Subject: Re: [Asrg] [1] Why SPAM is worse in SMTP than in other protocols

From: "Za'mbori, Zolta'n" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:48:05 +0100

Yakov Shafranovich wrote:
> I am not sure how would help us, perhaps you can elaborate. Are you 
> suggesting that we should let spammers know about how their spam is 
> being filtered? Wouldn't that let them adjust their spam messages so 
> they can go through better?

I dont think so. They adjust their spam messages already so they will go
through better. Publishing the filtering rules does not help against
undetectable spam. But it can help against detectable spam.

If a smart spammer (software) see that the actual spam is filterable by
the domain the software will skip the whole domain. And not sended spam
will make the spam volume smaller.

IMHO publishing filtering rules can be a valuable out-of-band negative
response for smarter spammers (or softwares).

z2

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From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 18:01:02 -0500

Alan DeKok wrote:
> Troy Rollo <[email-masked]> wrote:
...
>>Take, for example, the MS network popup messaging protocol (whose
>>name I don't recall). It also put the message in the face of the
>>targets.
> 
>   And as you noticed, the abuse stopped because everyone decided they
> didn't need the protocol.  We can't do that with SMTP.
> 
>   Please read the document.  It tries to explain all this in more
> detail than I've included here.
> 

The very nature of MS's protocol is any-to-any, which is exactly what
the problem with SMTP is as well. BTW, link to the original document:

http://www.striker.ottawa.on.ca/~aland/smtp-sucks/problems.txt

Yakov
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Yakov Shafranovich / asrg <at> shaftek.org
SolidMatrix Technologies, Inc. / research <at> solidmatrix.com
"And this too shall come to pass"
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