a blind eye or pass the buck b/c they like the revenue
and margins their spammer customers bring in.

> I know for a fact that these firms are using "crawlers" and "whois" root
> access that they must have as domain registration firms...

Anyone can grab thousands of email addresses (not to mention names,
companies, addresses, phone #s, etc.) an hour from publicly available WHOIS
databases with some very simple scripts.

> I suppose it
> is hopeless to fight this war...

I wouldn't give up. But if your goal is to reduce the spam in your mailbox,
there are other solutions which are more effective and require less time on
your part.

> if this continiues people will "join
> them" and online advertising is going to take a huge blow. This is the
> real spam landscape...not server blocking and softwares that only put
> your finger in an even greater hole.

What do you mean by finger in an even greater hole? I am quite comfortable
with the anti-spam solutions I've implemented. Sure it doesn't address the
issue head-on, but my clients just want less spam in their mailbox.

--
Steve Werby
President, Befriend Internet Services LLC
http://www.befriend.com/








Received on Mon Aug 05 2002 - 12:45:05 CDT