On Wed, Oct 14, 1998 at 09:07:08AM -0700, Barry Lee Brisco wrote:
> IMO, free email services area a major source of spam, and they create a
> serious problem for everyone. I wish they would just shut down. They're a
> menace to the net. I get spam from hotmail accounts all the time. Though
> sometimes it appears that the From line is forged, and it's not really a
> hotmail account.
Free email services are not a major source of spam. I've been in the
trenches of the anti-spam battle for a long time, I follow the
proceedings in Spam-L very closely, and I correspond with other
system/network admins on a regular basis on the matter.
Hotmail is the source of very little spam -- because they have a lot
of measures in place that prevent spammers from using Hotmail's
resources to launch their denial-of-service attacks. Nearly every
address which *appears* to point back to hotmail is a forgery --
and the few that are dropboxes get shut down pretty rapidly, because
they do an excellent job of logging the use of their site.
Additionally, Hotmail occasionally turns their lawyers loose
on spammers, which is far more than most providers have done.
(Frankly, if UUNet, Compuserve, and Cable & Wireless were as vigilant
as Hotmail or Erols, there would be a lot less spam to contend with.
The response of the latter two sites is exemplary.)
The problems that Hotmail is susceptible to -- forgery of their
domain name, dropboxes -- are the same that any ISP is susceptible to,
and are unrelated to their free services.
So while at one time I shared your sentiments -- and I must admit
that I still view announcements of new free email services with
a great deal of skepticism -- I have to defend Hotmail and their
pro-active staff.
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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