Spam Filters and Dopey IT guys!!

**pau1** · 12th July 2005, 01:26 AM

Originally Posted by DavidG

But.... If you had to pay then you would be much more careful with your system.
You would use a firewall as it could save you money. You would take every precaution. You would scream at the pollies to get a solution....

Because there is no immediately visible cost, resources are not allocated to prevent misuse. What does it matter to you if your system does send a few hundred thousand emails. A little extra traffic hidden in the rest.

You would react pretty quick if you had to pay for a few hundred thousand emails. Very quick.....

Who pays whom? Do I pay you? Do I pay Bill Gates, my isp, the government, or the derro on the corner? The internet isn't run by one company or government or isp. If it was, there probably wouldn't be a spam problem.....because the internet wouldn't exist. Even if you did make people pay, whats to stop them writing a new "email" system that uses different protocols and different ports etc If it was free and it worked I'm sure it would catch on pretty quick.

Payment isn't the sollution. Trust me, I'm payed to stop spam for a living and read more articles and research on the problem than I care to admit. If there was a quick fix then it would have been implimented. The basic problem is that the smtp protocol is insecure because when it was designed (based on FTP) they had no idea that it would be one of the largest comunication tools of the new millenium, so security wasn't built in. There are technical ways of fixing the problem, but it's "too hard" for any one country/company to do. It will come, but you will probably have to wait until e-mail becomes unusable due to spam:mad:

q9 · 12th July 2005, 04:25 AM

Originally Posted by Cliff Rogers

... Targeted my ass, it's the same thing as SPAM & they pay for it to be delivered...

I actually worked for a firm that spent a lot of money on marketing...in fact that's nearly all they do. Mail outs are VERY targeted. Maybe not to you personally, but definately geographically, based on a number of factors. Your proximity to certain stores, the economic make up of the suburb in which you live, average house prices in your neighbourhood, and a bunch of other stuff like if a previous customer lives in your street. Mailouts (where I was at least) only achieve something like a 1% success rate, but that 1% usually generated several million dollars of extra revenue, for a cost of only maybe $50,000.

There, now that's nicely off topic, isn't it

**Stuart** · 12th July 2005, 12:01 PM

**DavidG** · 12th July 2005, 01:35 PM

Why do I feel like I am talking to the IT department again.

At this point I agree to disagree.

q9 · 12th July 2005, 03:06 PM

Problem with user pays is simply this:

The software to create a mail server is free. You only need a very basic hardware setup to install a basic mailserver. All you need after that is just a simple connection to the internet. So it becomes easy to set up for a couple of days then move on, or perhaps setup in another country where no one will bother you about such things.

So how do you ensure the user pays when they can do everything for free and move about so easily? Essentially, you can't.

**spbookie** · 12th July 2005, 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by q9

Problem with user pays is simply this:

The software to create a mail server is free. You only need a very basic hardware setup to install a basic mailserver. All you need after that is just a simple connection to the internet. So it becomes easy to set up for a couple of days then move on, or perhaps setup in another country where no one will bother you about such things.

So how do you ensure the user pays when they can do everything for free and move about so easily? Essentially, you can't.

These days the majority of spam is sent via hacked machines, so called "bot nets" you can hire 1000 computers for a day for about $30US. So now who pays? Another issue with charging for email is that you're are alreadly paying for email in your connection cost so how do you feel when someone tries to slug you for extra? I used to run three mailing lists and I would send approx 3000 emails a day, should I be charged more for providing a community service?

It is not easy. I think a good start to solving the problem is when an ISP detects that a user's computer has been compromised they shut off all access until it is fixed. Having a firewall and anti-virus running as a condition of connection would help heaps too.

Internet connection, being a cooperative, is a privlige not a right.

Charles
Who is behind two seperate firewalls, with local AV and FW and I'm wearing a ubueat foily cap!

**kiwigeo** · 12th July 2005, 09:21 PM

Nice pic Stu.....the computer looks like an IBM portable.

**kiwigeo** · 12th July 2005, 09:23 PM

Originally Posted by spbookie

Charles
Who is behind two seperate firewalls, with local AV and FW and I'm wearing a ubueat foily cap!

Charles, if youre wearing a ubeaut foily hat then you dont need the AV or FW!!

**Daddles** · 12th July 2005, 09:23 PM

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

Nice pic Stu.....the computer looks like an IBM portable.

In which case, it's coming OUT of the computer and INTO the tin :eek:

Richard

**Barry_White** · 12th July 2005, 11:48 PM

When I changed from Telstra ISDN to Telstra 2 Way satelite a condition of the connection was that you were running a firewall and anti-virus software. Coupled with using Mozilla Thunderbird I do not get any spam.

**Stuart** · 13th July 2005, 12:50 AM

Originally Posted by Daddles

In which case, it's coming OUT of the computer and INTO the tin :eek:

Richard

Isn't this where canned spam comes from?

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