Ante_Spam's Electronic ANTISPAM Workshop
New antispam efforts aren't expected to end the scourge
==============================
Now Look-a-here..
already they are trying to gauge The
Effectiveness of legislation with this new
Canned Spam Act; Personally I know that it
needs to be investigated to insure success.
maybe that's what they're proposing..
I sure hope so, This Holiday Spam
has been thick as a Canned Ham.
and I don't even eat pork,,oh nooooo!!!!!
Damn,,
Ante' Spam
==================================
Antispam Law's Effectiveness Doubted
Tech leaders in business expect to keep their spam filters in place despite new law.
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,114046,00.asp
Grant Gross, IDG News Service
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
WASHINGTON --
An antispam bill that was poised to become law in the new year may do little to stem the barrage of junk e-mail, according to corporate information and technology officers who deal with the problem daily.
The legislation, called the
CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act, was signed into law by President George W. Bush earlier in December.
It requires senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail to let recipients opt out of future mailings, sets penalties for sending deceptive messages, and begins the process of creating a national Do Not Spam list. The measure requires all e-mail advertising--not just unsolicited messages--to include a valid reply-to address, a valid postal address, and accurate headers and subject lines.
Concerns Remain
But CIOs say it won't work, since so much spam comes from outside the United States.
Tod Ferran, CIO of Riverton Motor, an auto dealership based in Sandy, Utah, says you'd need
"the authority of a world government" to enforce such a law. Instead, he favors a technological solution. The open-source Mozilla e-mail system he uses includes a junk e-mail filtering feature, he notes. He also recommends "education of the public" to not respond to spam solicitations.
Matt Kesner, chief technology officer of the Fenwick & West law firm based in Mountain View, California, says he thinks legislating against spam is worth a try. Still, he questions why Congress would pass a bill that would trump a strong new California antispam law.
That measure, passed in September but overruled by the federal law, would have required marketers to get permission from or have an existing business relationship with a recipient before sending e-mail. Without better technological and legal solutions, Kesner says he's afraid
"we'll get to the point where we accept e-mail only from people we know."
===========================================
Spam Laws: Bark or Bite?
New antispam efforts aren't expected to end the scourge.
Tom Spring
From the January 2004 issue of PC World magazine
Posted Thursday, December 04, 2003
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,113633,00.asp
If you're cheering about the recent progress toward antispam laws and a proposed national do-not-spam list, you should hold your applause: Neither is expected to vanquish spam, and they both might block e-mail you want to get.
California has adopted an antispam law, and Congress is still considering the federal CAN-SPAM Act (see highlights of each, "What the Antispam Laws Do"). The federal bill is a good first effort, says Jared Blank, a Jupiter Research analyst. But Blank believes the California law will hurt thousands of honest businesses, and that both efforts will ultimately fail to curb most spam--primarily because the slimiest spammers won't follow the law and will likely move offshore to try to stay beyond its reach.
In the meantime, legitimate businesses are nervously paring their marketing lists, afraid of being fined for communicating with customers.
Getting Tough
California's law, taking effect January 1, is the stricter of the two. Companies that send marketing information and sponsored newsletters by e-mail are concerned.
They warn of a cottage industry for
"spambulance" chasers--lawyers who pursue well-heeled newsletter advertisers. (Editor's note: PC World produces a number of e-mail newsletters that are supported by advertising.)
Michael Mayor, the president of NetCreations, which builds double opt-in e-mail lists for businesses, says that he's dropping all California e-mail addresses from the database. New Yorka??based retailer Silberman's Army & Navy fears the law will prevent e-mail promotion of its Working Gear Web site.
"There is a strong probability that someone on any list we acquire could be a lawsuit," says Dave Zabell, a consultant.
Microsoft, several ISPs, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation support the law.
"The California law will for the first time give us some recourse to go after these guys," says Craig Newmark, founder of the popular Craigslist Web site.
The CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act has U.S. Senate approval and is now under consideration in the House, where it could pass by the time you read this.
"This legislation is an important step toward giving consumers more control," says Senate sponsor Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).
Diverse Support
Supporters include the Telecommunications Research and Action Center, an advocacy group, as well as the National Consumers League and Consumer Action.
