[cj]

Originally posted by JR@May 7 2003, 02:45 PM
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.

JR, nice post, but i think you are in la la land ...


1) It may not be so simple, but the average schmuck CAN do it. that's the problem. any retard with a computer and some software can send a few million emails. not necessarily 'properly', but what's your definition of properly? as long as it gets in their inbox, that's all most spammers care about.

2) possibly

3) less profitable is only a concern for those who were around when it was more profitable. read gfy recently? profitable for those kids is a few hundred bucks drinking money a week - no concern of how things are done or who gets hurt or how many laws are broken. i've watched the standard of those who send mail drop dramatically over the years. it used to only be the big companies or the ones with serious setups. now every retard who wants to make some lazy cash sends spam.

yes you can just setup on dialups like several years ago and make money. you should try finding a prepaid here in the area i live in ... always sold out or low on stock

4) The problem with spam is that it has NO enforced rules. In 99 Paul Vixie managed, with just a few simple rules, to entirely shut down most of the big spam operations. His rules however blatantly stomped all over the 5th amendment so he was eventually silenced and spam has gotten worse ever since. Threaten an ISP with a fine and they will NOT accept spam, but ISP'S WILL continue to take porn spam customers, if they think they can make money from them. There will always be a new isp owner who wants to give spam a go ... this is a big world, if no one in the usa wants to do it, someone else will ...

the goldrush is over, but that's the same for every area of the industry ... the industry isnt as profitable any more and yet we have more glitz and glamour and fancy parties and big dick contests than ever before.

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.

I know you said this just to have a dig at alex, but it was a pretty naive comment ... many unsubscribe links are actually disguised as confirmation links ... spam webmasters will mail anything if they don't have a current list - including mailing their remove lists if they still have a sale in them.

Lisa & I went to a dinner early last year of about 30 webmasters .... every single one of them a spammer (if we realized before hand we wouldn't have attended). We had an interesting encounter with the classic spam retard - a total loser in life who had achieved nothing prior to his career in spam, who now thought he was a genius because he had figured out how to send more emails a minute and make an extra few bucks a day. (What he described to me had already been done years before) He asked us what we did and we said 'we manage affiliate programs' ... he laughed and said sarcastically 'shit that must be good for 10 tgp sales a day' ... he turned and snickered with his friends ... i couldn't believe someone could not only be so stupid, but could be so cocky while they were being stupid. he kept making comments like 'spam makes more money than anything else in this industry' ...

after half an hour of this, lisa and I just got up and left, knowing full well we could go home and check our stats and they would be bigger numbers than that entire room of losers - so focused on numbers like 'ten million emails' that they forget that those 10 million emails are also people who surf and can end up at a porn site in a number of other ways.

there will ALWAYS be spammers - and most of them are the lowest form of life. they will always think they are more clever than the rest of the industry while they are really nothing more than the shit on the bar floor at the end of the night.

If spam was restricted to a few big companies like cen, nick, scott etc it would be like the old days - but instead, we have 'spawn of spammers', each step down the family tree loses a little intelligence & has a lot less concern for the non-existant, never inforced rules.


ok morning rant over