Re: Anonymous mail as spam?

snow wrote:
> > At 10:49 PM -0800 3/25/97, snow wrote:
> > >     What would I do if I were a spammer?
> > >     Submit the _same_ coin to every mailing I sent out. It will pass
> > >your coin filter, and so you see the message, but will fail when you try
> > >to spend it, or clear it. What do I care, you've already seen the message.
> > I should always try to clear your coin and if I like your message send you
> > a new coin.  If I can't clear your coin, then your message goes to
> > /dev/null.
> 
>         This assumes a system where coins can be cleared in real time, and
> that people read thier mail while online. At least the second is not an
> assumption that can be bourn out.
> 
> > I hope those public key operations are cheap. :-)
> 
>         Or at least less than 10 cents.

  I believe that the 'money-point' for UCE (unsolicited commercial
email) spammers is somewhere around .02% for most of their offerings.
  In other words, they need to send out 10,000 emails and get a response
just to break even.

  So, to make it unprofitable for them to spam god and everybody, it 
would only take a small surcharge. i.e. a penny or less.
  I don't actually object to the average Jane/Joe trying to use the
'new medium' to turn a buck, since I don't think that they should
be denied the same opportunity as the mega-buck corporations.
  However, I would like to see the cost of operations for these types
of activities be substantial enough that they will be forced to adopt
a method of operations that will ensure that there is least a chance
that I will be interested in what they have to offer.

  As things stand, I could buy some UCE/spamming software and send out
my proverbial "How To Make $$$ Licking Your Own Dick" missives and 
probably make some money, since it would not cost me much to send my
messages to a few million people.
  If it was actually costing me even a small sum to send each message,
then I would no longer be able to afford indiscriminate spamming, but
would still have the option to use hardwork and intelligence to narrow
the field of recipients to only include those who might be interested
in my offer, such as Bill Frantz, Jim Bell, and Bill Stewart.

  I truly believe that the InterNet should be left accessible to those
without a lot of resources/cash, and that any effort to control abuse
through cost should be so minimal as to not interfere with the ability
of those who are currency-challenged to participate in its benefits.
-- 
Toto
"The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre"
http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca> writes:
> snow wrote:
> > > At 10:49 PM -0800 3/25/97, snow wrote:
> > > >     What would I do if I were a spammer?
> > > >     Submit the _same_ coin to every mailing I sent out. It will pass
> > > >your coin filter, and so you see the message, but will fail when you try
> > > >to spend it, or clear it. What do I care, you've already seen the messag
> > > I should always try to clear your coin and if I like your message send yo
> > > a new coin.  If I can't clear your coin, then your message goes to
> > > /dev/null.
> >
> >         This assumes a system where coins can be cleared in real time, and
> > that people read thier mail while online. At least the second is not an
> > assumption that can be bourn out.
> >
> > > I hope those public key operations are cheap. :-)
> >
> >         Or at least less than 10 cents.
>
>   I believe that the 'money-point' for UCE (unsolicited commercial
> email) spammers is somewhere around .02% for most of their offerings.
>   In other words, they need to send out 10,000 emails and get a response
> just to break even.
>
>   So, to make it unprofitable for them to spam god and everybody, it
> would only take a small surcharge. i.e. a penny or less.
>   I don't actually object to the average Jane/Joe trying to use the
> 'new medium' to turn a buck, since I don't think that they should
> be denied the same opportunity as the mega-buck corporations.
>   However, I would like to see the cost of operations for these types
> of activities be substantial enough that they will be forced to adopt
> a method of operations that will ensure that there is least a chance
> that I will be interested in what they have to offer.
>
>   As things stand, I could buy some UCE/spamming software and send out
> my proverbial "How To Make $$$ Licking Your Own Dick" missives and
> probably make some money, since it would not cost me much to send my
> messages to a few million people.

They don't know at the time of the mailing whether they'll make any
money off of it... Most of them seem like very stupid scams and probably
don't make any money. But they have enough of a hope to profit from
the mailing.

>   If it was actually costing me even a small sum to send each message,
> then I would no longer be able to afford indiscriminate spamming, but
> would still have the option to use hardwork and intelligence to narrow
> the field of recipients to only include those who might be interested
> in my offer, such as Bill Frantz, Jim Bell, and Bill Stewart.
>
>   I truly believe that the InterNet should be left accessible to those
> without a lot of resources/cash, and that any effort to control abuse
> through cost should be so minimal as to not interfere with the ability
> of those who are currency-challenged to participate in its benefits.

That's a very good point, Toto. As you may recall, my domain, dm.com, stands
for D&M Consulting. There's another internet domain, dm1.com, which stands for
'direct marketing'. They've been sending out a lot of UCE. A number of
net.cops have been complaining to us and to PSI, our upstream connection,
because they lack the mental capacity to distinguish between 'dm' and 'dm1'.
PSI used to be a good provider when we started doing business with them 6
years ago; now they have new people who are totally clueless and obnoxious. It
goes like "We've been receiving a lot of complaints about the traffic
originating at your site". "These are false complaints." "Well, we've still
been receiving a lot of complaints." And "If you can prove that this traffic
did not originate with you, then we won't hold you responsible." [I'm
cc'ing this to the Rev. Steve Winter who's had similar problems with the
new management at PSI. What a bunch of assholes! ]

But, Toto, sending UCE is not without a cost. If you had what most people
have these days - a $19.95/month SLIP or PPP account, and you sent out a
few thousand commercial solicitations to random people, your account would
be closed within hours by most providers. It would then take your a little
time and effort to open another account. The nan-am folks have been trying
to come up with a blacklist of "spammers" who go from one provider to
another - I don't know how successful they've been. A lot of people try
the internet in general, or a particular provider, judge them to be full of
shit, and close down the account. Perhaps a few would rather go with a bang.

