----- Original Message -----
From: "David Brodbeck" <gull(_at_)gull(_dot_)us>
To: <spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:41 PM
Subject: *****SPAM***** Re: [spf-discuss] SPF and Responsibility
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 00:07:24 +0300, Andriy G. Tereshchenko wrote
Spam is not USA-only problem. It's global.
Even more - I'm pretty sure that most of USA companies can afford
legal (spam-free) ways to deliver ads. Legal risks in USA are pretty
high. If I was USA company and need to send spam - I will hire
somebody outside of USA (like China) to send spam on my behalf.
Well, yeah. This is why the recent anti-spam legislation passed in the
U.S.
is so useless. Much of the spam I get comes from two sources:
- Compromised home machines on cable connections (in other words, people
who
are ALREADY breaking the law ANYWAY)
- China, Korea, and other countries in that part of the world.
Look again, *before* your RBL lists filter the spam. At the last spam
conference at MIT, something like 60% of all spam was from and to US
addresses. Even much of the foreign spam is from US spammers hosting their
services overseas or using trojaned machines overseas: the US is where the
money is, so the spam is aimed at us. And the US is where web and email
businesses have already taken off.
It's a growing problem overseas, but I think it's not yet as bad as it is
here.
Open relays, which used to be a huge source of spam, are now pretty minor.
That war has mostly been won.
Only if you don't count zombied machines as open relays, which effectively
they are.
The spam problem from China and Korea is so bad that I know of some people
who
just blacklist everything from the Asia-Pacific netblocks.
True, and the *ratio* of spam to legitimate traffic for many user-only sites
in the US can justify this. Unfortunately, my parent company is Japanese....