"I believe the potential of this medium is at stake," says Sam Simon, who chairs the Telecommunications Research and Action Center. "[Spam] is out of control."
Businesses' key concern with the act's proposed national do-not-spam list is that spammers won't abide by the list anyway, while legitimate small companies will face a huge burden, says John Rizzi, CEO of E-Dialog, an e-marketing firm.
"Spammers are not people who pay a lot of attention to legal rules," agrees J. Howard Beales III, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.
"There is still no silver bullet for spam," says Louis Mastria, director of public and international affairs for the Direct Marketing Association, an industry group that includes both e-mail and traditional mail marketers.
For the foreseeable future, update your spam filters and keep hitting .
-------------------------------------------------------
What the Antispam Laws Do -
California Spam Law (formerly SB 186)
Unsolicited commercial e-mail may not be sent from California or to a California address.
The law applies to senders as well as to advertisers on whose behalf messages are sent.
Damages may be up to $1000 for each message sent to an individual, and up to $1 million per incident.
Exempted are companies that you (the e-mail recipient) have done business with, as well as companies whose commercial messages you have opted to receive.
Federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003(S. 877)
Unsolicited commercial e-mail must be labeled, and must include opt-out instructions and the sender's physical address.
Deceptive subject lines and false headers are prohibited.
Violators face jail sentences of up to a year and fines of up to $1 million. Repeat offenders face jail terms of up to five years.
Federal law preempts any state laws that prohibit unsolicited commercial e-mail outright.
The FTC is authorized to establish a "do-not-e-mail" registry.
E-mail ‘Cluster Bombs’ Are Next Online Scourge
=======================
Dig This,
E-mail ‘Cluster Bombs’ Are Next Online Scourge
What ??
Ante' Spam
----------------------------------------------------
E-mail ‘Cluster Bombs’ Are Next Online Scourge
Direct Newsline - a daily marketing newsletter, Dec 16 2003
http://directmag.com/ar/marketing_email_cluster_bombs/index.htm
Online marketers beware.
What if someone’s e-mail inbox was inundated with hundreds or thousands of messages in a short period because of your Web site? It would paralyze online activities, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reported.
This e-mail onslaught are called “cluster bombs.” They work by locating a flaw in some Web sites that allow “the bomber” to pose as a victim and fill out Web site forms, like those that allow the user to sign up for a mailing list. Then, software called agents, Web-crawlers and scripts could be used to fill in thousands of forms immediately in that person’s name. That results in a “cluster bomb” of unwanted automatic reply e-mail messages to the victim, the Journal said.
The solution, said researchers at Indiana University Bloomington who identified the problem,
is to set up the subscription system so that the user sends their own e-mail confirming registration, instead of the system automatically sending an e-mail back.
----------------------------------------------------
Bush Signs Anti-Spam Legislation
================================
Dig This,
The Government finally does something,
now lets see it it's effective.
God Knows We Sure Need Somthin,
Ante' Spam
-------------------------------------------
========================
-------------------------------------------
Bush Signs Anti-Spam Legislation
By DEB RIECHMANN
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1151&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20031216%2F181192984.htm&sc=1151
WASHINGTON (AP) -
A new law that President Bush signed Tuesday will outlaw shady techniques used by some of the Internet's most prolific e-mailers, but the government still hasn't decided if it will create a do-not-spam registry of e-mail users.
``Spam, or unsolicited e-mails, are annoying to consumers and costly to our economy,'' White House press secretary Scott McClellan said after Bush signed the bill.
The law will prohibit senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from disguising their identities by using false return addresses or misleading subject lines, and it will prohibit senders from harvesting addresses off Web sites.
``This will help address the problems associated with the rapid growth and abuse of spam by establishing a framework of technological, administrative, civil and criminal tools, and by providing consumers with options to reduce the volume of unwanted e-mail,'' McClellan said.
The law was applauded by representatives of
Internet providers Earthlink and America Online who attended the bill-signing ceremony, along with several lawmakers.
``Combined with enforcement under state anti-spam laws, as well as damage lawsuits by Internet service providers, we hope to turn the tide against outlaw spammers,'' AOL Chairman Jon Miller said.
