Security Basics mailing list archives

Re: A interesting way to detect spam based on the proximity of the sender with the receiver


From: Kurt Buff <kurt.buff () gmail com>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:26:47 -0700

The research is interesting, but perhaps flawed - or rather,
immature/premature. For instance, at $WORK, I have to accept pretty
much everything that conforms to RFCs. This is because we sell to a
world-wide set of resellers. Many/most of the resellers of our
products, even in the US, are small businesses that don't have
sophisticated IT infrastructure and "proper" static IP addresses.
We're also trying hard to sell into non-first-world countries, and
especially the BRICs nations, where the situation is even dicier.

So, while the approach might prove useful as an addition to a scoring
system like SpamAssassin, I certainly couldn't use it as a hard and
fast block list.

Kurt

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 11:09, Ali, Saqib<docbook.xml () gmail com> wrote:
I am not sure if this will work or not, but the research was
interesting none-the-less.


saqib
http://kawphi.blogspot.com


On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Shreyas Zare<shreyas () technitium com> wrote:
Hi,

This wont work in practical environment. Spammers are no dumb, they
will make new trojan (or push a update!) which better emulates like a
real mail server and get past this technique of spam identification in
a matter of hours. And what about false positives? I feel it will
block a lot of legitimate mails too as it is never seen by the mail
server to check for any other thing like white list, SPF or domain
keys.

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Ali, Saqib <docbook.xml () gmail com> wrote:

The research revealed that ham (legitimate e-mail) tends to come from
computers that have a lot of channels, or ports, open for
communication. Bots, automated systems that are often used to send out
reams of spam, tend to keep open only the e-mail port, known as the
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol port.

The researchers [also] found that by plotting the geodesic distance
between the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of the sender and
receiver--measured on the curved surface of the earth--they could
determine whether the message was junk. Spam, the researchers found,
tends to travel farther than ham. Spammers also tend to have IP
addresses that are numerically close to those of other spammers.

The Georgia Tech researchers also looked at the autonomous server (AS)
number associated with an e-mail. (An AS number is assigned to every
independently operated network, whether it's an Internet service
provider or a campus network.) Knowing that a significant percentage
of spam comes from a handful of autonomous server numbers, the
researchers decided to integrate that characteristic into SNARE, too.

Read more (very interesting stuff):
http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/23086/page1/



saqib
http://kawphi.blogspot.com



--
("If at first you don't succeed; call it version 1.0")

Shreyas Zare
Co-Founder, Technitium
eMail: shreyas () technitium com

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Securing Apache Web Server with thawte Digital Certificate
In this guide we examine the importance of Apache-SSL and who needs an SSL certificate.  We look at how SSL works, how 
it benefits your company and how your customers can tell if a site is secure. You will find out how to test, purchase, 
install and use a thawte Digital Certificate on your Apache web server. Throughout, best practices for set-up are 
highlighted to help you ensure efficient ongoing management of your encryption keys and digital certificates.

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