Canned response post for bad anti-spam ideas

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stan_qaz
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Location: Gilbert, Arizona
Posts: 8671
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:13 am

Canned response post for bad anti-spam ideas

Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:12 pm

Copy, paste and add X's and you'll save typing long explanations.

-------------------------------------

Your post advocates a:

( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam.


Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work:

(One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws
which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for:

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatibility with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, idiot! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
I am not a Firetrust employee just a MW user.
--
First rule of computer consulting: Sell a customer a Linux computer and you'll eat for a day,
sell a customer a Windows computer and you'll eat for a lifetime.
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stan_qaz
Omniscient Kiwi
Location: Gilbert, Arizona
Posts: 8671
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:13 am

Re: Canned response post for bad anti-spam ideas

Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:43 pm

Maybe a custom bounce message for MW:

--------------------------

From: "Spam Filter" <mail@example.com>

A MESSAGE FROM OUR MAIL SERVER

This email has been intercepted by our spam filters and has been returned to you.

You are either one of those stupid little people who has allowed their computer to be infected with a virus or
some other malware, or one of those irritating arsewipes who pollute the internet with spam emails.

By the way, this is an automated message.
Our network engineers don't care if you try and respond as your reply will be undeliverable.

Your email address, domain and IP have all been noted and tracked and the relevant spam databases notified.
Please note that this may now impact on your ability to receive future email from any source.

P.S. You are an idiot and another of God's little failures.
I am not a Firetrust employee just a MW user.
--
First rule of computer consulting: Sell a customer a Linux computer and you'll eat for a day,
sell a customer a Windows computer and you'll eat for a lifetime.
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rusticdog
Firetrust Monkey
Posts: 15864
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2005 6:27 pm

Re: Canned response post for bad anti-spam ideas

Mon Aug 01, 2011 4:04 pm

stan_qaz wrote:P.S. You are an idiot and another of God's little failures.
I like that last bit :thumbsup
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Wulie
βeta Tester
Location: Planet Zogg (Somewhere in the Universe)
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:39 pm

Re: Canned response post for bad anti-spam ideas

Sat Aug 06, 2011 8:42 am

RusticDog,
Sorry to bother you on this thread, but I'm trying to PM you but I can't, I'm interested in becoming a Beta Tester. Please could you PM me or something.
Many thanks :bow
PLEASE NOTE : I'm NOTa firetrust employee, I'm just a volunteer βeta Tester.
User avatar
Wulie
βeta Tester
Location: Planet Zogg (Somewhere in the Universe)
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:39 pm

Re: Canned response post for bad anti-spam ideas

Sat Aug 06, 2011 8:44 am

Ok, ignore me, STAN has answered the question on another thread - tyvm :bow
PLEASE NOTE : I'm NOTa firetrust employee, I'm just a volunteer βeta Tester.

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