> On Thu, 6 Jun 2002, Joe Matuscak wrote:

>> On Thu, 6 Jun 2002, Alex Howansky wrote:
 
>> > I'm using:
>> > 
>> > relays.ordb.org
>> > sbl.spamhaus.org
>> > relays.osirusoft.com
>> > bl.spamcop.net

> ditto.

>> > These block about 30K messages a day. 
>> Zowie. If you dont mind my asking, how many mail accounts?
>> > I use SpamAssassin to handle the leftovers.
>> I need to get some time to look at this...

> i highly recommend spamassassin.



I've been watching this discussion for awhile, and there's another
underlying issue to blocking spam that I haven't seen anyone address yet.

While it's wonderful (and necessary) to be able to block this stuff, doing
so has a band-aid characteristic to it.  With a physical wound, you put a
band-aid on, and the wound heals itself.  That's not the case with spam,
however.  With spam, in fact, just the opposite is true.

With spam, we apply the band-aid (RBH lists, and filtering and such), and
then walk away.  But if we peel that band-aid off, we'll find that the
"wound" (the spam) has actually festered... and gotten worse.  Because even
though we have a band-aid in place, the "tainted" email addresses that are
receiving the spam are becoming more tainted with each passing day.  By
virtue of being on one spam list, an email address probably more often than
not winds up on another, then gets sold to a third, and on and on.

So... while we're protecting our own user communities by doing all this
filtering and black-holing and such, we're not really addressing the
underlying problem at all, and the amount of network traffic being devoted
to spam is still rapidly growing.  By not addressing it in some other way,
we're (in a sense) contributing to its growth.

A prolonged discussion of this aspect of the spam problem should probably go
to a different list, but I had to get this out on the table for some initial
thoughts.

- Patrick Sweeney

p.s. I apologize for the "legalese" noise that follows.














.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this transmission, including any
attachments, may contain confidential information of Matsushita Avionics
Systems Corporation.  This transmission is intended only for the use of the
addressee(s) listed above.  Unauthorized review, dissemination or other use
of the information contained in this transmission is strictly prohibited.
If you have received this transmission in error or have reason to believe
you are not authorized to receive it, please notify the sender by return
email and promptly delete the transmission.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To subscribe to the digest version first unsubscribe, then
 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archive of the last 1000 messages:
 http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]

Reply via email to