Hello brave digital warriors,
I submit for discussion an idea about combating spam. It is not
wholly novel based on my findings, and I may fall in to the following
'You might be an anti-spam kook'[1] categories:
spam-fighter-2
spammers-are-stupid-3
dont-get-no-respect-7
My work consists of a paper[2], the abstract of which is below, and a
a collection of Python scripts[3]. There is also a C# implementation[4].
I realize this is a technical list, but it still seems an appropriate
forum for this post.
Happy flaming,
Sam
1. ABSTRACT
Almost all Internet and email users have experienced
problems relating to spam. There is no doubt that it is a scourge,
and many attempts have been made to fight the difficulties it
imposes. Legislators have passed laws banning the practice, and
measures such as greylisting and adaptive filtering have been
effective at limiting its detrimental effects -- but decreasingly
so. However this research takes a different view on the issue than
the ones mentioned. The legislative approach seems incomplete
because preservation of rights is not the central issue, although
theft of service concerns are legal in nature. The technical
approach is closer but misses a key point. Many of the problems
that are a result of spam are technical in nature, but its cause
is economic[4] (section 1, paragraph 1).
A clear understanding of the spam phenomenon is crucial to fighting
it. This research investigates the causes for spam and the factors
that influence its continuing viability, as well as provides an
implementation of a suitable countermeasure. The motivating reason
for sending spam seems clear: monetary profit. Businesses are
willing to pay marketers and look the other way, and mass email
marketers are seeking only profit. The combination of conditions
that are involved in profiting from abusing email systems in this
way are less clear, but include very low cost to send, sender
anonymity, large target market, and low user response rate. Note
that technical considerations will not be ignored, but rather they
provide the backdrop for dealing with this instance of crass
profiteering.
[1] http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/you-might-be.html
[2] http://mrmoe.net/~samble/spamthing/spam_profitability.txt
- plaintext, not wrapped
http://mrmoe.net/~samble/spamthing/spam_profitability-fmt.txt
- plaintext, wrapped
http://mrmoe.net/~samble/spamthing/spam_profitability.odt
- OpenDocument Text
[3] http://mrmoe.net/~samble/spamthing/src/
http://mrmoe.net/~samble/spamthing/
[4] http://randonom.com/~wladek/projects/spamthing.net/
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