Re: [Vo]:Spam has been eliminated? Robin posts considered spam (was Re: OFF TOPIC Davos predictions: predictably wrong?)
Robin, have you watched the Youtube video Terry linked to? Here is the link again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE It's the 1970 Monty Python sketch, Spam, which is the actual origin of the use of the word for unsolicited email, due to the high number of times the word is repeated in the sketch, in spite of one of the characters vehemently not wanting any Spam: I don't like Spam!. Absolutely hilarious :) Michel PS Strange how Gmail's algorithms consider some messages are spam for some people and not for others. Personalized spam blocking! 2010/1/27 mix...@bigpond.com: In reply to Terry Blanton's message of Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:09:31 -0500: Hi, [snip] On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 4:13 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: SPAM - SPurious Advertising Material. Also SPiced hAM: That was the original definition before the advent of the Internet. [snip] Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Spam has been eliminated? Robin posts considered spam (was Re: OFF TOPIC Davos predictions: predictably wrong?)
On 01/28/2010 11:57 AM, Michel Jullian wrote: PS Strange how Gmail's algorithms consider some messages are spam for some people and not for others. Personalized spam blocking! This goes to the heart of the Spam problem. The worst difficulty isn't the ladies from China who supposedly want to crawl into bed with anyone who can read a few kanji characters. They can be blocked across the board, and nobody will complain; furthermore, spam filters can recognize them without a lot of trouble. Rather, the big problem is the legitimate businesses that are just a little too enthusiastic about sending adverts through email. One piece of commercial email from every legitimate business in the United States, sent to every email address in the United States, would be tantamount to a DOS attack on the entire Internet. But, a lot of that commercial email is considered *useful* by a lot of people, at the same time that a lot of other people consider it SPAM. So, one-size-fits-all spam filters simply can't work. Furthermore, since the fringier businesses include word salad in their spam, trainable filters are hard to make work, quite aside from the tedious training required and the high false-positive rate of such filters. T-bird's built in spam filter, for instance, is totally worthless; it worked acceptably when first released but the use of word salads, which was discovered some time after T-bird's filter was added, have completely killed its value. Finally, I don't know what planet you guys who think the spam problem has abated are living on. I just checked my spam reports from PObox and I'm seeing about 50 or 60 rejects a day. That's too many to go through comfortably on a daily basis, and the false-positive rate is *very* low, so I inevitably let the hand-checking slide. But the false-positive rate isn't zero. An unfortunate consequence is that I've lost important messages to mis-tuned spam filters; that's happened within the past year. My webmaster box, which comes directly to me without filtering, gets spam traffic on the same order, and it's almost impossible to pick anything useful out of it. I just had a lengthy *phone* exchange with someone this morning who had failed to receive an important email from me. After sending him about six more copies (with the important document attached each time), none of which made it through, he finally had the wit to send me a message, to which I replied, with said document attached once more. That *finally* made it through. It seems pretty obvious that some spam filter somewhere was blocking all my email to him, until he finally emailed me; then whatever filter it was decided I was a friend rather than foe and let my mail through. He doesn't realize that what he's got is a SPAM problem, but that's surely what it is. All in all, things haven't collapsed completely, the way many people expected; they're still limping along. But none the less, this situation sucks royally, and as far as I can see from the reject counts, the volume has *not* decreased. If anything, it's rising.
Re: [Vo]:Spam has been eliminated? Robin posts considered spam (was Re: OFF TOPIC Davos predictions: predictably wrong?)
eSpam etymology: http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamterm.html http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2635
Re: [Vo]:Spam has been eliminated? Robin posts considered spam (was Re: OFF TOPIC Davos predictions: predictably wrong?)
In reply to Terry Blanton's message of Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:09:31 -0500: Hi, [snip] On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 4:13 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: SPAM - SPurious Advertising Material. Also SPiced hAM: That was the original definition before the advent of the Internet. [snip] Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
RE: [Vo]:Spam has been eliminated? Robin posts considered spam (was Re: OFF TOPIC Davos predictions: predictably wrong?)
