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Spam Software

Impoverish a Spammer Today 343

esj at harvee writes "Recently the Camram project released its latest version of a hybrid sender-pays anti-spam system. The project has proven that sender-pays works and has demonstrated how to make it work with existing e-mail systems. Camram has developed hybrid sender-pays techniques that scale down to the desktop and up to the enterprise. It's a completely decentralized system that can put spam-fighting power in the hands of individuals. It gives you control of not only the current generation of spam, but also any future commercial spam -- why replace Viagra ads from a scam artist with Viagra ads from Pfizer?"
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Impoverish a Spammer Today

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  • by darth_MALL ( 657218 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @03:04PM (#9531118)
    they should be able to survive just fine according to the SPAM nutrition fact sheet [nutritiondata.com]
  • 30% Larger! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 25, 2004 @03:06PM (#9531136)
    why replace Viagra ads from a scam artist with Viagra ads from Pfizer?

    Because I only trust my penis to professionals.
  • where is that big form listing why it will not?
  • by LordPixie ( 780943 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @03:14PM (#9531251) Journal
    From Camran's FRO [camram.org]

    One benefit of zombies being used to generate stamps is that the machines will become hot, slow, and probably unreliable, all of which will be noticeable to the end-user. With luck, this means some people will get their machines fixed and reduce the zombie issue.

    You just have to love a product that has the potential to toast a clueless luser's computer. I would be more than happy to shell out good money for software that has "Makes PC's burst into flames" listed as one of the features. And this stuff is Free !


    --LordPixie
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 25, 2004 @03:16PM (#9531287)
    Your post advocates a

    (x) technical
    ( ) legislative
    (x) market-based
    ( ) vigilante

    approach to fighting spam.
    Your idea will not work.
    Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

    ( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
    (x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
    ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
    (x) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
    ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
    (x) Users of email will not put up with it
    ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
    ( ) The police will not put up with it
    ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
    (x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
    (x) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
    ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
    ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

    Specifically, your plan fails to account for

    ( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
    (x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
    ( ) Open relays in foreign countries
    ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
    ( ) Asshats
    ( ) Jurisdictional problems
    (x) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
    (x) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
    ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
    ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
    ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
    ( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
    ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
    ( ) Extreme profitability of spam
    ( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
    ( ) Technically illiterate politicians
    ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
    (x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
    ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
    ( ) Outlook

    and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

    ( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
    ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
    ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
    (x) Blacklists suck
    ( ) Whitelists suck
    ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
    ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
    ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
    ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
    (x) Sending email should be free
    ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
    ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
    ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
    ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
    ( ) I don't want the government reading my email
    ( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

    Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

    ( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
    (x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
    ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
  • by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @03:35PM (#9531499) Homepage Journal
    ``Because I only trust my penis to professionals.''

    Meaning you only put it in people who charge for it? :p
  • by njcoder ( 657816 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @03:50PM (#9531664)
    For those of us that relly on people we don't know contacting us via email to inquire about new business... this doesn't make sense. There shouldn't be a fee for email or any other hoops that might confuse legitimate email senders. Last thing I want is missing a big contract because someone forgot to fill up their email payment reserves or couldn't make out the mangled letters in the image.

    What needs to be done is to go after the spammers directly. Can you imagine the law enforcement coming up with a plan to fight drugs that involved making crack vials and little ziplock bags cost $5 each. Sure the people that buy them for legitimate reasons can register for a discount or their volume is so small it doesn't make a difference. Does this make sense? This is not a problem that will be solved with technology. Laws have to change and they need to be enforced.

    Legitimate bulk emailers, isps, large corporations and the govt should do something about it. It's gotten insane.

  • by Vexler ( 127353 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @04:11PM (#9531906) Journal
    ...and let's see if people like Bernard Shifman and Scott Richter can spam me with an Etch-n-Sketch.
  • by azaris ( 699901 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @05:20PM (#9532568) Journal

    Because I only trust my penis to professionals.

    You know you can put it in the hands of your lawyer, but it won't stand up in court.

  • Zounds! Bully for your old chap, that's a cracking analogy. May "Insightful" mods rain upon your head, my good man. I pray the shining beacon of your intellect leads the unwashed semiliterates of /. into the gas chambers of enlightenment.

    Ever your fan,

    jaz

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