At 08:49 PM 6/12/2003 -0600, Vernon Schryver wrote:
> From: mengwong(_at_)dumbo(_dot_)pobox(_dot_)com (Meng Weng Wong)
> ...
> Conclusion 1: aol, hotmail, and yahoo have successfully implemented
> outbound antispam technology, ie. ways to ensure that only humans sign
> up for their accounts, or limits on per-account outbound message volume.
Success is certainly is fleeting. See
http://www.google.com/search?q=hotmail+dav
http://news.google.com/news?q=hotmail+dav
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1141514
This also appeared on SlashDot story
(http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/06/08/0257203.shtml).
I've also seen recent reports from usually reliable sources that
Microsoft's account creation mechanism has been "scripted."
By contrast Yahoo is employing a Turing test process to test sign ups. I
wonder if Hotmail would use such process, would that reduce the problem?
Probably not, as long as the WebDAV facility is turned on.
A summmary of all of that is that in recent weeks spammers have been
significant spam through Hotmail systems.
This goes to show that questions (not just statements) about whether
characteristics of spam (or spam defenses) occur some of the time or
most of the time should be view critically. Measurements of spam
can be useful for showing that a characteristic (practically?) always
or never occurs in spam or that a tactic of spammers or spam defenses
always or never works. Concluding much from a measurement that
says "X happens 90%" (or 9%) is often an error.
This is also true for the underlying assumption that is discussed on Wong's
webpage regarding using transient failure codes (4xx) to stop spammers.
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