Anti Spam - SpamUnit

China is cracking down on spammers in the country in news that is sure to delight spamwatchers everywhere. An increasing amount of global spam - much of it reaching English-speaking countries - comes out of China, and the authorities are now looking to provide their own spam blacklist to help international efforts to stop spam. While spam black lists are not new, this is the first government-mandated attempt by China to curb the problem by giving ISPs the world over the tools they need to block spam IPs and spam mail addresses.

The spam list is available at www.Iscbl.Anti-spam.Cn and can be used in conjunction with Spamhaus blacklists and others. A non-spam whitelist was also posted, allowing those email marketers who stay on the right side of the law to be exempt from email spam blocking programs. This shows that the Chinese government is not totally against email marketing, but remains committed to spam prevention in China proper and also amongst Hong Kong spammers.

Spam firewall owners internationally greeted the news warmly but realise that much more still has to be done, particularly from countries with spam laws less stringent than those of China.

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The Register, noted UK IT reporters, have fired a shot across Hotmail’s bow by criticising their spam protection techniques. Apparently Hotmail’s spam filtering system does not reach their high standards. With the data they present, it’s clear to see why they feel that way: Hotmail’s “contact list” system allows approved senders to reach Hotmail accounts with impunity, and somehow a Hotmail account associated with The Register was judged to have a “viagra.com” email on its contact list. Needless to say, this seems to be a major error in Hotmail’s spam filters.

However, there is another side to the story. Spam white listing is also important to Hotmail’s business customers, so they cannot be seen to be too aggressive with all forms of e mail marketing. It’s important for them to find a balance, but the current spam blocker operated by Microsoft seems to be woefully insufficient for most users.

One of web mail’s strengths is that such solutions are usually built-in, as is the case with Google Mail spam filtering and Yahoo spam blockers, but Hotmail, left on its own, seems to be ineffectual at getting rid of spam. With so much choice in the webmail market, one has to wonder if Hotmail is currently worth it.

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Botnets and “Zombie PCs” - virus-infected computers that are programmed to send out spam mail - are well-known now, but what is less commonly acknowledged is the potential human cost of these machines. According to the FBI, there is a growing problem with vital systems being taken over by botnets to launch spam virus attacks and spam campaigns - and they aim to stop it.

Indeed, recently the bureau charged a man in connection with a botnet attack that left a Chicago hospital’s IT system in turmoil; the zombie virus delayed vital medical services as the PCs were compromised. James C. Brewer of Arlington, Texas was found by law enforcement to be responsible, being linked with the freezing and crashing of key medical computers. Spam filtering software itself could do nothing to prevent it, as this was a spam virus issue; computer instability is an inevitable by-product of machines heavily infected with virii.

As well as being used to spam, these botnet PCs are also sometimes used for DOS (Denial Of Service) attacks and for identity theft purposes. Regular antispam techniques alone cannot stop them; full virus protection is also required. For more details, check out this page: http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/06/14/news_business/local/e9ef36409dc0caf5862572fa0016878a.txt

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One of the most persistent professional spammers listed since 2003 on Spamhaus ROKSO (Register Of Known Spam Operations) database, has been arrested in Seattle Washington in a joint operation conducted by the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, the FBI, FTC, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations and the United States Postal Inspection Service.

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Once again the spam gangs inconvenienced thousands of innocent internet users when their activities saw the UK branch of Italian telecoms giant Tiscali hit a spam black list. A large portion of Tiscali subscribers found themselves unable to send outgoing mail via SMTP; spam gangs abusing the network had resulted in spam blocking software restricting Tiscali IPs from reaching certain email addresses. What’s even more worrying is that the ISP seemed to take a long time to fix the problem: first, they had to purge the network of spammers. After doing so, the changes made to stop future attacks by spammers were scheduled to kick in in seven to ten days. The company recommended that customers use web mail, such as Yahoo! email or Lycos mail, to send vital messages while the changes took place. This angered some customers who expected a prompter service, rather than massive inconvenience.

Eventually, Tiscali rectified most of the issues and returned to the spam whitelist on most spam sites. After the negative publicity, and customer backlash, perhaps now the ISP will make a greater attempt to get rid of spam from its network, and perhaps to utilise a better spam stopper.

See The Register for full article

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