Miscellaneous Blog

Amadán is sick of spam.

In the meantime, though, I am deleting anywhere from 3 to 20 posts a day from [expletive deleted] spammers. And the effort it takes to prune any blog comments of comment-spam is a significant discouragement. I would really, really, really like to see some innovative technology developed to do something to those [expletive deleted]. Imagine what the computing power of the NSA could accomplish if turned to good

A couple of days ago I found out that all (legitimate) mail to me from The Phoenyx was bouncing because of a new spam-filtering technique implemented by my hosting provider, which was unfortunately generating too many false positives.

Patrick Niesen Hayden of Making Light has been hit by 2500 email spams, almost all of which are bounces caused by the spammer faking his email as the reply address. Commenter Erik V. Olson remarks:

For all intents and purposes, the spammers have won. Nobody talks about stopping them, we all merely talk about how we shuck and jive and filter and block to keep email a valid means of communication, and more and more people are deciding that this is way too much effort for way too little gain.

I’m still fighting, with my own mailserver, but this domain will be my last one ever. If it gets spammed into oblivion, then I’m off the net, because I have better things to do than maintain block lists and spam filters, and [expletive deleted] if I’m paying for bandwidth so that the spammers can spam me.

I think any serious attempt to reclaim the Internet from the spammers can’t just focus on improved blocking and filtering techniques. It’s got to focus just as much on shutting down the spammers. Let’s have enough spammers in jail (or messily murdered) that the rest are sufficiently discouraged and find some other avenue of employment.

I don’t think you can make ‘spamming’ illegal as such; I think ‘Opt In’ vs. ‘Opt Out’ vs. ‘Existing Business Relationships’ contains too many grey areas to be meaningfully legislated for, as well as raising some free speech issues. What I would like to see is a lot of the methods and techniques used by the worst spammers made extremely illegal across all nations connected to the internet. I’m talking about the sorts of things no legitimate business could defend using, but without which the current level of large-scale spamming would be impossible.

Things like the following:

• Deliberate repeat violation of the TOS (Terms of Service) of any internet provider.
• Use of somebody else’s email address as fake return address.
• Use of false personal information when registering a domain.
• Use of any insecure third-party proxy servers without permission of the owner.
• Not just the creation or deployment of viruses to create ‘zombie nets’ (which is probably already illegal), but the use of these zombie bots.

I’d also like to see all existing laws regarding hacking and DDOS attacks specifically exclude sites run and owned by known spammers.

Yesterday morning I discovered a wet patch in the middle of the carpet. I hadn’t spilled anything, so this looked worryingly like a leak. First thoughts were that the radiator was leaking, so I turned it off. But the wet patch kept spreading. Even turning the water off at the stopcock made no difference. I immediately started moving stuff upstairs to prevent it getting soaked. It was at this point putting my ear to the wall I could hear running water. It was coming in from next door!

The next door neighbour’s kitchen and living room had an inch of standing water on the floor, with water coming out from under the front door. She also hadn’t been seen for a week.

In the end we had to call the police to come and break down the front door. They wondered whether the neighbour had drowned in the bath (she hadn’t), and traced the problem to a burst pipe in the kitchen.

The waterlogged carpet in my living room is probably a total loss. Unfortunately this means I’m going to have to dismantle the Wöminseebahn while a replacement carpet is put in.

I’ve started getting emails from a Masonic mailing list that I’ve certainly never subscribed to. I’m not sure whether it’s a fake by a spammer trolling for addresses, or whether it’s a legitimate email list with a somewhat clueless admin. Googling on the guy’s name turns up a complete blank, but I’m still reluctant to use the ‘unsubscribe’ link, because too many spammers used fake unsubscribes to confirm live addresses.

The message at the bottom implies a clueless list administrator.

Let me remind you again that I try very hard to keep people off the list that don’t want to be on there in the first place, and if they do end up on there accidentally, I get them off the list as quickly as possible. If you sent in a request to be removed and you’re still getting this email, please, read the information at the bottom. It’s as simple as that. Big fonts, cussing, threats, etc.. have no impact on getting you removed.

A lot of clues in there to indicate that false subscribes are a major problem for his list. Has this guy never heard of double opt-ins or confirmation emails? The longwinded unsubscribe stuff at the bottom does make it look as though he’s maintaining the thing by hand.