From Michel: Jed, I see you use Gmail, have you checked the number of emails in your spam folder? (the spams you have received in the last month if you haven't deleted them manually). Mine contains more than 1400 spams, so maybe it would be more accurate to say that spam is less problematic because big email providers do a better job at blocking them. Not such a good job BTW. While checking my SPAM folder I found 3 Vortex posts in it, all 3 from Robin (mixent, why mixent BTW Robin?). I just marked them as non-spam but I, and maybe others, may have lost other posts this way. Could other Vortexians who also use Gmail check their Spam folders for such posts? E.g. in your search box, type: in:spam Vo I am curious to know if it happened to them too. Most curiously, my Gmail account showed only one Vo spam casualty... Horace Heffner's Nuclear catalysis effective LENR isotopes. Etc..., sent Jan 25. My apologies, Mr. Heffner! FWIW: Subject: Spam is solved, we can all go home now http://blogs.msdn.com/tzink/archive/2010/01/25/spam-is-solved-we-can-all-go- home-now.aspx http://tinyurl.com/ylj42d5 I would love some comments on this article. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Spam has been eliminated? Robin posts considered spam (was Re: OFF TOPIC Davos predictions: predictably wrong?)
Michel Jullian wrote: Jed, I see you use Gmail, have you checked the number of emails in your spam folder? Maybe 5 per day. I don't check often. I have only found real mail there are few times. I would say spam has gone from being Very Annoying to being a minor problem you have to deal with once a week (to check to see if there are any real messages). I have seen only a few spam messages get through Gmail's filter. Mine contains more than 1400 spams . . . Goodness! That's a lot. I changed my e-mail address on the front page of LENR-CANR.org to read: JedRothwell at-sign gmail.com That may have reduced automatic harvesting of the name. . . . so maybe it would be more accurate to say that spam is less problematic because big email providers do a better job at blocking them. That seems tantamount to saying the problem is fixed. Who cares how many end up in the spam filter? - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Spam has been eliminated? Robin posts considered spam (was Re: OFF TOPIC Davos predictions: predictably wrong?)
Ironically, this was the only VO message in my spam folder of about 30 total in the past month. Hey Monteverde, the Food Network says Hawaiians love spam, like spam omelette's, etc. Terry On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 8:50 AM, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: From Michel: Jed, I see you use Gmail, have you checked the number of emails in your spam folder? (the spams you have received in the last month if you haven't deleted them manually). Mine contains more than 1400 spams, so maybe it would be more accurate to say that spam is less problematic because big email providers do a better job at blocking them. Not such a good job BTW. While checking my SPAM folder I found 3 Vortex posts in it, all 3 from Robin (mixent, why mixent BTW Robin?). I just marked them as non-spam but I, and maybe others, may have lost other posts this way. Could other Vortexians who also use Gmail check their Spam folders for such posts? E.g. in your search box, type: in:spam Vo I am curious to know if it happened to them too. Most curiously, my Gmail account showed only one Vo spam casualty... Horace Heffner's Nuclear catalysis effective LENR isotopes. Etc..., sent Jan 25. My apologies, Mr. Heffner! FWIW: Subject: Spam is solved, we can all go home now http://blogs.msdn.com/tzink/archive/2010/01/25/spam-is-solved-we-can-all-go- home-now.aspx http://tinyurl.com/ylj42d5 I would love some comments on this article. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
RE: [Vo]:Spam has been eliminated? Robin posts considered spam (was Re: OFF TOPIC Davos predictions: predictably wrong?)