Under the law, the Federal Trade Commission is required to study the idea of setting up a do-not-spam registry modeled after the national do-not-call list of people who don't want to get telephone solicitations. The FTC, which must deliver a plan to Congress within six months, has expressed doubts that a registry is feasible, but lawmakers, including Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., are adamant about getting one established.
``We will be vigilant to make sure that the no-spam registry is adopted by the FTC and if they refuse, we believe Congress will move the legislation forward,'' Schumer said.
Some critics of the new law are angry because the federal law nullifies stronger anti-spam legislation passed in California and other states. They also say the federal law does not keep e-mail users in America from receiving spam from other nations.
The California law would have required businesses to get an Internet user's permission before sending them any e-mail advertisement, said California State Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, who helped write it.
``If Congress really had an interest in putting spammers out of business, it would have used California's new law as a model, put a bounty on the head of every single spammer and let as many people as possible go after them, just like we do with junk faxers.''
Marketers who peddle goods and services through e-mail ads said they supported parts of the law because it distinguishes legitimate commercial e-mail from unlawful spam and imposes criminal penalties, including jail time, on spammers. However, the Direct Marketing Association, a trade group for businesses interested in interactive and database marketing, said it remains concerned about the creation of a government-run do-not-e-mail registry.
12/16/03 18:11
Congress Votes to Can Spam
Finally,
Ante' Spam
==========================
Congress Votes to Can Spam
Associated Press
Story location:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,61518,00.html
03:40 PM Dec. 08, 2003 PT
WASHINGTON -- Congress on Monday approved the first national effort to stem the flood of unwanted e-mail pitches offering prescription drugs, cheap loans and other come-ons.
President Bush has indicated he intends to sign the measure into law. Indeed the White House revamped its own e-mail system this summer over a flood of so-called spam.
Clogged inboxes have become a leading irritation among Internet users, an increasing business expense for companies and a popular target for Washington interest before an election year.
"Today, it's a nightmare that threatens to overwhelm people's legitimate use of the Internet," said Rep. Heather Wilson, (R-New Mexico). "All the technologies and the filters have failed to keep our inboxes free of junk."
The House voted without dissent to approve slight changes Senate lawmakers made to the "can spam" legislation, which would outlaw the shadiest techniques used by the Internet's most prolific e-mailers, who send tens of millions of messages each day.
The bill would supplant tougher anti-spam laws already passed in some states, including a California law that takes effect Jan. 1.
The bill was among the farthest-reaching Internet measures approved during Bush's term, which has largely continued the Clinton administration's hands-off approach toward regulating America's technology industry. The last such major legislation was a 1998 law banning websites from collecting personal information from children under 13.
The anti-spam bill encourages the Federal Trade Commission to create a do-not-spam list of e-mail addresses and includes penalties for spammers of up to five years in prison in rare circumstances. The Senate previously voted 97-0 to approve the bill.
The legislation would prohibit senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from disguising their identity by using a false return address or misleading subject line. It also would prohibit senders from harvesting addresses off websites and require such e-mails to include a mechanism so recipients could indicate they did not want future mass mailings.
"This is one of the more sweeping Internet regulatory schemes we've seen," said Alan Davidson of the Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology. Although he criticized parts of the anti-spam bill, he said consumer frustration was driving lawmakers.
"Most people are going to be glad this bill is heading to the president soon," he said.
Some critics said the bill didn't go far enough to discourage unwanted e-mails. The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail called the congressional effort "really disappointing." The group prefers a law requiring marketers to obtain someone's permission before sending them any e-mails. It said the alternative method of consumers asking marketers not to send them any more messages hasn't worked.
"What Congress is effectively doing is ignoring these laws that haven't worked everywhere else they've tried," said the group's spokesman, John Mozena. "This bill fails the most basic tests for anti-spam legislation; it doesn't tell anybody not to spam."
Spam Slayer: Ten Tips and Tricks
==============================================
Dig This,
Ante' Spam
==============================================
Technology - PC World
Spam Slayer: Ten Tips and Tricks
Mon Nov 24, 3:00 AM ET
Tom Spring, PCWorld.com
Watch out for worms bearing spam. A nasty spam-based worm called MiMail.J is crawling into in-boxes. This sequel to the MiMail worm also masquerades as a PayPal message urging victims to click on an attachment to update their PayPal-related financial and personal data. MiMail.J goes one step further and requests credit card and Social Security (news - web sites) numbers. The attached program is named either "InfoUpdate.exe" or "www.paypal.com.pif." Be sure to update your virus definitions and scan those attached files.
