Everyone wants to stop spam. Most people want unfettered access to Internet resources. Some people want the rest of us to only have fettered access.
But because the last group has a more powerful business model, we’re still being hit with spam, and most of us don’t have unfettered access to the Internet.
The problem with spam is simple. Spammers have more powerful business models than anti-spammers. Most of those engaged in the anti-spam fight are volunteers. Steve Linford of Spamhaus is not getting rich off fighting spam.
Spammers, on the other hand, are still getting rich.
There are a host of illegal, immoral, and black market goods out there which, even with spam’s spammic reputation, will still pay spammers to hit you. We’re talking here of gambling sites, porn sites, drug knock-offs, stock scams, phony contests, even multi-level marketing of legal products. Spammers also have "new products," like Googlebombing, adware viruses and comment spam, to get these goods in front of consumers no matter what.
By contrast, Linford and Spamhaus has been "rolling up" the anti-spam space because, frankly, there is not much money in it. That’s why he acquired SPEWS, to survive. Linford described some of the problems quite frankly two years ago.
And it’s tough to fight crime, because crime fights back. Spammers have called Linford a terrorist, they have targeted him in a child porn ring, they have targeted him with viruses. Most recently they have sued Spamhaus in a U.S. court (whose jurisdiction he doesn’t recognize) and tried to take his domain name.
These are not nice little Spamfords, folks. These are dangerous criminals. Russian mafia. The same bastards who got Anna Politkovskaya. I would not put an assassination attempt on Linford past these people. I would not be surprised to learn there is a contract out on him right now.
Censorware, on
the other hand, goes from strength to strength. Corporations,
governments, schools and libraries pay big bucks every year for "content control" software,
in order to keep political extremists from complaining. The content of
the censors’ blacklists is not made public. It isn’t just "porn" sites,
but just about any content that someone (at the censorware company or
elsewhere) might possibly object to. And it’s damned hard to get off
the censor list. Especially since it’s so hard to find you’re on it.
It’s a huge industry. There are literally hundreds of firms involved today. Anyone who doesn’t pay off to the industry is simply accused of being "for child porn" or something.
And one of the most heavily censored sites? That’s right, the anti-censorware people.
OK,
I’ve got an agenda here. I don’t like "content control" software. I
prefer to control the Internet’s vertical and horizontal by myself. I prefer to have my kids
learn to do this as well. And I hate spam. I am still dealing with a
comment spam attack on voic.us, a Drupal site I manage.
But my point today is not political. It’s a business
point. Why should content filtering software have a more powerful,
profitable business model than anti-spam blacklisting? And what can we
do to change that?
NOTE: Comment spam hit this thread and I’ve closed off comments.
I think the problem here is that anti-spam is being viewed as a product when it should be viewed as a feature. I don’t know that I want to spend much money buying software just to prevent spam, but if I were choosing between two otherwise identical products (say e-mail clients), I would certainly choose the one with the better anti-spam features and I might even be willing to pay a bit more for it it. I switched from Outlook Express to Thunderbird for this very reason. The best thing about anti-spam as a feature is that it creates a virtuous cycle where every company that has a product that could use anti-spam gets in the game to stay competative and eventually Microsoft and Apple will bake it into their OS (bad for all the software cos, but good for the end user).
I think the problem here is that anti-spam is being viewed as a product when it should be viewed as a feature. I don’t know that I want to spend much money buying software just to prevent spam, but if I were choosing between two otherwise identical products (say e-mail clients), I would certainly choose the one with the better anti-spam features and I might even be willing to pay a bit more for it it. I switched from Outlook Express to Thunderbird for this very reason. The best thing about anti-spam as a feature is that it creates a virtuous cycle where every company that has a product that could use anti-spam gets in the game to stay competative and eventually Microsoft and Apple will bake it into their OS (bad for all the software cos, but good for the end user).
Wow Jesse! Missing the point entirely. Spamhaus works at the server level, before spam e-mail ever gets to your computer. It works, coincidentally, because the network ain’t neutral. Mail server administrators, overrun by bogus e-mail traffic and storage, consult a dynamic black list when another server tries to connect to send an e-mail. It’s outright blatant discrimination, and it’s a great thing. The Spamhaus list blocks thousands of e-mails to my domain server per day. It keeps my biz DSL connection free enough for web users and for outgoing traffic like Skype.
Every single computer connected to the Internet is a potential spammer. Fortunately, by the volume of spam needed to be effective, a computer that becomes a spammer will tend to be an egregious spammer. And it’ll find its way onto a block list. Sucks to be that computer…
Wow Jesse! Missing the point entirely. Spamhaus works at the server level, before spam e-mail ever gets to your computer. It works, coincidentally, because the network ain’t neutral. Mail server administrators, overrun by bogus e-mail traffic and storage, consult a dynamic black list when another server tries to connect to send an e-mail. It’s outright blatant discrimination, and it’s a great thing. The Spamhaus list blocks thousands of e-mails to my domain server per day. It keeps my biz DSL connection free enough for web users and for outgoing traffic like Skype.
Every single computer connected to the Internet is a potential spammer. Fortunately, by the volume of spam needed to be effective, a computer that becomes a spammer will tend to be an egregious spammer. And it’ll find its way onto a block list. Sucks to be that computer…
huy
huy
Yeah, Spamhaus goes beyond hawking anti-spam products. Running my own mail server, I can say with some confidence that without the Spamhaus DNS lists, email would be close to unusable here.
Good points made in the entry as well. Here’s hoping Steve Linford won’t have to ask for police protection against spamming criminals.
Yeah, Spamhaus goes beyond hawking anti-spam products. Running my own mail server, I can say with some confidence that without the Spamhaus DNS lists, email would be close to unusable here.
Good points made in the entry as well. Here’s hoping Steve Linford won’t have to ask for police protection against spamming criminals.
Judge Kocoras refused to grant e360 Insight’s order:
http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-1-19oct06.htm
Judge Kocoras refused to grant e360 Insight’s order:
http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-1-19oct06.htm