On Thu, 16 May 2002, Thomas Mueller wrote: > Sometimes I send a spam complaint when I feel > confident of knowing what server it came through. I suppose spammers can even > set up their own SMTP servers on their own computer, then the spam never goes > through the ISP's mail servers.
Whether it goes through your ISP's SMTP server or not is irrelevant. I've cc'd this to you. Look at the headers in that copy. This is through the SMTP server on my machine. (As of sometime in 1998, *every* message I've ever sent to this list has been from the SMTP server on my machine.) Of course you can trace where it came from, and if the need ever arose to complain, you could use dig, host, nslookup, ipw, or any of dozens of tools to find who to complain to. The way *some* spammers gain anonymity is by breaking into insecure machines, and using the SMTP servers they find there. Obviously, if the "admin" there isn't even aware his machine is being used as an open relay, he most likely doesn't know enough to shut it off. Complaining directly to the address the e-mail came from in that case is a lost cause. Complaining to the owner of the IP block may or may not be effective. Another thing I see a *lot* lately is spam coming from servers in China, Korea and Taiwan. The ISPs there don't seem to care whether allowing spammers nets them a lot of complaint mail. In the case of spam originating in those countries, I've never once received acknowledgement of a spam complaint, so have stopped complaining. I now simply put the entire net-blocks in my procmail filters. > Those spammers who send spams that promote something clearly fraudulent, such as > chain-letter pyramid schemes and the Nigeria scam, ought to be prosecuted. The problem is that you probably have cross jurisdictional issues covering 3 or 4 different countries. Live in the US. Register your domain in Australia using a yahoo.ca e-mail address. Host your website on a server in China for your pyramid scheme in Aruba. All your spam will have a Chinese IP address, so what "authority" do you suppose has jurisdiction in such a case? Once you determine jurisdiction, how successful do you suppose prosecution will be? The reality is that prosecuting everything that *should* be prosecuted is like trying to swat down all the mosquitoes in a Minnesota swamp. "Grant me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference." You absolutely can NOT control what spammers will send you. Therefore, you must take control of the only thing you can control; which e-mail to receive and which to reject. Then again, you can keep on cursing the mosquitoes, and calling for the entire swamp be sprayed with lethal poison. Guess what. The swamp will never be sprayed. Too much collateral damage. -- Steve Ackman http://twoloonscoffee.com (Need green beans?) http://twovoyagers.com (glass, linux & other stuff)