How satisfied are you with your e-mail software? Does it block spam and do everything it should? Does important e-mail get lost in the weeds? Are hundreds of megabytes of spam saved and hidden on your PC?
Spam can make your e-mail software feel more like a garbage can than a mailbox. Because no e-mail software is perfect, here are some tips to help turn your e-mail client into an easier-to-use, more reliable messaging client--without requiring a software upgrade.
Free of Distractions
Spam and other e-mail messages not directly addressed to you can crowd your in-box to the point that important e-mail gets lost. You can create a rule in Outlook Express 6 that puts any e-mail messages not addressed directly to you in a separate bulk e-mail folder.
To create the rule, go to Tools, Message Rules, and Mail. Next, click on the New Rule tab and create a new rule. You'll want to check the box labeled "Where the To line contains people". In the box below, click on the blue underlined words "contains people". You'll want to add your e-mail address and click Add. Now click on Options and choose "Message does not contain the people below", and select OK and OK. Now put a checkmark in "Move it to the specified folder" and click the blue underlined word "specified". Lastly create a new folder named Bulk e-mail, highlight it and hit OK and OK. If you use Netscape's e-mail software, go to Tools, Message Filters, and New. Select "Match all of the following" and use the Subject drop-down menu and select "To." Add your own e-mail address and then in the box at the bottom of the window select Red. That way all e-mail addressed directly to you will be highlighted red in your in-box and hard to miss.
Attachments Blocked?
Last year, Microsoft distributed a security update for Outlook Express 5 and 6 that changed the program's settings. Users who installed the update found that file attachments to e-mail messages were automatically blocked. The change was to prevent attachments that harbored viruses from being downloaded and launched within your in-box. This is a great feature for Net novices, but for advanced users it can be frustrating. To disable the feature, follow these steps, but be sure to scan attachments for viruses before opening them.
In Outlook Express, click Tools, Options, and the Security tab. Next, uncheck the box that says "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus."
Delete Mystery Spam
Outlook and Netscape share a habit of backing up deleted e-mail in Outlook's Deleted and Netscape's Trash folders. Microsoft's product saves up to 2GB of old Outlook e-mail even after you've deleted the messages from your Deleted folder. I found 300MB of mostly spam messages I thought had been deleted from my Netscape Trash folder. It's not easy to recover these messages if you needed them, and why waste hard drive space saving spam, anyway?
Deleting trashed messages cluttering up your hard disk in Netscape is a challenge. Go to Start, Search, Files and Folders, and select "All Files and Folders." Be sure to select "Search hidden files and folders" by expanding the "More advanced options" menu option. Search for the word "trash." Search results will deliver a number of folders containing files named "trash." The one to delete is likely the largest in file size and will follow the convention:
"C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\ApplicationData\Mozilla\Profiles\default\5z3f9dp.slt\Mail\pop. YOURISP.com".
In older versions of Windows the file path will look like this:
"C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Mail".
It's okay to delete this file as the Netscape program automatically regenerates the folder.
In Outlook, hidden e-mail is a lot easier to delete. First, go to Tools and Empty the "Deleted Items" Folder. To prevent Outlook from storing deleted messages in the future, go to Tools, Options, select the Other tab, and check the box "Empty The Deleted Items Folder Upon Exiting."
Avoid Chat Room Spam
Spammers are notorious for trolling AOL chat rooms hunting fresh spam meat. To minimize spam, create a decoy screen name just for chatting.
Put Hotmail on a Spam Holiday
If you're on vacation and away from your Hotmail account, you probably dread the spam that awaits your return. To prevent spam overload and trick spammers into thinking your e-mail address is no longer active, you can close your Hotmail account for up to 90 days. But if you abandon your account for more than 90 days, you can kiss your Hotmail user name goodbye. Closing your account means you cannot send or receive messages, and stored e-mail and addresses are deleted.
