"Sam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [About why spammers must use long BCC lists]
> No, it's true because they operate from 28.8 dialups.
Getting some spam through beats getting no spam through (to the
spammer). Read on.
> > Efficient: On a Pentium under BSD/OS, qmail can easily sustain
> > 200000 local messages per day---that's separate messages injected
> =====
> Uhhh... We're not talking about local mail.
I know what I quoted. But you snipped out "zooms quickly through
mailing lists".
> Over a 28.8 dialup a spambag can easily spew out about a million
> copies per hour, using long lists of BCCs.
Okay, then why are people wasting their time rejecting mail from
dialups? Just scan email header for each envelope recipient, and
reject emails with >25 "BCC" recipients. For extra fun, if you are the
ISP, forward a copy of any such mail to yourself. Voila! Spam is dead!
If and when ISPs do just that, "Spam Blammer Turbo" will simply split
mailing lists into 25-recipient chunks. Better: it will split it into
24-message chunks for "improved spam-guard evasion".
I said "one envelope recipient" because I'm postulating a world in
which all BCC's, RFC-violations, and all-caps subject lines are
forwarded to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]". The most that such measures can
do is _slow_down_ spam; it is fundamentally impossible to distinguish
spam from legit email automatically and reliably.
To illustrate: I used to filter spam for myself with fairly
sophisticated "hype detection" patterns. Invariably, it canned email
from VP's and other mucky-mucks from my own company. Though their mail
was "legit", it conformed to many spam "red flags": huge CC lists,
abundant superlatives, excessive exclamation, all-caps subjects, even
phrases like "sure thing" and "big money".
Once my filter told the company president just what to do with his
filthy spam. (Okay, that part is a lie. My spam-filter always gave a
pass to internal email. It DID usually put VPmail into the "probably
spam" folder, though).
Today, I don't bother much with spam filtering. I do discard any mail
without my address in its headers, and I haven't seen a spam in over
two years (other than VPmail, which I still insist IS spam).
Len.
--
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken
down, and without walls. --Proverbs 25:28
