Re: SPAM and "undisclosed recipients"

[Michael Gale <michael () bluesuperman com>]

Hello,

        There are plenty of anti-spam solutions out there, for those who look.
Many have been posted to this list.

Post:
--snip--
From: Michael Gale <michael () bluesuperman com>
To: <full-disclosure () lists netsys com>
Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] a PGP signed mail? Has to be spam!
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 21:39:26 -0700

...
Anti-spam tools - DCC, Razor, RBL, Bayesian Statistical Token Analysis
and then whitelist and blacklist.
....
--snip--

The above list are freely available - if you know how to set them up :)
It not then look at http://www.mxtreme.com/

I believe this is the top of the line anti-spam tool out there -- using
mostly all of the above list but providing a GUI and anti-virus. 

Michael.


On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 21:37:49 -0500
"Kristian Hermansen" <khermansen () ht-technology com> wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: full-disclosure-admin () lists netsys com
> [mailto:full-disclosure-admin () lists netsys com] On Behalf Of Jonathan
> A. Zdziarski
> Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2003 7:37 PM
> To: Steve Wray
> Cc: 'Kristian Hermansen'; full-disclosure () lists netsys com
> Subject: RE: [Full-disclosure] SPAM and "undisclosed recipients"
>
> [Insert usual plug for bayesian filters here....yadah yadah....99.9%
> accurate... blah blah]
>
> We could open up a whole can of worms about this topic, but the
> product of any of these discussions always ends up the same: even if
> we had an authenticated, secure SMTP protocol, the requirement of
> marketing departments would be that anyone who registered a new domain
> could easily "get on the wagon"...and that is where it all comes
> crumbling down; a spammer makes well over the $8.95 it would cost to
> register a domain and become an "authenticated SMTP sender" (heck,
> they spend $4000 on sacrificial servers to get confiscated from a colo
> facility every mailing)...there's no reason a spammer couldn't
> register a couple domains every time he bulk mailed; prepaid credit
> cards can easily hide identity and, as I said before, marketing
> departments and a significant portion of people who are pro-privacy
> won't allow proof of identity to become a requisite for sending email
> - even at the domain level.
>
> passing legislation, writing new protocol, etc., only makes it more
> difficult for spammers but ultimately a spammer will be able to easily
> adapt to whatever environment they are forced to function in (wouldn't
> you if your livelihood depended on it?) whether that involves more
> heavily utilizing stolen accounts, viruses, or registering new domain
> names regularly, spammers will adapt.
>
> The one damning piece of evidence in every spam sent out is the
> content itself which is why contextual analysis (especially when
> deployed system-wide with a bit of networking groups in place) is far
> more effective to resolving the spam issue than trying to convince the
> world to rewrite SMTP.  Several filters have even gotten to the point
> where they provide useful information to help ISPs conserve resources
> instead of using them to fight spam.  I think 99.9% (1 in 1000 spams
> gets through) is a pretty darn good (and realistic) statistic...if
> only all ISPs filtered at the server level, we'd put spammers out of
> business.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
> Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There should be a way to stop the email spamming.  You could use their
> weaknesses as a way to prevent spam.  The fact is that most SPAM is
> sent in MASS quantities all at one time, or a very short interval.  If
> servers could somehow have a "global awareness" of the activity of
> spammers this could be prevented.  Take for instance Hotmail. 
> Millions of users have accounts here.  Hotmail could "sense" a massive
> flood of "identical" content to multiple users of their service and
> automatically label it as SPAM.  Of course, the downside is legitimate
> mass mailings that are sent out everyday from places like PC Magazine,
> Security Focus, and other opt-in mailing lists would be flagged as
> well.  Unless, in a new email security protocol, they implemented user
> specified WHITELISTS on email servers to allow legitimate bulk emails
> (that otherwise would be flagged) to be let through.  A sort of"Guilty
> until proven innocent" approach.  Just a thought... 
>
>  
> Kristian Hermansen
> CEO - H&T Technology Solutions
> khermansen () ht-technology com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
> Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html


_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html