[linux_general] RE: [ale] spam

[Greg]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-admin at ale.org [mailto:ale-admin at ale.org]On Behalf Of Jason Day
> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 10:57 AM
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: Re: [linux_general] RE: [ale] spam
>
>
> On Sat, May 10, 2003 at 02:33:27AM -0400, Greg wrote:
> > yes, the amount of money, etc might be obscene, but quite
> honestly, I don't
> > think it is as costly as many would have you believe.  For
> instance, it just
> > causes you and I the time it takes to push a button to get rid
> of it.  Total
> > cost: 1 - 5 seconds.  I pay a single monthly fee for bandwidth.
>  Electrons
>
> Sure, it only takes you 1 - 5 seconds to delete the 4 or 5 (or 10) spam
> messages you get.  But each of those messages was sent en masse, to
> thousands of recipients, of which you were only one.  Let's see, right
> now I have 14 messages in my spam folder, which is 97698 bytes in size.
> So that's roughly 6978 bytes per message.  So let's assume some spammer
> takes $3000 from some "reputable" business to send out 100,000 messages,
> each of which is 5K in size.  Spammers use this nifty software that
> allows them to compose their message, then reads the 100,000 lucky
> recipients from a database, and then sends the message to each of the
> recipients at once.  That's 500 megabytes of data sent in a very short
> period of time.  Even if we assume that the spammer is paying for this
> bandwidth (which, I assure you, they are not)

	so they are "hijacking" someone else's bandwidth - like stealing cable. I
doubt that.  They are using what they paid for in the majority of cases.  I
don't' know many people on the Internet for free.


, the lucky ISPs of each of
> these recipients must handle the sudden surge of incoming data.  Now, on
> its own, this particular mass mailing probably won't swamp any
> particular ISP.  But this isn't the only one.  There will be thousands
> more mailings, just like this one, each and every day.  And then, the
> ISP gets to deal with all the complaints from their customers, who are

	I kinda doubt the ISP's are seriously spending a lot of money  dealing with
spam.  There is little to no return on doing that.  That is  probably one of
the problems.  But since you are the one saying it, back it up with numbers
or something else.

> just sick and tired of deleting all the ads about how to enlarge their
> members, or maybe they're worried about their kids seeing the explicit
> porn that was sent to their email address.

 The cost of living in the modern world.  TV, radio, and the print media
shower us with the same stuff.  Part of the job of being a parent.

>
> > are not like water and gas - once the infrastructure is up, it
> is irrelevant
> > whether I get 1 bit or 10 GB of data.  Unlike the mail, it does
> not end up
>
> Really?  Guess I should quit spending the $40/month for my cable modem.
> I can just go back to dialup, since I can transfer 10 GB of data at the
> same rate as 1 bit.  That's pretty amazing.

No, you are paying for a BIGGER pipeline not one with more pressure.  Do we
need to discuss the laws of physics that deal with this ?  It is in some
ways like fluid dynamics.  You are paying for MORE bits - as electricity,
unlike water has no pressure, so you are paying for a greater volume of
information for a given standard of time.  You don't understand what you are
saying with regards to rate - I assure you that dial up and T1 moves pretty
much at the same speed.  The difference is the width of the pipeline.  The
point is that whether I get 1 bit or 1000 bits I pay the same - so I have
not paid any money to spammers for this.

>
> > polluting the world or costing me $$ to hire someone to cart it
> off.  And I
> > seriously doubt whether if spam were to disappear that there
> would be mass
> > layoffs in the IT industry due to lost "bandwidth".
>
> Again, *you* don't have to pay anyone, but your ISP has to hire more
> admins to deal with all the wasted bandwidth.  And they have to hire
> more support staff to deal with all the complaints.
> >

	How much ???  Let's see some creditable numbers. How would hiring more
admins help the bandwidth ?  that's limited by their connection to the
Internet.  So, if I hire 20 more admins my home system would show an
increase in bandwidth?  How much ?  How much if I just spend more time on it
?  And just exactly how responsive are ISPs to spam complaints anyway ?  I
strongly suspect they hire a few folks to do it and don't increase it
whether spam increases or not - especially if all they have to do is
"blacklist" the IP after some perfunctory investigation.

> > Also, one cannot prevent businesses from advertising. It is
> *their* time,
> > $$, etc that is being wasted.  I dunno, I am kind of ambivalent about it
>
> It most certainly is *not* their time, $$, etc. that is being wasted.
> Businesses pay an extremely small fraction of the total cost of mass
> mailings.  That's why they are so popular.  Who cares how many hundreds
> of thousands of people you piss off with one mailing campaign, when as
> little as a .1% response can generate a profit?


Gee, I guess you just kinda proved the economic benefits of mass
advertising.  I'm convinced.  Until there are some economic or other reasons
(dismemberment comes to mind immediately) that are effective it's here to
stay.


>
> > since I don't mess with it as much as I once did.  It's like
> anything else,
> > unless you make the punishment person and not worth the effort
> it will be
> > here for sometime.  Only since it is a global problem, it
> requires a global
> > solution.
>
> That's the only thing you've said that makes any sense.

No, everything I have said is a fact, whether in your opinion it makes sense
is irrelevant. A fact is a fact.  I have yet to see any reasonable breakdown
of the costs of spam, though it could be argued that it uses a lot of folks
time and that is probably the biggest source of monetary loss.  However, I
strongly suspect that the average Internet user just takes it laying down
and that is why ISP's haven't done anything about it - until now.  There
seems to be some movement afoot to legislate penalties on spammers.  I would
rather the ISP's take a low profile, otherwise they will be seen as content
managers - (read: censors) and that is something I see as worse than spam.
However, I indeed acknowledge that they are in a unique position to stop it.
However, so are you and others.  A well placed campaign to work over your
elected officials would also help, as spammers are universally hated and
unlike the print industry I don't think (could be wrong) that spammers have
any industry lobbyists working for them.  Good Luck (and yeah, I am serious)
As you have a problem with the little electron pushing advertisers I do hope
you good fortune in getting them off of your back.

Greg


> --
> Jason Day                                       jasonday at
> http://jasonday.home.att.net                    worldnet dot att dot net
>
> "Of course I'm paranoid, everyone is trying to kill me."
>     -- Weyoun-6, Star Trek: Deep Space 9
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