Russia, China World's Biggest Spammers 435
An anonymous reader writes "According to this ZDNet article, The Spamhaus Project has warned that organised cirminal gangs in Russia are supplying U.S.-based spammers with details of compromised PCs that can be manipulated to send junk mail. According to Spamhaus director Steve Linford, the Russian gangs aren't constrained by any anti-spam or cybercrime laws in their home country and have no respect for legislation implemented in other countries. Also, apparently 70 percent of spam is sent from China by American spam outfits who in turn have hosting arrangements with Chinese ISPs."
What is the best way to stop this? (Score:5, Insightful)
User end filters are a necessity these days, and even then, I still spend at least 15 min each day dealing with the spam. My personal box - No One else knows the address, it is for my own internal network purposes, is chock full of the stuff.
What do other slashdot'ers do? What can we hope to see in the near future?
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Due to the global nature of the internet, the only way is to wait until the governments of China and Russia change due to public, internal pressure. Note that this may take some time.
In the meantime, SpamBayes [sourceforge.net] might help.
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:5, Interesting)
The other method is to go after the advertisers who hire the spammers in the first place. Spammers are bottom-feeders, for sure, but if you cut off their customers, then you cut off their income.
I'm doing this with one spammer's customer right now. Since they are a legitimate company in my town, I have collected evidence that the spammers they do business with are using dictionary attacks, web page harvesting, and zombies. I've explained to them that all this is illegal and if any of my 20 email domains receives another spam from their business, all the evidence is going to the FTC for prosecution via CAN-SPAM. The law is far from perfect, but at least legit companies can be punished for breaking it. They are listening and reconsidering unsolicited commercial bulk email as an advertising route.
I know, many people would say fsck it and just turn them in. I figure I'd be nice first. I've explained the consequences and I've convinced them I will follow through. If others out there live in the same city (not necessary, but it IS easier) as a legit business that is spamming, be professional and courteous, but make them wish they never spammed you.
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact is if I look at my inbox - something like 95 % of all Spam promote questionable american products, 2-3 % is in russian so I don't even know what it promotes - and I have yet to see ONE spam mail that actually try to sell a Chinese product.
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Lucky You.
I get spam all the time, though not in great quantity. Maybe 5 a day, tops. But here's the kicker: They're all Chinese and Japanese.[/p][p]I have no clue what the chinese ones say, but they're encoded in the chinese character set. From what I can make out of the ones in Japanese, along with having a friend who can bumble her way through the language, I've gotten about 40 Emails over the past year from a Japanese Home Loan Company.[/p][p]I don't own a home.[/p]
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:3, Funny)
<tin foil mode>
It's a known fact (among a certain crowd) that the CIA, contrary to common belief, is working right along with the Columbian cartels to get extra funding, ditto for Afghanistan (sans the cartels, and heroine instead of cocaine).
Now I've just come to realize it must be the same with spammers. So inste
Re:Columbian cartels (Score:3, Insightful)
Give users the power to block countries... (Score:2)
Re:Give users the power to block countries... (Score:2)
Re:Give users the power to block countries... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks. It's people like you that block my mail (I live in Hong Kong) and make me have to use devious inconvenient methods just to send a normal message.
Re:Give users the power to block countries... (Score:5, Insightful)
The "70%" figure mentioned earlir on refers to the percentage of url embedded in the spam (e.g. the store for the V1a4Ga) that uses an IP from China... If you manage to instruct your spam filter to read inside the email main body, you may have a solution.
On the other hand, I don't think it will be a long lasting solution.... If spammers can send spam thru compromised machine, they should be able to web host their site thru a compromised machine...
Re:Give users the power to block countries... (Score:5, Interesting)
"click here" domains (Score:3, Insightful)
Current List of Domains [icarusindie.com]
At the time of this posting it's at 2209 domains. In a day or so it should go up several dozen when I do an update.
It's the only thing in a spam that can't be obfuscated or it simply won't work. At best they can do one to one character codes. Occasionally a spammer will try to be clever and request the user copy and paste the link into their browser. I tend to catch those when I examine what got through but the pay off from those is probably so low tha
The solution is simple (Score:3, Interesting)
1) A filter that looks for hostname patterns that look like consumer internet connections (DSL/cable/dialup):
[note: these are in Exim lookup-table syntax]
\N^(dsl|cable|adsl|dialup|docsis|pool|ppp|clien t |c lient2).*$\N
\N^.*\d{1,3}-\d{1,3}-\d{1,3}-\d{1,3}
\N^c\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\..*$ \N
\N^[sShH]\d{3,}.*\.[a-z][a-z]\.shawcable.net$\ N
\N^.*\d+\.charter-stl.*$\N
2) Next, you block known
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I currently sit in the "email itself must change" camp to fix the problem of SPAM. Of course its an impractical camp to sit in at the moment, but things are moving along slowly.
I can't see that addressing the problem of SPAM on an international law basis is going to yield any results in the near and not so near future.
Just random opinions on my part...
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:5, Insightful)
90% or more of all SPAM advertises a product or service in the USA. While it may be difficult to track the spammer, it should be simple for law enforcement agencies to track down the actual advertiser.
I cannot imagine one would not be able to find the guy who offers you a low-interest mortgage, for example. Make him go out of business. Then his competitors will no longer spam.
Same for the sale of unlicensed health products.
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:5, Insightful)
This idea seems so obvious, and so potentially effective. So why won't the governments (or whoever else has the authority to do so) do this?
What I'm guessing contributes to it is two simple facts.
The first I'm guessing in itself is only a very small factor. But when a billion-selling company pays its taxes, then you want to be very sure they're not legit before pulling the plug or slapping them with hefty fines.
The main problem is the second. A great deal of mail is easily flagged as Spam. A great deal of mail (including some advertising) is definitely legit. The difficulty is that there is also mail all across the scale.
Too relaxed and you don't block enough Spam, people still complain, and there's enough leeway for the Spammers to adjust tactics to stay in the "grey areas".
Too restrictive and you run the risk of arresting/fining/whatever people who were sending mail that in that case was totally legit. And in the current knee-jerk sue-em mentality, that could be a bad move to make.
You could make it illegal to advertise certain product types over the internet, but again this could easily meet corporate resistance.
Now banning advertising would be cool. But that's only in my personal opinion, and highly unlikely to ever happen. Besides, even I understand that sometimes advertising revenue is important - even though I perosnally hate seeing adverts anywhere I go.
I guess that the Follow the Money idea is one that although would be the msot effective, is also the one with the biggest legal minefield.
TiggsRe:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:2)
Or maybe the Mafia might be persuaded to act in the public interest. A horse's head in the bed can be very persuasive.
Alternatively, a visit from "men in black" to apply "cruel and inhuman torture" would be justified. There are "freelancers" who are quite skilled at this sort of thing available for relatively small sums of money and the government could fall back on "plausible deniability" a
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:4, Interesting)
As a solution at my workplace, we deployed dspam at the mail server about 7 weeks ago. At first I was discouraged at the results so much that I thought I had made a worthless call. Gradually I saw improvment and now it is running at about %99.7 accuracy. I get something over 200 spam a day into my account. I now see about one spam in my in box every three or four days, the rest go into my spam folder. Our other users found the system to be far better than I did, faster learning even. One user reported near pefection in about a week, he gets 10 spam a day. Except for one user (but there is one in every croud), it has nearly fixed the spam problem at our orginization.
I expect this to be a more realistic and permanent solution far beyond what legislation will ever do to inhibit spam from using my time.
I mean, other than right now.
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:5, Informative)
Appendix:
SMTP+TLS+AUTH is not that tough, no whining. All modern mail clients support it, on all platforms. There is a little bit of work to do on the server end, but that's what you pay your ISP (or IT department) for:
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate it when people like you try to split the internet in to parts, "clients" and "servers". The great thing is that everyone can be both client and server! Let's not change this!
Additionally, this measure achieves virtually nothing. Port numbers can be changed; and opening a connection to port 25 is still the normal way to send e-mail.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What is the best way to stop this? (Score:4, Funny)
70% from US? (Score:5, Insightful)
Outsourcing SPAM (Score:2, Funny)
That's exactly what it is, only we in the U.S. like to outsource everything we possibly can--tech support, call centers, software development--and that now includes everyone's favorite e-mail marketing substance, SPAM.
Outsource! It's the trendy thing to do!
Re:70% from US? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps. But the solution is still in Russia and/or China.
Re:70% from US? (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying that the solution to spam is only in Russia and/or China is like saying that the solution to the war on drugs (as stupid as that is) is only in Colombia, etc.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:70% from US? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the second worst spammer in the world can appear on a chat-show to talk about their activities, then the US isn't exactly a hostile environment for such people...
Re:70% from US? (Score:2)
Rus
Shitty Russian mob (Score:5, Funny)
Vladimir: Smuggling, my friend. Vodka, narcotics, humans... If it can be smuggled, chances are I smuggled it some time...
Dmitri: Sounds good, how about you, Ivan?
Ivan: Weapons trade, of course. Got a few good high-up friends in the Red Army that are willing to relinquish some surplus material to me at a good price, which I sell in Africa and the Middle East.
Dmitri: Good to hear you two are making a nice profit.
Vladimir: How about yourself?
Dmitri: I rent out hundreds of cracked computers to US based companies.
Ivan:
Vladimir: Dmitri, you suck.
Why does this remind me of illegal drugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Evil Russian spammers! Chinese spammers want to take down America!
And yet, in both cases there is plenty of demand from within the States. If it ain't rich kids experimenting, it's poor kids escaping with drugs from South America or Asia. If it's not a "bulk emailer" in California, it's a "clever marketer" in Florida sending millions of unsolicited email via servers in Russia or China.
Connecting the dots for whomever missed it (Score:2)
I'll connect the dots:
Demand for spamming services is akin to demand for illegal drugs, in that demand from the United States fuels supply from other countries.
Oh get off it (Score:4, Insightful)
This does NOT mean that the domestic spammers are being ignored. One has already been convicted, Microsoft and Time Warner are suing a bunch more, and the justice department says it is prepping 50 criminal cases under teh new SPAM law. This was all announced on
Quit with the anti-American bullshit. Yep, the problem is here. We know, we finally have a law for it, though not as strong as we'd like, and the wheels are in motion. Doesn't mean that the US is solely responsible. I do not at all think it is unreasonable that Chinese hosts should show the same standards demanded of US hosts in not hosting SPAM sites.
Re:Why does this remind me of illegal drugs? (Score:3, Interesting)
In my case [kandent.com], only 1/4 of my spam was in English. I know a few hundred foreign words, but none in Russian or any Asian language. It seems pretty far-fetched that Americans could be creating demand for this type of spam.
Also interesting is that reporting spam did not decrease the quantity of foreign-language spam.
its great... (Score:5, Funny)
we should be proud!
Well, technically (Score:5, Insightful)
That title is wrong.
Re:Well, technically (Score:3, Insightful)
If Americans thought the same way about guns, they'd ban them. But they say "guns don't kill, people kill". Spam relays don't spam, people (most of them Americans) spam.
so lets see... (Score:5, Funny)
China for high quality spam warez
Africa for business relations about that recently deceased relative.
GOT IT!
-Grump
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
At my last job, I adminned machines in Seoul. 95% or more of the spam was pure Korean, targeting Koreans.
The spammers know their audiences, and target accordingly. The other-language spam you get is errors.
a growing percentage is not english (Score:2)
Start Bombing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Start Bombing (Score:2, Interesting)
hehe - well put :)
I definitely don't understand what kinda clout these 'marketing' companies have in DC/wherever, that they are able to block any 'definitive' legislation against spam - something the majority of the populace will welcome with open arms.. Someone should make it a prime election issue :P
It's not as if it's the call-center industry where thousands of jobs are bound to be affected..
I don't get it. I don't belie
Steve Linford's corrections (Score:5, Informative)
Surprise, surprise... (Score:5, Funny)
If these trends continue, I'm afraid that one day soon I'll check slashdot and find out that 97% of all spam is coming from my IP.
Re:Surprise, surprise... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Surprise, surprise... (Score:3, Funny)
And, likewise, if there is only 400% spam quantity, and you are responsible for 24% of it, that is only 6% of the total spam.
Continue extrapolating, and you will quickly see that you are not responsible for any spam whatsoever.
That old bone song.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Conflicting stories (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? That contradicts this story [slashdot.org] posted just two days ago:
The Register is reporting a study by Sandvine.com that blames Microsoft Zombies for 80% of all spam.
So which is it, then?
Re:Conflicting stories (Score:2, Insightful)
Who says it can't be both?
Re:Conflicting stories (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting stories (Score:5, Funny)
So which is it, then?
It's both. They use non-Euclidean statistics.
Wasn't it Windows PCs...? (Score:3, Interesting)
X% of Spam is caused by This (Score:3, Insightful)
another... (Score:3, Interesting)
another possible explanation of this is illegal copies of Windows.
I was recently talking with a friend from hong kong; he mentioned that virtually no one buys legitimate copies of software because it's more expensive and less readily available.
he also said that users and companies using pirated software don't update it for fear of legal action--hence the huge number of zombies.
New laws (Score:3, Insightful)
Well I think I have a possible solution and it can be illustrated by a case study. In Australia we had an international Paedophilia problem, Paedophiles were travelling to countries like Thailand where sex with children was not illegal and thus were not getting arrested. The solution that was eventually found was new laws whereby anyone who broke Australia's anti-paedophile laws could be arrested no matter where the offence was enacted. Offenders were met at the airport by police and arrested for crimes in other countries and the problem of "paedophile sex tourism" was solved.
My Solution to spam is similar. The USA needs to pass laws allowing them to track down the companies and individuals that are using the Chinese spam services and arrest them. Make the law such that sending spam is illegal no matter which country it is sent from. The spammers might get so scared they will stop Spamming
NEXT! (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, what a brilliant idea. We currently have only a hundred or more [spamlaws.com] anti-spam laws across the world, most in the US. Let's pass a few more. I am certain that when we pass the 500 anti-spam law mark, spammers will suddenly start to cower in their boots and realize that 500 anti-spam laws that aren't being enforced or have no legal/civil/criminal teeth are a formidible obstacle to overcome!
Re:NEXT! (Score:3, Insightful)
1) The spam obviously has to have a link back to the vendor in order to make sales.
2) If there is no demand for it, spam will stop.
Re:NEXT! (Score:4, Insightful)
The source of the spam is ultimately in the United States. Using a foreign network to route spam serves to make the spammers harder to track and catch, but not impossible. The truth is, most of the largest spammers are easily trackable and can likely be proven guilty of numerous laws, whether they use foreign servers or not. The problem is it's a very low priority for law enforcement authorities unless, for example, the spammers mailbomb The GAP or Macdonald's company headquarters... then there'd be hell to pay.
Another problem is District Attorneys in most states in the United States have no interest in prosecuting spammers. Either they are ignorant or apathetic, but numerous spammer criminal cases have been presented to authorities for prosecution only to have them turned down.
Re:New laws (Score:5, Insightful)
With all due respect, it would make sense to you if you had sense.
We have a ton of spam laws already. Passing more laws doesn't change a damn thing. Almost all spammers are already breaking numerous laws, criminal felonies involving computer tampering are just the start. In fact, the USA Patriot act could even be employed to consider the activities of most spammers to be terrorism and thus subject spammers to capital punishment. What more do you need? The problem isn't more laws. The problem is.... say it with me.....
