Why is spam still a problem?
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First, if I understand you correctly, this relies on the sending side to impose those delays. A spammer mailing through a server in some back corner of the world can readily avoid getting those delays imposed.
Lots of legitimate mail is sent out by the thousands (including mail lists of business, non profits and hobbyist groups).
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-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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This sounds like a great idea, although I am not sure how it would be enforced.
And 3 seconds would calculate out to:
500,000 emails * 3 seconds = 1,500,000 seconds.
Or 25,000 minutes. Or 416 hours. Or about 17 days.
That still works out to a spammer's being able to send out roughly 28,000 spam emails per day, but that is less than 10% of 500,000 per day.
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A SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. He walks up to them and asks, "Can I join you?"
Ref.: http://tkyte.blogspot.com/2009/02/sql-joke.html -
The biggest problem with all of these suggestions: If you implement them you all of a sudden can't get email from _any_ non compliant server. So people won't do it until everybody is doing it... chicken vs egg all over again.
Ben
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Yes, that is a more articulate explanation of my wondering how this would be enforced.
To me, it seems that spam is analogous to mimicry in the biological world. Just as some animals camouflage themselves to avoid being eaten or to avoid being spotted by their prey, spam is designed to disguise itself as real email.
I think that's why the spam filters in email programs and mail servers, even with their drawbacks, seem to be one of the best tools for fighting spam. As of now, the best strategy appears to be to train a program to recognize the mimics as well as you can. There will always be some false negatives and false positives (the latter are worse, I think, especially for those who don't check their junk mail folders in case some good mail got caught). But unless there is some clear way to tag mail as junk, I don't see an easy answer.
There is something called Domain Keys that is supposed to address this issue, but I don't yet know much about it.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DomainKeys
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A SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. He walks up to them and asks, "Can I join you?"
Ref.: http://tkyte.blogspot.com/2009/02/sql-joke.html -
Ironically, spam can be of help.... if you are troubleshooting your mail server... if people are getting a little spam.. then you know its working right...
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Can we please just stick to SQL Server?
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I think that we need to have email clients where we have to authorize the sender. We automatically authorize anyone in our contact list. All other receive a reply that their mail was blocked until they submit a request to be approved. Once they click the link in the email and submit their address to be approved, the intended recipient approves the mail and then they are added to the safe senders list. This software is already available and if everyone used it, spam would die a speedy death.
Karen Gayda
MCP, MCSD, MCDBA
gaydaware.com -
Spam, like junk snail-mail, is still a problem because somebody somewhere is making money from it. If nobody ever responded to the fake Rolex's, drugs without an Rx, inside stock tips etc. then the problem would disappear on its own.
In the snail-mail world, there is a "direct marketing association" or similar named group that will take you off their list if you request it - I did that years ago & really works.
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This battle is going to continue. I manage two Qmail servers and I tell you keeping it up to date with the latest spam filter software as well as making sure new rules etc are in place is a challenge. We currently reject 70,000 emails at the gateway - mosty using rbl lookups. We use Spamassasin with Qmail-scanner to filter spam and that filters another 12,000-13,000 emails and so we accept around 5000 ham emails per day.
You will be suprised that even today - how many Nigerians are profiting from the email scams and making millions. So as William says - as long as there are stupid people out there responding to these emails and there is money to be made - SPAM is here to stay. ofcourse the govt is not doing enough either - considering most of the spam emails originate in the US
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The other side of the problem is equally bad - I have a customer that sends 14,000 legitimate emails to their paid membership (it has a link that enables them to vote online on membership issues) they have to use an emailing house to avoid getting their own domain blacklisted.
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Your mail domain already has an SPF policy.
This is how gmail stamps it.
Received-SPF: pass (gmail.com: domain of subscriptions AT sqlservercentral DOT com designates 64 DOT 78 DOT 230 DOT 101 as permitted sender)
(DOTs and AT supplied.)
All the major ISP's, at least in the U.S., already implement a policy for their domain.
Now, it you can just enforce the SPF policy for incoming mail, (reject anything that doesn't pass), you'd eliminate a huge chunk of the spam, because almost no spammers implement such a policy.
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I favor a more brutal approach to eliminate the source of the problem. Cut off the head of the snake... literally. Send Special Operations teams to the known spammers and virus creators wherever they are in the world and eliminate (kill) them. They are doing more economic damage and inficting more pain and suffering on more people than all the terrorists.
Regards,
Greg Young
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So would they be sent in on 'high importance'? with email replies requested?
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Very Swiftian, and (I assume) you're joking.
But in all seriousness, spammers are not inflicting pain and suffering. Only virus creators (or spammers who willfully embed links to viruses in their spam), especially those who join up with terrorist groups to disrupt vital systems, are inflicting or seeking to inflict such damage. Routine spammers are severely annoying butI don't think as "lethal."
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A SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. He walks up to them and asks, "Can I join you?"
Ref.: http://tkyte.blogspot.com/2009/02/sql-joke.html -
Ultimately the problem was created by the computer engineering teams who agreed use the term 'simple' in the acronym SMTP.
The other issue is there is no money in stopping it from ever happening. Only money in lessening its effect.
MS had the idea of charging for sending email as impressions, open source prohibits it.
We are fundimentally as a species, a social one, and universially desire to have shelter, food and personal items.
If a cheap mail relayer will let one share information with allowing one to make money and survive. All the anti spam software in the world will not stop that.
Unless....
We take the means of production away from the citizens, and only allow control by the government. One doesn't hear about much Iraqi or Cuban spam.
In a sense, spam is a defining part of democracy.
*I do not spam or engage such services, nor would I ever. This forum lets me spout off enough maybe moreso than I should as it is. But at least I feel alot of you would be good company.
But if you are looking for a good stock tip, larger penis, better sex life...
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