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JR · 05-07-2003

my opinion is that there are some really profound missunderstandings about spam. i have no recent experience, but a couple years ago, i helped someone set up a massive STMP relay network through ISP's where i had connections. i learned a few things really quickly

1) its not so simple. the average schmuck cannot send any kind of volume that matters. it requires a lot of investment, a cooperative ISP (which almost dont exist today), good custom software, decent lists and knowledge of a whole host of tricks to beat filters which change constantly as well.

2) the bulk of spam is coming from a small group of people. my guess is that it is really small. probably at least 50% of all spam comes from no more than 50 people.

3) its becomming less and less profitable daily. its becomming less and less easy to keep relays online. its becomming less and less possible to find cooperative ISPs... and more difficult to create ISP's for this main purpose.

you cant just set up dial up accounts and run a mail program on a windows 98 machine and send mail on a anonymous 56K connection like several years ago and make money.

4) the problem with spam in my opinion right now is that small group of people that stay ahead of the curve. those few people are sending more and more and more.

I think those people will always be ahead of the technology curve and be able to beat any filters. But they are running out of cooperative ISP's, anti spammers continue to find better and better ways to flood their ISP's with 1000's of complaints per day causing them to block the IP's of the relays and as more and more people get agressive about setting up their own filters - as well as AOL, yahoo, hotmail etc etc... get better at making it more difficult to get through their filters, it will just get to a point in my opinion that it will cease to be profitable.

maybe i am wrong. but that is my impression. i think its like everything else in that the gold rush is over, now the top dogs are tring to hang on... and its getting less profitable daily.

i also unsubscribe to almost mail i get. it reduced the total spam i get to about 10% of what it was. alexs previous suggestion in the AOL thread which is a rip off of spamcop.net urban legend on their messageboards that people use your address in some way when you unsubscribe is pretty silly. the people sending the bulk of spam are trying very hard to use clean lists and to keep them clean. its the difference between staying online a few more days or getting shut down. remove lists are getting to be more valuable than e-mail lists and are traded and sold.

05-07-2003	#7
JR Members The global leader in pay-per-view AEBN Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: in my chair Posts: 3,320	my opinion is that there are some really profound missunderstandings about spam. i have no recent experience, but a couple years ago, i helped someone set up a massive STMP relay network through ISP's where i had connections. i learned a few things really quickly 1) its not so simple. the average schmuck cannot send any kind of volume that matters. it requires a lot of investment, a cooperative ISP (which almost dont exist today), good custom software, decent lists and knowledge of a whole host of tricks to beat filters which change constantly as well. 2) the bulk of spam is coming from a small group of people. my guess is that it is really small. probably at least 50% of all spam comes from no more than 50 people. 3) its becomming less and less profitable daily. its becomming less and less easy to keep relays online. its becomming less and less possible to find cooperative ISPs... and more difficult to create ISP's for this main purpose. you cant just set up dial up accounts and run a mail program on a windows 98 machine and send mail on a anonymous 56K connection like several years ago and make money. 4) the problem with spam in my opinion right now is that small group of people that stay ahead of the curve. those few people are sending more and more and more. I think those people will always be ahead of the technology curve and be able to beat any filters. But they are running out of cooperative ISP's, anti spammers continue to find better and better ways to flood their ISP's with 1000's of complaints per day causing them to block the IP's of the relays and as more and more people get agressive about setting up their own filters - as well as AOL, yahoo, hotmail etc etc... get better at making it more difficult to get through their filters, it will just get to a point in my opinion that it will cease to be profitable. maybe i am wrong. but that is my impression. i think its like everything else in that the gold rush is over, now the top dogs are tring to hang on... and its getting less profitable daily. i also unsubscribe to almost mail i get. it reduced the total spam i get to about 10% of what it was. alexs previous suggestion in the AOL thread which is a rip off of spamcop.net urban legend on their messageboards that people use your address in some way when you unsubscribe is pretty silly. the people sending the bulk of spam are trying very hard to use clean lists and to keep them clean. its the difference between staying online a few more days or getting shut down. remove lists are getting to be more valuable than e-mail lists and are traded and sold. __________________