E N F O R C E M E N T
Our law enforcement branches are more interested in going after people downloading Metallica or Martha Stewart's stock dealings than they are enforcing the plethora of violations done by spammers. Passing more laws has not proved effective.
The Russian mafia (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Russian mafia (Score:2)
Hey, You're leaving the mobsters from the USA out of that.
Sin-cerely,
Jimmy Hoffa
Re:The Russian mafia (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, cry me a river. At least in major sities, this is not the case. The definition of "well paying" may vary, but we're talking about Russian standards here. It's more like the employers can't find adequate geeks to man the jobs.
In small shitholes, it can be tougher (what country has it the other way?). But nothing really prevents people from moving anymore.
The bottom line is: these people have deliberately chosen to be scumbags.
Re:The Russian mafia (Score:4, Informative)
Spamassassin 3.0 and URIBL_SBL (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/howtouse.html [spamhaus.org]/ 25_uribl.cf [spamassassin.org]
http://www.spamassassin.org/full/3.0.x/dist/rules
Re:Spamassassin 3.0 and URIBL_SBL (Score:3, Interesting)
It's due out around the end June, assuming no major glitches in the code, etc. I've been testing the URIBL_SBL rules with the current version, and after a little messing around to get it working have found that it works very well indeed. It's definitely worth looking at the upgrade if you are currently running a vanilla version of SpamAssassin. IIRC, version 3.0 will also be adding support for Spamhaus' XBL list, which lists the hos
I asked this around and didn't get an answer (Score:2)
Thanks! (and yes, I know that it won't solve all my spam problems)
Re:I asked this around and didn't get an answer (Score:3, Informative)
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Criminals with no respect for the law! This world is surely going to the dogs!
Spam (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Spam (Score:3, Funny)
I have, although it's more obvious when reading it with Mail.app on my Mac at work than with Mutt on my machine at home - it shows up in the Cyrillic alphabet in Mail.app but not in Mutt in my boring old ISO 8859-1 xterm.
Messages in various Chinese/Japanese/Korean encodings look, when viewed by software assuming ISO 8859-1 encoding, like a different form of noise than messages in Cyrillic script, so you might be able to reconize Russian spam that way as well
"water-among-earth's-wettest-substances dept" (Score:2)
I hope there's no -1 Pedantic moderation category...
My new spam fighting techniques. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My new spam fighting techniques. (Score:5, Informative)
When host connects to an SMTP server in order to send it an email, it will receive a banner back which may include the string "ESMTP". If it does then the remote SMTP server supports an enhanced version of SMTP with additional features, "ESMTP". If the host also understands ESMTP, then it should respond with an "EHLO" command. If the host does not understand ESMTP, or the string is not present in the banner, then the host will respond with the "HELO" command defined in the original SMTP RFC to use the simpler set of SMTP commands.
In either case, "HELO" or "EHLO", the host should also tell the server its host name, viz:
Ideally, "host.company.com" will also have a valid reverse DNS record which will match the IP connecting to the SMTP server. However, the SMTP RFCs do not actually *require* that this is the case, nor for that matter that the hostname is provided at all. Frequently the hostname will be given, but will not be a valid fully qualified domain name on the Internet. So, depending on how draconian you want to be, there are a number of options for rejecting the connection before any data is sent:Re:My new spam fighting techniques. (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly, thanks for the info. Helps a lot. Also gives me a few ideas. (Though probably not anything that hasn't already been considered before)
Maybe the next round of SMTP RFCs should require at require at least something to be given in the HELO/EHLO command. Depending on how strict the RFC requirements were you could then easily block on the criteria you supplied above.
Certainly if you reject at the level of RFC requirements then any corporation or individual complaining that their legitimate mail got r
Wrong headline (Score:5, Insightful)
PS "cirminal": Jesus, Timothy, you're actually paid to edit this?
eh? (Score:2)
they are after all, writing viruses on contract to american spammers. if these criminals get arrested, how exactly is that a negative impact on the rest of the internet?