Spammers will think your e-mail address is dead and the spam onslaught will subside. On the flip side, your friends will think your e-mail address is dead as well, so don't forget to inform them. To re-activate your account, just sign back on to Hotmail within 90 days.
Never Read Spam Twice
It's bad enough you get tricked into reading spam once. But if your Outlook or Outlook Express clients don't immediately display messages as read when you read them, you may end up rereading spam. Here's how to mark a message as read (or unbold e-mail messages) in your in-box the instant you click on it.
First go to Tools, Options, and select the Other tab. Now click on the Preview Pane option in Outlook Express (Outlook 2003 calls it the Reading Pane) and check the box next to "Mark messages as read in preview window." Select 0 as the number of seconds you want to wait before marking the message as read.
In Outlook Express, go to Tools, Options, and select the Read tab. To the right of "Mark messages read after displaying for" change the time to 0 seconds.
Shut Up About Spam
A notification feature intended to alert you when you've got e-mail can drive you nuts. If you use a Windows XP (news - web sites) and XP Pro computer with multiple user profiles, every time you log onto your desktop a message relates how many unread e-mail messages you have.
To prevent this notification nag, you need to find out which programs generate them. XP typically culls new message information from your Outlook Express e-mail client and your Messenger client that is tied to an MSN or Hotmail account.
To prevent Messenger from informing you of new e-mail messages, go to the Messenger program's Tools menu and then select Options. Next, select the Preferences tab and uncheck "Run this program when Windows starts." In Outlook Express, go to Tools, Options, and click on the General tab. Deselect both "Automatically log on to Windows Messenger" and "Send and receive messages at startup."
Nag Messages, Part II
You can also prevent new e-mail alerts from popping up out of your system tray for Hotmail, MSN, and Outlook.
To prevent Messenger telling you about every new e-mail message, open Messenger, click on the Tools menu, and select Options. Next, select the Preferences tab and uncheck "Display alerts when e-mail arrives."
In Outlook Express, go to Tools, Options, and click on the General tab. Next, go to the "Check for new messages" box and max out the times Outlook checks for new messages to 480-minute intervals. The trade-off is that you will have to manually hit Send/Receive in Outlook to check for messages.
In Outlook 2003, go to the Tools menu bar, select Options, and click E-mail Options. Now, click on Advanced E-mail Options, and customize the "When new items arrive in my In-box" section.
A Nice New Ring to Spam
If you like new message alerts but are sick of the sounds of the alerts, you can change or silence the programs that generate them. Go to Start/Settings/Control Panel and select Sounds and Audio Devices. Here you can modify Windows sounds. Simply click on the Sounds tab and scroll down in the Program Events field and find your e-mail or messaging client and change or remove the sound.
Make Filters Mobile
If you've painstakingly created spam and e-mail filter rules for your Netscape e-mail client and want to set up Netscape on a new PC, here's how to take your filter rules with you.
Go to Start, Search, Files and Folders, and select All Files and Folders. You'll want to make sure you selected "Search hidden files and folders" by expanding the "More advanced options" menu option. Search for the word "msgfilterrules." Search results may deliver a number of folders with the msgfilterrules file in it. The one you are looking for when using Windows XP and XP Pro will be associated with your ISP and will follow the convention:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\ApplicationData\Mozilla\Profiles\default\6y2pe1cq.slt\Mail\pop.YOURISP.com
For Netscape Junk mail control rules (Spam/Junk mail controls), you need to look for training.dat file in your "slt" folder located here:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\ApplicationData\Mozilla\Profiles\default\5z3f9dp.slt
Q&A
Q.Periodically I receive e-mail full of nonsense words in the subject line and message body. Other times I get e-mail with nothing but funny-looking characters that don't look like letters. What is behind these mystery messages?
--Bill B.
A. What looks like gibberish may be one of two things. Unintelligible text in a subject line or body of an e-mail is likely spam written in a foreign language. Often e-mail software chokes on foreign characters. Not able to convert foreign characters, e-mail programs display them as characters such as boxes, upside-down question marks, sun symbols, and many others.
There is no sure-fire way to block this type of freaky spam. You might try to copy typical junk characters from one message and paste them into your e-mail software's filter rules.
