Spam fighting: Worth your time?

[Guest art101]

Just curious. Haven't tried this poll feature before. Working on an article and hope the poll feature allows you to click multiple answers.

Well, sorry about that... the poll feature dosn't allow mutiple answers. Please pick an answer you like the most and feel free to post a comment.

Modorators: Feel free to delete this thread and I'll rephrase the poll and try again some time. My article is due the end of next month and the editor is curious about these items.

[StevenUnderwood]

• Minimal effect on spammers directly (most using infected machines to spew
  
• Does help interested ISP's track down the machines the spew is coming from (not necessarily the spammer directly).
  
• No eccect on the legislature (just look at CAN-spam)
  
• Minimal effect on public perception (few know there is anything that can be done or why they are receiving the spew)
  

[WB8TYW]

Report to Spamcop.net, which helps keep the spew out of other networks, and it helps responsible ISPs find problems on their networks quickly.

Report the Open Proxies to MAPS-OPS and Blitzed OPM.

Report new DHCP pools to SORBS.NET if they are missing from it.

Encourage people to get their network administrators to use conservative DNSbls to eliminate the bulk of spam with out risk of rejecting real e-mail.

Encourage people to have networks to use bad rDNS and agressive DNSbls as a scoring system for further rejection of spam at the SMTP transaction level. Having a bad rDNS, or a DCHP/SPAMCOP.NET listing, plus containing a URL that resolves to an I.P. address listed in a conservative DNSbl is extremely unlikely to be real e-mail.

Manually LART all abusive auto-responders, especially worm poop.

Side effect, lately I am almost back to the spam level of three years ago, as my broadband ISP has implemented DNSbls to keep spam out of the mail servers.

-John

Personal Opinion Only

[Wazoo]

Don't want to delete it athis point, responses ahve already been provided. However, I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what results you think you are actually going to get from the questions posed (and placed "here")

The person reading looking at your poll already knows about SpamCop, so there's that bias already. Those folks runnning between the send 100 quick-reports, deamn the results, full-speed forward and the tear the spam apart and make damn sure everyone that had any association with it at all must pay and a full copy to any and all Government offices that take such input ... Obviously, the answers to your simple questions are going to be just as varied, but for totally different reasons .. which won't be reflected in the poll (yes, I know, most poll questions are phrased to get the responses desired, but ....)

Does reporting effect ISPs, stop spammers? With the contstant tirades about and against ComCast, Chinanet, Korean ISPs, etc ... doubtful you'll get anything but a resounding "No" ... but missing from all that is for instance the SysAdmins that come in here or contacting the Deputies ranting and raving about being on a BL, then understanding what's going on, servers get fixed/closed and another spew source is gone ..... Can only guess that in excess of 90% of SpamCop reporters have no knowledge of this type of data exchange and results.

Effect on legislation? Again, only pertinent to those that do something about it, as compared to the "just send reports" or "just hit delete" ....

Public Awareness? See above. No to bring up the bad times, but remember back when you were going to say good-bye to the electronic world? I can tell you that I noticed no difference in my little sphere of influence. Just about everyone that has a 'Net' connection has learned about spam, but only a small sub-set has learned that there are tools and methods out there to fight it. And an even smaller subset that wants to take the time and/or spend the effort to learn and use those tools. Which again, brings us back to the original bias of asking the questions and placing your poll "here" .. You're alread within that subset of a subset, and most of these players are more than a bit jaded. Or, is this what your editor is actually looking for?

I think what I'm trying to suggest is that somehow, you would want to separate the answers based on just what kind of reporting activity the particular user is involved with. As this poll app is very limited, I'd say that you'd need several polls and somehow figure out how to get those responding to answer in the "right" one .... something I don't think is possible, actually.

[Guest art101]

Thanks, WB8TYW and StevenUnderwood for your posts. I appreciate the feedback.

Wazoo: I've copied this thread to my local machine, so feel free to delete it in order to make room for other threads. Depending on what I hear from my editor on Tuesday, I may post a series of other polls which may better compensate for the forum poll design limitations. Your suggestion that we try several more targeted polls is very useful.

[Miss Betsy]

I don't like polls in general because the answers don't always reflect one's opinions.

If spam reporting sent reports to abuse desks and placed non-responsive ISPs on a blocklist, it would be very effective. If spam reporting is like the virus reporting promoted by McAfee (who urges you to send a message to the return path /even though/ they know what IP address it came from or Hotmail who still offers an option to 'block' that address), then it is useless and can be worse than useless (like Mailwasher 'bounces').

Miss Betsy