Instead of trying from the outset to solve the spam problem
w/o disadvantaging any existing users I'm trying to experiment to see if I
can solve my spam problem and make it available to others to use if it
helps them. The first filter systems were just that.
Once again I am new to this, and clearly out of my league, but what level
are you talking about filtering on? Is it at my *Inbox*, or at the Server.
My biggest problem with Electronic Junk Mail is that in the end I pay for
it, and I gain nothing positive for it. At least with Junk Snail Mail there
is a bonus. The people sending the stuff pay for it, and I suppose that
keeps the price I pay to send a piece of mail at a reasonable level. With
SPAM, as I see it, it just costs me. When I first got on the Internet I
surfed the net a great deal, I don't now. I've met many interesting people,
but I now use email almost exclusievly. I am virtually forced to opt for
the *Unlimited Useage* plan from my ISP, but if I was only down loading
email I wanted, My Internet access wouldn't cost me more than $7-8 dollars a
month. My ISP now charges me $29.95 for unlimited useage. So while
filtering this stuff to my Delete Bin might give me some measure of
satisfaction, I still down load it.
No one has deployed a sender-pays so no ones knows what will or will not
work. All I'm saying is let's deploy and see what happens.
I'm not a subscriber to conspiracy theories, and I don't think there was a
second shooter on a grassy knoll, but isn't there a symbiotic relationship
between SPAMMERS and ISP's. While NBTel isn't paid when a SPAMMER sends me
a message, those messages are a big reason why I have an Unlimited Usage
Plan. I think there are a lot of folks in my position who use email almost
exclusively. If it wasn't for SPAM we could log on, down load email, log
off, deal with the email, and log on send and replies I might have. It
would take me seconds, accept for the fact that 90% of the mail I get is
SPAM.
Also is the fact that my email address is straightforward
*wilson(_at_)nbntel(_dot_)nb(_dot_)ca* make me an easy target. It seems to me
that in some
SPAM that I have looked at it appears that the sender just took the name
*wilson* and used a database of ISP's to send it. ie: there might be 40
addresses in the message, wilson(_at_)nbnet(_dot_)nb(_dot_)ca,
wilson(_at_)hotmail(_dot_)com,
wilson(_at_)yahoo(_dot_)com, wilson(_at_)hks(_dot_)com, etc., etc.
Also I might have used the wrong term when I talked about *forged* while I
understand where there is reason to change the return address. I guess a
better word would have been a *bogus* return address. An address that
doesn't exist. ie somebody sends me a SPAM message and the address provided
would just bounce. Can that be detected at the Server.
I think a good place to start for SPAMMERS in a legal sense would be that
each message must contain a valid return address, and a way the person
receiving the message can reply and be removed without being directed to a
spot on the Internet that asks you to enter your email address, which I am
sure just subscribes you to several more lists. The approach I am taking is
to have my ISP provide me with a form letter that in essence states if the
sender fails to remove my name in a timely manner that my ISP has agreed to
ban that sender from it's Mail Server.
ian wilson
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