If you get emails after you’ve asked to be removed it means one of several things

1. I didn’t get your request to remove you.

This happens OFTEN, I am sad to report. Just because you sent it and it didn’t bounce back to you, does NOT mean that I got your email. Try sending it again.

2. You have more than one address on the list that needs to be removed.

VERY, VERY common!! The email address YOU enter into YOUR email program (such as Outlook Express) is simply the email address you type in. I have had MANY people make a mistake in typing their email address into THEIR system which means that when I try to remove your address from my list, I can’t find it — because it’s not on there. As an example – If my real email address is xxxx@xxxxexxxxx.com but I ACCIDENTALLY enter my email address as xxxx@xxxxxxxx (the E is missing) then when someone hits “REPLY” their email will go to xxxx@xxxxxxxxx.com. I will NOT get that email.

3. Someone is forwarding my emails to you.

I can’t control them. Sorry….

4. You email me to remove you from a DIFFERENT EMAIL ADDRESS than the one on the list.

This happens ALLLLLLL the time! If you get my emails at work and you email me from your home, it’s your HOME address that shows up on my computer. I MUST have the email addresses that you use so I can gladly remove them, please.

5. BIGGEST PET PEEVE OF MINE —

I have had people SWEAR to me that they didn’t have any other email addresses. I would search and search for their address but I wouldn’t be able to find it. FINALLY, they would say something like – “Oh yeah — I DO get mail at (insert an email address they NEVER told me about before.) If you EVER get email at an address, it MIGHT be on the list. If you get email from me after you asked to be removed, you MUST send me the emails that you use so I can accommodate your request. This is a free service project which takes a lot of my time. I love providing this information to the Fraternity. But I will no longer play “hunt and seek” for email addresses. I can and will ONLY remove email addresses which you provide to me. I can’t spend all day trying to guess which email address you MIGHT have that you forgot to mention to me.

I maintain a very strict “remove” policy. When asked to remove an address, I remove it immediately.

If for some reason you can’t get an email through to me, just drop me a note at: some PO box in Texas I will reply.

The bottom line is simple – I ONLY want people on this list that WANT to be on it. If you don’t want to be on it, please let me know. This newsletter goes around the world. I’d like to spend my time sending it to folks who want it.

I expect better things from mailing lists adminstered by people called Carl. Anyone else been getting these?

Yes, I know comments are down. The MT-Blacklist database appears to have become corrupted. Since this site is still running on an old non-longer supported version of Moveable Type, if I can’t easily fix the problem, it may have to wait until I have time to upgrade to either MT3.2 or WordPress before comments are working again

Update: I’ve managed to coax comments back into life. It looks like my problem was that the blacklist file got too big. I’ve had to cut it back by deleting a lot of entries. Unfortunately this is only really a short-term fix.

Florida delenda est!

Norm links to a long post by Counago & Spaves on the subject of sociopaths, and how to recognise and deal with them.

Here’s Stout’s description early on in the text of the archetypal sociopath (the terms sociopath and psychopath are used interchangeably by researchers in this field):

He or she is more spontaneous, or more intense, or somehow more “complex” or sexier, or more entertaining than everyone else. Sometimes this “sociopathic charisma” is accompanied by a grandiose sense of self-worth . . .

In addition, sociopaths have a greater than normal need for stimulation, which results in their taking frequent social, physical, financial, or legal risks. Characteristically, they can charm others into attempting dangerous ventures with them, and as a group they are known for their pathological lying and conning, and their parasitic relationships with “friends.”

Stout continues

. . . sociopaths are noted especially for their shallowness of emotion, the hollow and transient nature of any affectionate feelings they may claim to have, a certain breathtaking callousness. They have no trace of empathy and no genuine interest in bonding emotionally with a mate. Once the surface charm is scraped off, their marriages are loveless, one-sided and almost always short-term. If a marriage partner has any value to the sociopath, it is because the partner is viewed as a possession, one that the sociopath may feel angry to lose, but never sad or accountable.

As soon as I read this, I immediately thought “Jeffrey Archer”. He’s almost a textbook case.

