[The_Neon_Cowboy]

Most SPAM still comes from the USA

Limiting emal allocation might be the answer


By John McLean: Saturday 11 October 2003, 10:47

FROM TUESDAY morning until Friday midday of this week I have been looking at spam email and using the Web Mail Tracker to discover where it was coming from.
In that period of three and a half days I received 140 spam emails and this was more than 80% of all emails that I received from outside the company that employs me.

Many of these were clearly through open relays on insecure systems. A film company and a car rental company in the USA are unlikely to be hotbeds of spammers and the headers of other emails also suggest that they were sent via open relays.

In almost all cases, regardless of the supposed country of origin, the spam emails were written in typical American English. This could be indicative of the English being taught in those countries but is more likely to be a sign that either Americans are the owners of local email accounts or that the spam is being sent via open relays.

The 140 spam emails were sent from 29 countries and 23 of these were the source of just one or two emails. In particular the UK was the source of two emails and Australia the source of one and yet these countries are both in the process of creating anti-spam legislation.

Spain was the source of four spam emails and it was the only European country whose spam count exceeded two.

Canada was the source of five emails and Korea was responsible for ten. The remaining three countries accounted for the remaining 89 spam emails, or 64% of the total.

A total of 13, or 9%, came from Brazil; a further 18, or 13%, came from China; and a massive 58 or 41% of the total came from the USA.

The question that must therefore be asked of ISPs, particularly in the USA, is "What are you doing about it?"

The ISPs complain about the flood of spam reports and the claim that investigations may take several days now, but it is clear that this approach to spam will be unable to cope as the spam load increases.

They also complain that spam emails are causing excessive load on their mail servers and either cause delays or force them to purchase more powerful systems.

The simple fact is that the retroactive approach to dealing with spam is not working. It is slow, it is cumbersome and it is doing very little to reduce the volume of spam that the ISPs have to deal with.

On the above figures it is equally clear that legislating against spam is a waste of time in the UK and Australia because the levels of spam are too low to justify the legislation and its enforcement within those jurisdictions. Legislation will also be useless against spam that is sent via open relays where the computer user may be entirely unaware of the activity.

What is needed is a proactive approach to spam, one that stops it before it can be sent from the source ISP, not afterwards when it is much too late.

The simple solution is to put limits on the number of emails that can each day from one email account holder, where multiple recipients would be equivalent to multiple emails.

For individuals a limit of 500 should be adequate because that represents an average of about 20 emails per hour, or one email every three minutes throughout the entire day. For companies and other organisations it should be possible to establish a figure based on the typical number of emails but increased by a generous factor.

In both cases these limits should be written into the user contracts along with the "acceptable use" clauses.

And there you would have it. An email system which continues to function for all normal functions but will block the excessive numbers of emails sent by spammers.

Rather than be a burden to users this method would be very helpful to them. If they were paying for the resources they use, then this would set an upper limit on their daily costs. Any user who suddenly finds themselves unable to send email because their account has hit the daily limit would be immediately aware that in all probability their system has been used for spamming and that they need to improve security.

For the ISPs this small addition to count the emails would be of minor consequence and be far cheaper than employing an increasing number of people to investigate spam reports. It would also reduce the number of spam emails and hence reduce the loads on their servers.

All that it requires is the will to implement this system, the addition of email counting and the changing of all existing contracts to include the necessary information.

I will be pleasantly surprised if such systems are introduced before the end of this year. One thing I can be sure of is that while people are busy talking about blocking spam but taking no action I will continue to be treated to similar or even greater amounts of spam, most of it coming from the USA.

source:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12047

"most of it coming from the USA." Really then why is the spam orgination out side of the usa. I too get more spam than even him. 200+ emails a day somethimes. Most of them about 95% when you back track the ips as well as look who owns the site you'll find the spam is not from the usa. Were does this guy get off balmeing the usa for all the sapm in this world just becouse it might bouce off an american server upon it's way... Something ned to be done about spam but pointing fingers acheves nothing.

What we need is a interanational law agaenst spamming with severe reprocutions. spam is everywere.

In congress the amaerican people failed to be represnted and lobbyists wone one for big spammers. By shooting down ANTI-SPAM legistation that would requre a valid info to who sent the email (no forged headers) and a clear removal method. anther bill SHOT down buy big bussiness would allow you to sue the spammer for $500.00 per email .... Mr. Spamer an his lobbists seem to be running congress as i've yet to see anti-spam legistation make it past the floor.

[JavaFox]

You're contradicting yourself. If you believe that most spam does not originate inside the US, why would you care if there hasn't been any anti-spam legislation in our country?

At any rate, there are many pressing issues in international politics. I don't think spam isn't one of them.

[Kgentatszu]]

guys, why am i not receiving ANY spams at all??? it not that i like spams but, i was just wondering why...

[Kombatant]

Just because the spammers use non-American servers doesn't mean that spam doesn't originate from the US...

[digerati]

Reminds me of the guy who did Bowling For Columbine, a slanting, lying, picking on people movie. Moore should be shot for that.

[Zardon]

Originally posted by ^_^
Reminds me of the guy who did Bowling For Columbine, a slanting, lying, picking on people movie. Moore should be shot for that.

but arent the underlying facts in that movie correct regarding gunlaw and the amount of people killed in the USA each year due to guns?

[digerati]

Originally posted by Zardon
but arent the underlying facts in that movie correct regarding gunlaw and the amount of people killed in the USA each year due to guns?

He neglects to mention things like how many are suicides. He neglects to mention anything at all that would hurt his point. Like when he mentions that canada has 7 million guns, a crap load of those are hunting rifles. You ever seen a drive by shooting with high power scope canadian hunting rifles? NO!

[The_Neon_Cowboy]

Originally posted by Kombatant
Just because the spammers use non-American servers doesn't mean that spam doesn't originate from the US...

well when the the orginating ip is not on us shores

not the sever being used some times it's on us soil but most of the time it's a forign website sometimes even trying to look like us sites (forged headers/ fake websites)but trach the ip and you'll se otherwise

the spamer sending the email is not on us shores by his ip....

the website/sites most commonly being advertised is hosted outside the us usally in the same country as the spammer.

[studbagel9]

Maxxypoos, you don't get spam because you live in North Korea, where they put spammers in hard labor camps for 20 years per email ;p Just kidding of course

[Kgentatszu]]

[Judas]

Originally posted by ^_^
He neglects to mention things like how many are suicides. He neglects to mention anything at all that would hurt his point. Like when he mentions that canada has 7 million guns, a crap load of those are hunting rifles. You ever seen a drive by shooting with high power scope canadian hunting rifles? NO!

are you serious?....

i could pretty well guarantee that there are probably 7 million guns in saskatchewan ALONE.... he mentions ALL of the facts that are available...and not guestimated..partially true..... Canada has released that there are approx 7 million guns........ he has to go by that......

And when dealing with averages... it really doesn't matter how many were suicides or not...... he still proved a very good point...and being a very top guy in the gun arena..... he expresses a fair bit more....

I know a place i could go... that i could probably have my choice of ANY firearm known to man........ thus my reasoning for say that there are probably 7 million in saskatchewan alone..... AND they aren't high powered.... or hunting rifles....... i really don't think a 44 would do a nice job for successfully killing an animal.... and leaving something to chew on......

as for the spam..... i entered ONE contest the other day....and now i have a steady flow of 10 spam mails a day...