I personally think it's b*llsh*t. First of all to send a spam message back to the "spammers computer" you need to properly identify all spam messages. No one has come up with a good way of always identifing only spam as spam and only legit e-mail as legit e-mail.
Also, what constitues the "spammer's computer"? Is that the IP address of the computer that sent the e-mail? Well, since there are millions of zombied computers out there and if you were acually able to correlate that IP address with an e-mail address to send the message "back to them" you'd basically be sending it back to some poor schmuck who doesn't even know enough to apply windows updates. In the case, that it's being sent from an IP address of an actual spammers server (and not a zombied computer) I can picture them coming up with a way of correlating those ROKSO IP addresses with possibly legit e-mail address but what's to stop the spammer from just changing the e-mail address. Of maybe they aren't sending to the e-mail address but just hammering the IP address of the ROKSO spammer. Well, that's network abuse, too, just as much as spam is. The 3rd case of the "spammer's computer" could be the computer on which the web site mentioned in the spam message is housed. What about messages that have the URL in an image? How do you figure out that computer? Well, those URLs won't get discovered. Even if it's a plain text spam message with a working SPAM URL and you are able to correlate an e-mail address with that IP then you might end up bombarding the unknowing ISP of that spammer and not the spammer themself. I don't know everything there is to know about e-mail and the TCP/IP protocol but I do know alot and unless IBM has invented some "really big deal" that's going to revolutionize the technology in fighting this problem, I see it as just another press release tainted by their marketing people. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Don Schreiner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 8:28 AM Subject: RE: [Declude.JunkMail] bounce unwanted email - should be interesting.... > Last year there was a thread about a similar technology, but was shot down > by many on this list as contributing to the Spam problem and questionable > legalities. If memory serves me, you installed an app from one of the large > ISPs and your PC was part of a network sending e-mails to spam servers. A > concern was innocent forged servers getting attacked. > > IBM's approach seems different sending back what was sent to you. I am not > absolutely sure because they reference use of a database? I wonder if IBM > has already been using this technology in-house? The article references a > reduction via a February report. Do others here think their approach has > merit? > > -Don > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Frederick Samarelli > Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 8:53 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [Declude.JunkMail] bounce unwanted email - should be > interesting.... > > Spamming spammers? > Report: IBM to offer service to bounce unwanted e-mail back to the computers > that sent them. > March 22, 2005: 7:00 AM EST > > > > NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - IBM is set to unveil a service Tuesday that will send > unwanted e-mail back to the spammers who send them, according to a published > report Tuesday. > > > > http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/22/technology/ibm_spam/index.htm?cnn=yes > > > > > > > --- > This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To > unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and > type "unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found > at http://www.mail-archive.com. > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > E-mail scanned for viruses by Nexus (http://www.ntgrp.com/mailscan) > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail scanned for viruses by Nexus (http://www.ntgrp.com/mailscan) --- This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and type "unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com.
