No subject

On Wed, 14 May 2003, Sunder wrote:

> The 1st time a significant number of users start using this scheme, the
> spammers will adapt to get around to it.  Just like they've already
> adapted against keyword searches by using text such as e'n'l'ar'g'e'
> 'y,o,u,r, `pe`n`i`s__n_o_w.

Amusing side note: Spamassassing 2.53 didn't catch this particular
g a p p y t e x t. Good job.
 
> Again, from the spammer's point of view, they don't necessarily care that
> you recieved the email.  They sell advertisements for a price.  Say you
> have an ad, you go to the spammer, he spams 170,000 emails with it for
> $10.  He doesn't give a shit if less than 1% of those will get the spam -
> he charges his client the same.

I don't think this is usually the case. Spammers who talk seem to
indicate that they get commissions, not per message fees. In my mind,
this means that lowering delivery is good, but an arms race. For some
spam, driving up costs may be a short term good, but a long term evil -
if the commission is based on inquiries to a mortage refinance broker, 
lots of phony addresses will make for an extremely unprofitable
campaign which they hopefully won't try again, but that also puts 
money in the pocket of a spammer.

> >From my point of view, if my MTA has already spooled the spam, I've
> already lost my bandwidth, and thus lost some value.  Doesn't matter that
> I never see the spam.  Bandwidth was already wasted receiving bits that
> wind up in /dev/null and cpu cycles to make the decision to drop said
> bits.

Yes. I'm writing up a rant about spam, that I'll send to the list
shortly. But I agree completely.

-j
-- 
Jamie Lawrence                                        jal at jal.org