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Re: Trouble with Sender Authentication

2006-11-08 14:30:48

I don't recognize Greg Hewgill, so I presume he has a genuine question.

On Mon, 6 Nov 2006, Greg Hewgill wrote:
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 02:34:29PM -0500, Dean Anderson wrote:
Most of this isn't commercial, either. Commercial bulk email is no
longer a problem.

Is that right? Virtually all the spam I see relates to pharmacy, stock,
mortgage, pirated software, or are email worms. The whole idea of each
of those are to make money for somebody. I don't even know what
"non-commercial spam" would look like today.

Tried purchasing anything?  I have.  I opened a bank account just for a
special credit card.  But it was never charged. If money changed hands,
I figured it would be easy to find them. No money ever changed hands,
even though, ostensibly, the spam _looks_ commercial. But wait, if no
money changes hands, it isn't commercial, no matter what it _looks_
like.  I also found a few blacklists abusing open relays. I did this by
creating non-production relays, logging TCP connections to them, and
then submitting them to the blacklist for scanning. After only scanning
by the blacklist, they started getting abused. There's more, but you get
the idea.  And now, the abusers are easily distinguished from the
genuine mailers by CAN-SPAM---this is why "anti-spam" people hate
CAN-SPAM so much. (quotes because they really aren't anti-spam people)

By contrast, the genuine commercial bulk emailers never use proxies,
never use viruses, nor other abuse tactics. The genuine commercial bulk
emailers comply with CAN-SPAM, and rarely violate the law.

Some time ago, I created a classification of spam types.
http://www.av8.net/SpamTypes.txt Certain people have tried to discredit
this for a long time. Usually, they try to confuse CAN-SPAM compliant
mailers with non-compliant abusers by lumping them all together. They
realy, really, really hate the notion that there might be a distinction.  
The reason why is plain.

The very same people also tried to claim that the ECPA didn't apply to
ISPs. (I said it did, and cited the law and a number of court cases, but
to no avail.) Then there was U.S. V Councilman, a criminal case.  
People don't dispute me on this anymore, but no one has actually
admitted to being wrong. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised by that.  
But it discredits them, and credits me.

And about 10 years ago, the same people disputed that anti-trust law
would apply to blacklists-- again, with no basis in law or fact. Exactis
V.  MAPS proved me right.  Trolls still dispute this, however, but still
have no basis for their claims.  They typically assert that Exactis V.  
MAPS isn't a "precedent". Literally, that is true: Exactis V. MAPS was
settled out of court. However, one doesn't need a court precedent before
the law will apply. The law is clear; the constitutionality of the law
is clear; and there is no reasonable dispute on the law to take to
court.  Hence, MAPS lawyer was chastised by the Judge.


BTW, this may be interesting: 

Subject: Re: SPF [WAS: Best practices for hosting web but NOT email?]

Hmm. Ehlke...sounds familiar. So familiar, I think you already know the
answer to your question. This is a response to a known troll, so hit
delete now, unless you like history.

Exactis V. MAPS. 

Exactis sued for anti-trust violation, just as I predicted would happen
about 10+ years ago. I made that assertion from information based on
queries I made around 1990 to the LPF attorneys regarding the operation
of boycotts.  The script-kiddie trolls have long disputed this---of
course, with no basis for their claims.  They assert there is a first
amendment right to operate a blacklist.  There isn't.  They assert
sometimes that there are no laws without court cases (e.g. the federal
register reference below). That isn't true either, but it hasn't stopped
them.  Of course, they lie about lots things--Just look up 130.105/16 in
SORBS.

But MAPS countered the suit with a First Amendment assertion, just as
trolls asserted who disputed my reports. The constitutional legal
argument against anti-trust that was tossed about a century back.
Indeed, the MAPS lawyer was chastisted for this frivolous defense, and
the Judge recessed. MAPS settled during recess, giving Exactis
everything it demanded.  This suit should never have reached court. The
court papers are interesting, though. A good read is the memoranda in
support of the TRO by Exactis. This is at
http://www.dotcomeon.com/exactis1.html.  It gives a good look at the
MAPS true nature. Compare what you read in the Memo with page 254 of
Brian McWilliams book "Spam Kings", where MAPS employees are working for
_spammers_, "washing" their lists from spam-trap addresses.  Then
compare with additional information on http://www.iadl.org.

I'm surprised you didn't dispute the ECPA assertions, too. Or has U.S.  
V. Councilman finally convinced you that I was right about that, too?  
It is always interesting how you tend to never admit your past mistakes.

                --Dean

On Tue, 7 Nov 2006, Pete Ehlke wrote:

On Mon Nov 06, 2006 at 15:16:42 -0500, Dean Anderson wrote:

Blocking non-spam email is a violation of federal anti-trust law
(participation in unlawful group boycott) and also state and federal
electronic privacy laws (no authorization to block non-spam email).  
Some letters to Verizon may be necessary.

( Just can't resist tossing a cookie to the troll... )

And your citations in the Federal Reporter for the decisions that 
support
these contentions are exactly what?




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