Re:eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
But people are banning entire countries, not ISPs. That leaves those who live there no reason to choose a "good" ISP over a spam haven; all are discriminated against. If you're going to be punished for living in the same country as spammers you might a well get the benefit from using a service subsidised by them.
Re:eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
"In your SPAM eMail,I can't find the IP or the IP is not by my control.Please give me the correct IP.Thank you."
it's no wonder china is one of the most regularly firewalled networks. besides them being a spam haven, their _official policy_ regarding abuse
..and speaking of headlines (Score:3, Insightful)
I know I'm repeating myself, but, we have to make sure that headline appears in the "mainstream" media, not just in places that only us geeks look.
Joe 6 pack needs to be routinely reminded that "spammers=criminals", and "buying from spammers=giving money to the Russian Maffia".
I think those of us who are familliar with the problem, need to take the initiative to contact our local media and help them und
High Volume E-mail Deployers (Score:4, Funny)
The best is when they posted Scott's e-mail address on national TV, which is: scottrichter442@yahoo.com
This site here [ahved.com] has the video available of that Daily Show clip. Please try not to slashdot the site, maybe someone setup a mirror or something.
Re:High Volume E-mail Deployers (Score:3, Interesting)
"Is it ok if we show your email address on screen?"
"I'd rather you didn't." (as scottrichter442@yahoo.com flashes several times...:)
A couple of weeks ago, the Aunty Spam [aunty-spam.com] blog did an interview with Scottie. Very evasive answers. I had a little back and forth dialog with him in there. (scroll about 1/2way down)
Very enlightening as to his mindset.
spam stats (Score:5, Informative)
Total rejected spam: 16235 (and 8178 accepted messages)
Confirmed Chinese spams: 1229
Confirmed Korean spam: 1414
Confirmed Canadian spam: 264
Confirmed Polish spam: 342
Confirmed US/comcast spam: 1363
Confirmed French spam: 181
Confirmed Southwest Bell spam: 382
Confirmed Italian spam: 114
Confirmed Spanish spam: 167 (TDE must have finally gotten their act together)
Confirmed German spam: 967
Confirmed Netherlands spam: 452
Confirmed Brazillian spam: 864
This is by no means a scientific analysis - it's based on hard-coded IP-based blacklists that are caught before standard blacklists are checked.
Spamcop RBL rejects: 5460
Spamhaus RBL rejects: 1509
Njabl RBL rejects: 1807
Homebrew RBL rejects: 6382
The big three spam sources have traditionally been Korea, China and Brazil. Comcast has been the big US spammer. France (wanadoo) has also been a major contributor though it doesn't seem to be reflected in this days' logs.
doh, forgot Russia (Score:2)
There is a fundamental problem with email (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There is a fundamental problem with email (Score:3, Informative)
be aware that commercial messages by companies do not fall under freedom of speech (or at least not in my country. freedom of speech is only for people.)
ok.. (Score:3, Interesting)
It'll be a double-edged sword, I know, but in this matter, it'l hurt them more than the rest of the world. Boycott and Blacklist all *.ru and *.cn servers until this matter has been settled.
A simple Question... (Score:5, Insightful)
After all if the source of the spammers income dwindles then they wither. Perhaps I'm being overly simplistic.
I completely disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
Why I Am Not Surprised (Score:3, Interesting)
As somebody who lived on the territory of the former USSR, I am not surprised that the majority of spam arrives from Russia and that kiddie pr0n sex rings are linked to companies in Belarus. Why does that happen? Well, compared to the United States those countries have virtually zero law enforcement and high levels of corruption.
Even with Vladimir Putin, Russia still lags behind in terms of law enforcement when it comes to protecting human rights, technology, women, children, etc. When I traveled across the republicts of the former USSR I was surprised by the amount of counter-theft goods that one could get through local flea markets. You can get CDs full of the latest software, like 3D Studio Max, for $2-3USD. If you get a several CDs, you get a discount. When you pop one of those puppies in your drive and read the instructions, they'll say "Please run a program called crack.exe in order to activate the product." Activation my ass. The same applies to DVDs, and brand-name products.
According to my friend who travelled to China, that country is pretty much in the same spot. Yes, they are good at banning people from accessing forbidden sites. Yet at the same time you can to to a street market and purchase a fake "NorthFace" jacket for $20USD or less; In the states you'd pay up to ten times as much. Then there are corrupt politicians and cops who can close their eyes provided that you pay them a certain amount of money. With that in mind, it is not a surprise that China and Russia lead in spam.
There is a lack of sync between technology and the laws that govern it in the countries that are not, well, *that developed* yet.
ISPs are a major part of the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
ISPs are a major part of the problem. They either know, or can know, that they have spammers and other criminals on board. Yet many do nothing about this because they would rather have the money spammers pay them. We need to stop peering with bad ISPs in every way we can.
Those who whine about their mail not getting through because they are using one of these bad ISPs are also part of the problem. They need to stop encouraging their ISP to continue, and force the ISP to decide between good and evil. If there's another ISP, switch. If there's only one and it's because the government gives them a monopoly, then the government is the problem and they need to fix that. If there's only one and it's not a monopoly, then they need to start their own ISP (and not allow spammers, lest they also be cast into the deep pink cyber oblivion).
Why does it say "china and russia" (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the lack of respect for US spam policy does not help the situation - but this is not surprising, given that the unstated rule of almost all American policy is "If you have enough money you can get away with whatever you like". (Note that this isn't "If you give me enough
Selling junk to idiots, America's number one industry.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
It is common known that Russia and China are the source for White and Chinese mail-order brides. However their population has not the African type to satisfy your cravings. Therefore I and my colleagues who have the contact you for V aig r a already have prepared a business venture in which you can test your new supply. For only a small investment we will connect you to the premium provider of African mail-order operating out of our Locations in Congo, Liberia, and Somalia. Please reply post haste with your reply.
Sincerely yours,
DOCTOR M. BOKUZUWANDI
Reply to your business proposal. (Score:4, Funny)
Your prosal intrigues me, as I am always seeking to expand my business to new countries whenever possible. You must understand, however, that I cannot simply blindly enter into deals with people who I have never met. As such, I will require a sign of TRUST from you, in the form of photograph identification. Please understand that I will not be able to accept normal government ID cards or an international passport for this endeavour, as such things are easily forged. Instead,I shall give to you a password phrase, and you must have a photograph of yourself holding up a large and clear sign that displays this password phrase. Scan this photograph in and email it to me as an attachment. When I have received it, I will be 100% ready to trust you with your business proposal.
I do apologize, but until I receive this form of identification from you, I will not be able to provide you with any further information about myself.
The password phrase is "I LOVE ARSE FORKING"
Yours Very Truly,
Pastor Phil McCracken
(Hey, it worked [iglou.com] before [iglou.com]!)
Now if only I could find a way to similarly humiliate the spammers who advertise pirated software or penis pills...
Re:Solution? (Score:4, Insightful)
or 2. people could just stop reading it and buying the junk.
i would rather my first solution happens, because as a side effect there wouldnt be any more assholes. number two wont happen, because sometimes you just want to see if it really will make your junk bigger. your idea is GREAT, but... i dont really know what the new paradigm would be.
Re:Solution? (Score:2)
My current stats (Since May of last year):
Messages classified: 8,398
Classification errors: 66
Accuracy: 99.21%
Most of the classification errors were in the first couple weeks of training it.
It's nearly bulletproof now. Maybe one message a month gets past it. Works on all platforms and the Windows client has become much easier to use than older version (nice installer and all).
High
Re:Solution? (Score:2, Interesting)
You only got 8,398 messages in one year?
I more than that in ONE WEEK. Each day, I average 1,650 email messages; with about ten of those being legitimate. With your recommended software, even with its "amazing" accuracy, I'd still be getting more spam passed through than legitimate messages.
(This is an old email address, used for well over fifteen years. It has been out in the public forever--used on things like domain registrations and Usenet--well before email addres