Mozilla is user-trainable, so the moving target isn't a problem. When it
misses one, you just mark it as spam, Mozilla gets retrained a little, and
it gets dropped in the Junk folder.

--
Chuck Tribolet

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/triblet

Silicon Valley: STILL the best day job in the world.


"Joe Parsons" wrote in message ...
On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 07:35:59 -0800, "Chuck Tribolet" wrote:

Harry, I don't know how you developed this list, but I suspect it was
by compiling the From: tags in spam. Most of those are fake anyway,
and there's nothing wrong with those ISPs anti-spam policy.

A fairly simple solution to the spam problem is to install Mozilla and use
the spam filter in its mail reader. It works quite well, especially after
a little simple training: if it misses one (false negative) or marks something
spam that isn't (false positive) one mouse click
corrects both the immediate problem and retrains the filter.

Because spam is such a moving target, no one approach is going to. Blacklists,
filters and blackhole lists are all helpful, but no one approach will do the
trick.

I've been a mostly happy Mailwasher user for the last several months. Here are
my spam stats for this past week:

Filters: 8,739
RBL lists: 2,745
Blacklist: 1,524

My mail has been consistently 90% spam.

Although Mailwasher either flags or deletes the mail from the server before I
download it, there is still always the risk of false positives. I had
Mailwasher delete spam without my intervention for about a week, but discovered
I was losing legitimate mail. For me, that's the real outrage about spam.

Joe Parsons

On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 20:25:32 -0800, "Chuck Tribolet" wrote:

Mozilla is user-trainable, so the moving target isn't a problem. When it
misses one, you just mark it as spam, Mozilla gets retrained a little, and
it gets dropped in the Junk folder.

Sure--but if you have to be continually retraining your mail client, it kind of
defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

My situation may be a tad different, because of the sheer volume of spam I
receive (close to 1,000 a day). Filters alone won't work for me simply because
so many of the spammers are developing countermesures to evade them.

Ultimately, the only solution to spam is for it to be no longer profitable for
the spammers--that people stop responding ot it.

Joe Parsons

It's about 97% effective, which means I get about five false positives a day
that require one mouse click each to retrain for.

That's five mouse clicks to make the rest vanish.

--
Chuck Tribolet

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/triblet

Silicon Valley: STILL the best day job in the world.


"Joe Parsons" wrote in message ...
On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 20:25:32 -0800, "Chuck Tribolet" wrote:

Mozilla is user-trainable, so the moving target isn't a problem. When it
misses one, you just mark it as spam, Mozilla gets retrained a little, and
it gets dropped in the Junk folder.

Sure--but if you have to be continually retraining your mail client, it kind of
defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

My situation may be a tad different, because of the sheer volume of spam I
receive (close to 1,000 a day). Filters alone won't work for me simply because
so many of the spammers are developing countermesures to evade them.

Ultimately, the only solution to spam is for it to be no longer profitable for
the spammers--that people stop responding ot it.

Joe Parsons

-- Chuck Tribolet
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/triblet Silicon Valley: STILL the
best day job in the world. "Joe Parsons" wrote in
message ...

On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 20:25:32 -0800, "Chuck Tribolet"
wrote:


Mozilla is user-trainable, so the moving target isn't a problem.
When it
misses one, you just mark it as spam, Mozilla gets retrained a
little, and
it gets dropped in the Junk folder.


Sure--but if you have to be continually retraining your mail client,
it kind of
defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

My situation may be a tad different, because of the sheer volume of
spam I
receive (close to 1,000 a day). Filters alone won't work for me
simply because
so many of the spammers are developing countermesures to evade them.

Ultimately, the only solution to spam is for it to be no longer
profitable for
the spammers--that people stop responding ot it.

Joe Parsons

The problem there is that some of the spammers aren't spamming their
product. They're spamming you with other peoples products so that you
don't buy from them, and you buy from their competitor who is the
actuall spammer.

On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 13:26:02 -0500, John P Reber
wrote:

[snip]

Ultimately, the only solution to spam is for it to be no longer
profitable for
the spammers--that people stop responding ot it.

Joe Parsons

The problem there is that some of the spammers aren't spamming their
product. They're spamming you with other peoples products so that you
don't buy from them, and you buy from their competitor who is the
actuall spammer.

That's true. You have two tiers of spam: those who are hawking their own stuff,
and those who are selling a spamming service to people who don't know any
better. I suspect the latter group (the big spamhauses) are larger. While they
make their money by selling their "services" to ignorant merchants, if the word
were to get out that spamming simply doesn't work as a marketing approach, then
their market would dry up.