Random nonsense text in e-mail subject lines like "Hello v13uopn9tt5n22 Yes U can!" and misspelled words are also designed to trick spam filters. By misspelling words, like "best m0rtgage qu0te!s", spammers hope to evade spam filters that identify spam through keywords.
'Cyber Sweep' Nets 125 Arrests
=============================
Criminals Identifying eachother..
now if the gov't can put them in a room
and get some money out of them for what
they've done to all of us, all of this will be
worth something, maybe.
Stay Tuned,, I know I will -
Ante' Spam
==============================================
'Cyber Sweep' Nets 125 Arrests Wired News Report
Story location:
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61317,00.html
12:41 PM Nov. 20, 2003 PT
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday that law-enforcement agents had arrested 125 suspects in a crackdown on Internet crimes ranging from hacking and software piracy to credit card fraud and selling stolen goods over the Internet.
The investigation, begun Oct. 1 and dubbed Operation Cyber Sweep, involved police from Ghana to Southern California and uncovered 125,000 victims who had lost more than $100 million, he told a news conference. Seventy indictments to date have led to arrests or convictions of 125 people, with more expected as the probe continues.
"The information superhighway should be a conduit for communication, information and commerce, not an expressway for crime," Ashcroft said.
Those arrested stand charged with a variety of crimes that highlight the innumerable scams and criminal acts that now take place online.
‘‘Online criminals assume that they can conduct their schemes with impunity," Ashcroft said. ‘‘Operation Cyber Sweep is proving them wrong, by piercing the criminals' cloak of anonymity and prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law."
The cases range from a Virginia woman who sent fake e-mails to America Online customers asking them to update their credit card numbers to a disgruntled Philadelphia Phillies fan who hacked into computers nationwide and launched spam e-mails criticizing the baseball team.
Many are accused of selling stolen or nonexistent goods online, a leading cybercrime category. Suspects fenced stolen goods through online auction sites like eBay, set up phony escrow services to handle payments, and touted fraudulent investment clubs through slick websites, according to a summary of cases provided by the Department of Justice.
Suspects also stole classified files from government computers, hacked into business computers to steal customers' credit card numbers, disabled computers running child-abuse hotlines, and sold counterfeit software or computer-memory chips, the Justice Department said.
It said one California man continued to send online death threats to a Canadian who he thought was sending him spam e-mail even after authorities asked him to stop.
U.S. Secret Service agents worked with foreign law enforcers to track down suspects who operated across international borders, leading to the arrest of a Romanian man who they said bilked some $500,000 from online auction participants.
Authorities in Ghana and Nigeria also helped track down suspects and recover millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.
The crackdown stemmed from indications that Internet fraud continues to rise. The Internet Fraud Complaint Center, run in part by the FBI, referred some 58,000 complaints to law enforcement in the first nine months of 2003 -- compared with 48,000 for all of 2002.
Chief Postal Inspector Lee Heath said many suspects were simply transferring time-honored scams to the Internet.
"We'd like to say it's just old wine in a new bottle," he said.
Federal agents said they had not yet found the perpetrators of the Blaster worm and SoBig e-mail virus that disabled millions of computers this summer, but had gained some valuable leads, thanks to a reward program set up by Microsoft.
A similar cybercrime sweep in the first half of the year led to 135 arrests.
Reuters and AP contributed to this report.
Spammers now clogging blogs, cell phones, IMs
================================
and today's Nonsense is all about
spamming Personal Devices.
the government should be heating up some
branding irons, and lining the heads of these companies
up in front of the Lincoln Memorial - tagging em with spam,,
Who thinks this is going to end here..
Oh-Nooo,,
Ante' Spam
================================
Posted on Thu, Nov. 13, 2003
Spammers now clogging blogs, cell phones, IMs
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/7254592.htm
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Three years ago, Adam Kalsey set up a Web log to share his thoughts about online business and the digital revolution. Like countless other ``bloggers,'' he lets his readers post comments on his entries.
Recently, his site has been getting remarks like ``Thanks for the information!'' and ``Sounds great!'' They're not from supporters, but from people -- or machines -- who leave names like ``Generic Viagra,'' ``Online Gambling'' and ``Free Poker'' and links to unsavory sites.
Spam has never been limited to e-mail. But now, commercial pitches are increasingly popping up in online chats, instant messages, cell phones with text messaging and, as Kalsey found, Web log comments.