At 08:50 AM 1/26/2010, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson wrote: http://blogs.msdn.com/tzink/archive/2010/01/25/spam-is-solved-we-can-all-go-home-now.aspx http://tinyurl.com/ylj42d5 I would love some comments on this article. Okay, here goes! The article describes an interesting technique that can be used to identify some spam, but does not even begin to address the overall problem, for this technique only works to identify spam after spam has been already identified by some other means, with, quite likely, a substantial delay. Then filters can be advised and used to tag spam for rejection, but the spam traffic is unimpeded. It should be realized that even if spam traffic never gets to users, being rejected at the server level, it still adds a great burden to mail server load. It is still a serious problem, impacting ISPs directly and thus users indirectly, for we pay all the costs of most ISPs. We also pay another cost, even if we don't see spam, we pay the cost of rejected legitimate mail, which is so high, particularly when one is in businss using email, as I am, that I do not allow my personal spam filter to automatically reject mail, it merely tags it and categorizes it for my review. In practice, there is so much spam that I do rely on IP blacklist filtering, when I've been away and the queue of mail to be rejected is large, but I still have a log of rejected mails with 20 lines from each mail, after a mail is deleted, and I can restore these mails and, at least, respond and ask for it to be resent. I do not allow my mail server provided to reject mail at all, except when a major attack occurs, such as one time when it looks like some spambot got stuck and I was getting 100 spams per minute. To me, there is a generic solution to this and many other problems: organization of those most directly affected, and all those interested in the problem. Among those affected, there is a small number who will actively fight spam, and these efforts should be coordinated to be efficient. However, the general membership of such an organization can be advised to install a particular kind of spam filter, that the organization would provide. It would need money to do its central work, but the membership that would be benefited could be so large that collecting modest donations for this would be trivial. How much would you pay to substantially kill the spam problem, without doing harm to legitimate mail? How much would ISPs be willing to pay for something that made their job much easier by offloading analysis of spam to a trustworthy organization of users. Including their users. The key organizational problem is trustworthy. Spam filtering can quickly and easily become a tool for information control, and there are signs that some anti-spam organizations have been co-opted by those with particular agendas, such as by spammers whose goal is to block competitor's spam while passing their own. How would a voluntary association of mail users address spam? Well, that's a problem for the users themselves to address, gathering and vetting expert opinion, and the details of the organizational structure that would make this so efficient that a mail user could join and be effective with practically no more investment than raising a finger. I won't detail the process for right now, but trust me. It can be made incorruptible; those who attempt to corrupt it end up with a mouthful of hair. The structure is cellular, fractal, and probably bulletproof against any danger except massive governmental-level censorship and repression. If we have come to that point, we have much more serious problems than spam. Spammers have been known to successfully attack anti-spam solutions that implemented part of what I imagine the organization would do, and they were able to accomplish shutting these solutions down because the solutions were centralized, operated by a private company, depending on a single ISP, and turning a botnet to attack this company was trivial for a serious spammer. The ISP, facing massive DOS attack, booted the company in order to protect the rest of its subscribers. But the association I'm talking about would itself use distributed process and would not be vulnerable to attack by botnets; they would be able to shut down particular nodes, but, in the process, revealing themselves and their assets. Which can then be addressed directly. It's obvious that detection of a spam bot, as quickly as possible, and rapid notification of the ISP for the corrupted computer, with rapid shutdown of most internet access for that computer (everything outgoing, basically, though filtering could become more sophisticated: everything outgoing except for the ISP's own support, so that the blocked user can inquire by email and get immediate advice on bot removal and prevention of reinfection). So how to detect spam as quickly as possible? Well, users
Re: [Vo]:Spam has been eliminated? Robin posts considered spam (was Re: OFF TOPIC Davos predictions: predictably wrong?)
In reply to Terry Blanton's message of Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:05:35 -0500: Hi, [snip] Ironically, this was the only VO message in my spam folder of about 30 total in the past month. Hey Monteverde, the Food Network says Hawaiians love spam, like spam omelette's, etc. Terry SPAM - SPurious Advertising Material. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Spam has been eliminated? Robin posts considered spam (was Re: OFF TOPIC Davos predictions: predictably wrong?)
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 4:13 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: SPAM - SPurious Advertising Material. Also SPiced hAM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE T