Joe Parsons

That's true. You have two tiers of spam: those who are hawking their own stuff,
and those who are selling a spamming service to people who don't know any
better. I suspect the latter group (the big spamhauses) are larger. While they
make their money by selling their "services" to ignorant merchants, if the word
were to get out that spamming simply doesn't work as a marketing approach, then
their market would dry up.

If only that WERE true! Any merchant who doesn't know by now that spam
is unwelcome would have to be more than just ignorant...he'd have to
either be brain dead or live in vacuum where computers don't exist.
Unfortunately, spam is a very cheap form of advertising--so cheap that a
return of 1% or less makes it profitable for the spammer AND his merchant.

The anti-spam legislation just passed by Congress sounds good, but in
fact will be totally ineffective...because spammers will simply move
offshore where they aren't affected by any US laws prohibiting the
sending of it...in fact, at least half of it now originates from
offshore. And a national "no spam" list will only give 'em lists of good
email addresses. About all it will accomplish will be to discourage
legimate US businesses from using spam as an advertising medium.

The real solution IMO would be to require ISPs to block all incoming
email to more than 10 addresses from the same sender.

Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://www.seaworthy.com/html/get_ri...oat_odors.html

On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 19:57:14 GMT, Peggie Hall wrote:

That's true. You have two tiers of spam: those who are hawking their own stuff,
and those who are selling a spamming service to people who don't know any
better. I suspect the latter group (the big spamhauses) are larger. While they
make their money by selling their "services" to ignorant merchants, if the word
were to get out that spamming simply doesn't work as a marketing approach, then
their market would dry up.

If only that WERE true! Any merchant who doesn't know by now that spam
is unwelcome would have to be more than just ignorant...he'd have to
either be brain dead or live in vacuum where computers don't exist.

....or he'd have to be susceptible to the sales pitch from some spamhaus.

P.T. was right, after all...

Unfortunately, spam is a very cheap form of advertising--so cheap that a
return of 1% or less makes it profitable for the spammer AND his merchant.

Well, let me put it into perspective. I use direct mail (snail) quite a lot in
my business. My cost is around $400.00 per thousand pieces mailed. If I get a
1% response, I dance in the streets! That gives me a cost-per-lead of $40.00.
As it happens, I get a response approaching .75%. Compare that with a spammer
who sends out 30 *million* letters, charging his suck...uh, client $1,000 for
that "service." Depending on what the guy is selling, the response percentages
can be very, very small to generate a profit.

The anti-spam legislation just passed by Congress sounds good, but in
fact will be totally ineffective...because spammers will simply move
offshore where they aren't affected by any US laws prohibiting the
sending of it...in fact, at least half of it now originates from
offshore. And a national "no spam" list will only give 'em lists of good
email addresses. About all it will accomplish will be to discourage
legimate US businesses from using spam as an advertising medium.

The real solution IMO would be to require ISPs to block all incoming
email to more than 10 addresses from the same sender.

That would be one solution, but keep in mind that the spammers don't use a
traditional ISP. In many cases they're hijacking someone else's open mail
relay.

Joe Parsons


Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://www.seaworthy.com/html/get_ri...oat_odors.html

On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 19:57:14 GMT, Peggie Hall
wrote:

The real solution IMO would be to require ISPs to block all incoming
email to more than 10 addresses from the same sender.

They already do something like that. The result is
"spam guns" that send spam in batches that don't trigger
those limits.

I support the death penalty for spammers.
Steal six million minutes from as many individuals
and I assert that society has the right to exact
those six million minutes from the life of the
spammer. Two or three batches and it's a death penalty.

Peggie, that wouldn't work. The spamsters have taken to infecting peoples
computers with a virus that turns the computer into a very quiet robot
for the spamsters. That allows them to send huge volumes of
individual e-mails. A year and a half ago, a simple rule that said
"if I'm not in the "to:" list and it's not from a few mailing lists I'm on,
IT'S SPAM" was pretty effective. It's very ineffective now.

Furthermore, if it's sent BCC, the ISP doesn't get to see the other
senders and can't count them.

--
Chuck Tribolet

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/triblet

Silicon Valley: STILL the best day job in the world.


"Peggie Hall" wrote in message ...
The real solution IMO would be to require ISPs to block all incoming
email to more than 10 addresses from the same sender.

"Joe Parsons" wrote in message
...

My situation may be a tad different, because of the sheer volume of spam I
receive (close to 1,000 a day). Filters alone won't work for me simply
because
so many of the spammers are developing countermesures to evade them.


Try using a form mail script instead of a harvestable email address on your
webpage.