There are further sociological considerations that require exploration, however, touched on by both Stout and Hare but largely outside the scope of their work: the way that contemporary capitalism actively encourages sociopathic behaviour through an ethos that glorifies nonconformism, as well as the danger posed to the majority of people in any hierarchically structured society when sociopaths occupy dominant positions.

I’ve heard this plenty of times before, how the structure of many corporations rewards sociopathic behaviour, and results in Kenneth Lays and Robert Maxwells.

Then of course, there’s the political ideology that’s explicitly sociopathic in nature.

Read the whole thing.

But I don’t think it died of bird flu. The fact that it’s little corpse is badly mutilated, and that there are feathers everywhere suggests that it died a violent death.

This fellow is the prime suspect….

We’re used to hearing of ridiculous lawsuits from the land of a far too many lawyers. Now, a Californian tries to sue himself

Curtis Gokey was understandably furious when a lorry belonging to the city of Lodi, California, backed into his pickup truck last month, causing damage estimated at $3,600 (£2,000) – although he was the one driving the lorry. Mr Gokey, a 51-year-old employee of the local public works department, filed a lawsuit demanding that the city pay for the repairs.

I think it’s time for Dick Cheney to shoot a few more lawyers…

I’ve just about recovered from the Manchester Blogmeet, organised by Claire. It started at the Kro Bar in Piccadilly Gardens. Something like 30 people turned up, including Norm.

A smaller and more select group moved on to Efe’s Turkish restraunt in St Peter’s Square, actually more broadly Mediterranean than just Turkish, with a lot of Greek and Italian food on the menu. Finally ended up at Mother Mac’s, a small old-fashioned pub hidden away in a back alley.

As is usual at such events, someone insists on bringing a digital camera to take embarrasing pictures of me. Chern Jie was that person.

A great time was had by all; although I apologise for bringing up the subject of toilets, which set Claire off on a long rant about toilets and bodily functions. Now I’ll actually have to blogroll all the blogs of the people who were there.

As an aside, the Kro Bar gets a black mark for failing to serve Leffe in the proper shaped glass, using instead something more appropriately shaped for orange juice. Presumably the Belgians will declare a fatwa over this.

Spam is the big scourge of the internet. Spammers are increasingly from organised crime rather than the small-time scam artists of a few years back. And they’re allegedly raking in large sums of money from people stupid enough to fall for their scams. Are AOL and Yahoo looking to get a piece of the action with their new Pay-to-spam scheme?

AOL and Yahoo plan to charge fees of up to one cent (US) per message to those that sign up for the service.

Paying the fees means that messages will not go through spam filters, are guaranteed to arrive and will bear a stamp of authenticity.

Both AOL and Yahoo said they would start offering the service within the next few months.

I can’t help feeling this is not going to be a good thing. This will mean most end-users receiving *more* spam, not less. Only this time from big business rather than Florida-based crooks.

It could easily make life a lot harder for small mailing discussion lists (i.e. anything other than Yahoo’s own yahoogroups). I can see them making their spam filters more and more aggressive, and respond with ‘pay up’.

It could well accelerate the decline of mailing lists in favour of the inexplicably fashionable slow clunky web-boards with their all their graphical cruft and stupid avatars.

This is a bad idea, that deserves to be strangled at birth.

Update: A Yahoo PR flack in the comments claims that my fears are groundless. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation seem to echo what I’ve been saying.

Email readers and senders will both lose, because the incentives for Yahoo, AOL, and Goodmail are all wrong. Their service is only valuable if it “saves” you from their spam filters. In turn, they have an incentive to treat more of your email as spam, and thereby “encouraging” people to sign up.

Even email senders who just want to reach Dad@aol.com may eventually be in trouble. Once a pay-to-speak system like this gets going, it will be increasing difficult for people who don’t pay to get their mail through. The system has no way to distinguish between ordinary mail and bulk mail, spam and non-spam, personal and commercial mail. It just gives preference to people who pay.

And prepare to be shaken down if you run a noncommercial mailing list, whether for local bowling leagues or political organizations with a national membership. Not only will the per-message fees quickly add up, but the Goodmail technology will be costly for senders to setup and use. Goodmail’s giving a “special offer” for nonprofits through 2006, but, when that ends, their messages will presumably end up in the trash, too.