Clearly, most folks who send out unsolicited e-mail are not masochists
seeking to have their plugs pulled. Most of them hope to sell something.
(Most of them are scammers, but that's besides the point.) I also saw at
least one religious mass e-mail (God loves you etc), where monetary profit
was probably not the motive for sending it. I think it's safe to assume that
most folks who send out unsolicited mass e-mail don't want the recipient to
be annoyed and to complain to the sender's ISP [This may not be true about
the users of anonymous remailers! ].

A while back we discussed on the cp mailing list a spec for a system that
provide junk e-mailers for free with a list of (hashed) addresses that
should be removed from any mass e-mail lists. Is anyone interested in
talking about the technical aspects of such a system?

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

On Wed, 26 Mar 97 09:58:54 EST, Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:

    > A while back we discussed on the cp mailing list a spec for a system that
    > provide junk e-mailers for free with a list of (hashed) addresses that
    > should be removed from any mass e-mail lists. Is anyone interested in
    > talking about the technical aspects of such a system?

Is there really anything to talk about?

I just implemented such a thing using SHA1 hashes.  Source code, a
database consisting of my address, and a Linux binary are available
(volunteers to compile other binaries, provide an FTP server, or add
their address(es) are welcome!)

It can add and delete addresses, check whether addresses are blocked,
and filter a list of addresses from stdin.  The database is stored as
a text file with the hexadecimal representation of the hashes written
one per line [actually, the first 0<=n<=5 digits of the hash are
appended to the file name, using multiple files to improve search
speed.]

-- 
Paul Foley <mycroft@actrix.gen.nz>       ---         PGPmail preferred

	   PGP key ID 0x1CA3386D available from keyservers
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
A father doesn't destroy his children.
		-- Lt. Carolyn Palamas, "Who Mourns for Adonais?",
		   stardate 3468.1.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

 A million monkeys operating under the pseudonym 
 "Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>" typed:
> 
>   I believe that the 'money-point' for UCE (unsolicited commercial
> email) spammers is somewhere around .02% for most of their offerings.
>   In other words, they need to send out 10,000 emails and get a response
> just to break even.


Actually I had a talk with a certain anti-spam ISP owner
recently, and she asserted that the spammers don't make
significant money from responses to their spams, but are
instead making their money from stupid newbie companies who 
pay them for advertising service.


It's an interesting proposition.  You would think, though, that
the spamsters might as well just take the stupid newbie
company's cash and then send a couple of token e-mail 
messages, if that's their business model.  :-)


>   I truly believe that the InterNet should be left accessible to those
> without a lot of resources/cash, and that any effort to control abuse
> through cost should be so minimal as to not interfere with the ability
> of those who are currency-challenged to participate in its benefits.


I concur.  Note that a variation on the "good faith deposit"
idea is to make the included payment an actual, final
_payment_.  If it were small enough, it wouldn't really matter
to the sender (especially since she would probably get a
response back containing a similar payment).  Still, in order
to minimize the economic impact on non-commercial senders, 
I favor a deposit instead.  (It can be implemented almost as
efficiently as a final payment would...)


Again I assert, though, that this "deposit" shall have no legal
effect.  The cost of possibly incurring legal liability far 
outweighs the amounts that we are dealing with, effectively 
killing the whole idea in its cradle.


Regards,

Zooko

NOT speaking for DigiCash or any other person or organization.

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Bryce <bryce@digicash.com> writes:

>  "Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>" typed:
> >
> >   I believe that the 'money-point' for UCE (unsolicited commercial
> > email) spammers is somewhere around .02% for most of their offerings.
> >   In other words, they need to send out 10,000 emails and get a response
> > just to break even.
>
> Actually I had a talk with a certain anti-spam ISP owner
> recently, and she asserted that the spammers don't make
> significant money from responses to their spams, but are
> instead making their money from stupid newbie companies who
> pay them for advertising service.

That's an interesting business model.
Alice doesn't know shit about the 'net.
In particular, Alice doesn't know that UCE annoys people and
doesn't generate income; and Alice doesn't have the technical
expertise to set up a SLIP/PPP account, not to mention mass-mailing.
Alice pays Bob to mass-mail her UCE from a throw-away account.
Alice probably pays Bob a lot.
Bob probably promises Alice a lot.
Should Alice be encouraged to sue Bob for fraudulent misrepresetation
of UCE? :-)
Would a journalist with any semblance of integrity try to inform
Alice that UCE doesn't pay, instead of calling for more censorship?

> It's an interesting proposition.  You would think, though, that
> the spamsters might as well just take the stupid newbie
> company's cash and then send a couple of token e-mail
> messages, if that's their business model.  :-)

*If* there was a free, easy way to remove addresses of people who
don't want junk e-mail from their mailing lists, most junk e-mailers
would probably try to use it. The (snail-mail) direct marketers
association has it; I put my name on their block list and I
get almost no junk snail-mail.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps