Australia's Largest ISP Redefines Spam 304
cpudney writes "According to this article in NEWS.com.au, Telstra BigPond, Australia's largest ISP will monitor its customers' e-mails and suspend the accounts of users suspected of sending spam, viruses or denial-of-service attacks. Under changes to its Acceptable Use Policy, BigPond will investigate cable and ADSL Internet customers sending more than 20 e-mails in a 10-minute period, and BigPond management "may suspend the (user's) account while the customer is contacted" if they are suspected of sending spam. Previously, BigPond's definition of spam was held to be 400 messages sent over a 15-minute period and now it's changed to 20 e-mails over 10 minutes. Internet Society of Australia president Tony Hill said BigPond's new definition of spam was very restrictive and he was concerned the limit had been set too low for legitimate e-mail users."
Might be a good start... (Score:4, Informative)
1) Monitor all sources of emails in which large numbers are being sent over a short time period.
2) Allow a central repository for people to report which emails are considered spam. Once that amount reaches a certain threshold...
3) Connect the dots, you get a spammer.
More slashdot sensationalism (Score:5, Informative)
Under changes to its Acceptable Use Policy, BigPond will investigate cable and ADSL Internet customers sending more than 20 e-mails in a 10-minute period, and BigPond management "may suspend the (user's) account while the customer is contacted" if they are suspected of sending spam.
It doesn't say anywhere they they will suspend your account if you simply send 20 emails in 10 minutes. All it says is they may investigate users who do, and may suspend their account upon further investigation. I really don't see a huge deal with this, and there isn't any plausible reason to get angry with this policy if it is followed properly.
Wait and see (Score:5, Informative)
Admittedly, that's a big if, given that it's Telestra that we're talking about, but . . .
20 in 10 minutes.... legit users are screwed (Score:1, Informative)
Shouldn't be a problem in that case (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Honest question? (Score:5, Informative)
400 in 15 minutes, yeah, that looks odd and should be checked into. 20 in 10...that's not too hard.
Re:Oh telstra you dorks (Score:5, Informative)
On top of the previous posters comment regarding it only being investigated and not an automatic immediate suspension.
Re:This does seem a bit restrictive. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"Virii" DOES NOT EXIST. BZZZT. defcon4 (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.perl.com/language/misc/virus.html
So it's not like whoever posted that actually *wrote* a 3000+ footnoted slashdot comment, just to point out the correct plural of virus.
Re:Time Scale NOT Too Small (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Shouldn't be a problem in that case (Score:2, Informative)
the article says "will investigate cable and ADSL Internet customers"
(1.5 million pensioners on bigpond LOL)
mod parent down -10 off topic, misinformed, knee-jerk
Re:Oh telstra you dorks (Score:2, Informative)
Well considering the story itself says that "BigPond will investigate cable and ADSL Internet customers sending more than 20 e-mails in a 10-minute period", I fail to see where staying online for long periods will tie up the phone line.
Unless ADSL and cable service in Australia ties up the phone? :)