Spammers are flocking to new communications tools like moths to light, threatening to cripple these tools just as they are beginning to take off.
Howard Rheingold, a futurist who predicts always-on communication will revolutionize public discourse, is worried that all these new forms of spam could freeze the revolution in its tracks.
There will be no great social transformation if cell phones are turned off, instant messenger programs shut down or blog comments disabled to halt the flow of offers for online porn or cheap drugs.
``It forces you to either turn off the comments and lose some of the value of the medium, or spend your time deleting spam,'' said Rheingold, who runs his own blog.
Today, most of the attention of lawmakers has been on e-mail spam, which is estimated to comprise nearly half of e-mail traffic. Attempts to write broader laws have not succeeded, and might whittle away at free speech.
``We ought to be legislating general concepts -- things like, you can't market to somebody who's asked you not to,'' said David Sorkin, a professor who studies spam laws at John Marshall Law School. ``But in the case of spam in particular, that hasn't really worked.''
It's possible legislation targeting unwanted e-mail could be used to fight other unwanted communication; text messages on cell phones often originate from e-mail. Laws limiting telemarketing also might be useful.
But that assumes the legislation will work, and that spammers won't move outside the law.
Kalsey, a Web consultant who lives near Sacramento, Calif., has taken matters into his own hands. In fact, many of his comments of late have focused on combatting Web log spam, including the creation of a ``Comment Spam Manifesto.''
Working from the theory that blog spam can be combatted like real-world graffiti, Kalsey tried deleting messages as fast as they appeared. That worked for a few weeks but the volume has recently been increasing.
Now he's tracking down those who leave the comments, collecting evidence and reporting them to their Internet providers and domain registers so their accounts can be canceled. If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. Fortunately, help from others is available.
``What you failed to understand is that bloggers are smarter, better connected and more technologically savvy than the average e-mail user,'' it reads, addressing the spammers. ``We control this medium that you are now attempting to exploit. You've picked a fight with us and it's a fight you cannot win.''
``The blog immune system does seem to be responding,'' said Kalsey. ``People are coming up with collective solutions like black lists for spammers. If one person gets spammed, then all the others who use that software can ban them.''
Most of today's comment spam doesn't urge someone to click on the link. Rather, it's posted to boost a site's position on search engines. Web crawling software robots released by search engines notice keywords and links, and that information is used to determine relevancy.
Mena Trott, chief executive of Six Apart, the maker of the popular Web log system Movable Type, said the company is working on updates to make deletion of unwanted messages easier.
Cell phone carriers and providers of instant messaging services, meanwhile, are finding that their spam problems can be much more disruptive to workflow.
For IM, spam is growing just as the technology jumps from personal to business communications. To address the problem, companies are blocking messages from outsiders, instituting ``white lists'' of accepted contacts or not allowing IM at all.
But that's making messaging less convenient.
``In (corporate) instant messaging, we're doing more of a closed approach than what we were seeing with e-mail,'' said Paul Judge, chief technology officer of the antispam firm CipherTrust Inc. and co-chair of the Anti-Spam Research Group.
America Online, the largest instant-messaging provider, has a number of roadblocks in place to halt spam IM, or spim. Among other things, a software sentry looks for spammers -- automated or in-the-flesh -- who try to send multiple messages simultaneously to many people, said spokesman Nicholas Graham.
``All the carriers have been hit with situations like this,'' said Nextel spokeswoman Mila Fairfax. ``Each carrier has applied a filtering system to try to flag messages that appear suspicious to our system.''
Cell phone text message spam can be even more disruptive -- and expensive.
Some Nextel Communications cell phone subscribers recently got a 3:30 a.m. message urging support of the workers in the southern California grocery strike. Another spammer urged a vote in favor of recalling California Gov. Gray Davis.
Aside from early morning annoyance, some plans charge for each message sent or received. Nextel, which last month installed a filtering system, offers refunds to any customers who complain.
``We will be going after (spammers) to the furthest extent of law,'' Fairfax said. ``Anything we can do, we will do.''
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On the Net:
Spam Law summaries:
http://www.spamlaws.com
Six Apart:
http://www.sixapart.com
