| LED Digest 1932: Curing Spam |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ............................................... February 15, 2005 Issue #1932 ............................................... .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Curing Spam ==-- ~ Deke Hammel "...as long as [spammers are promoted] as getting rich off the rest of us, it will continue. " ==== CONTINUING ================= --== RSS Feeds ==-- ~ Richard Graham "...yesterday I saw my Mum using [RSS] to check the BBC headlines." ~ Tom Anson "I'm still totally in the dark as to what RSS is all about..." --== Sacking SpamCop ==-- ~ Sheryl Coppenger "...it sounds like some of the sites using [SpamCop] are to blame as well as users turning in bogus reports..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== New SE: Clusty.com ==-- ~ Jim Berry --== CGI Forms & Scammers ==-- ~ Diane Dennis ======= NEW ===================================== From: Deke Hammel Subject: Curing spam > Then is Julian Haught and his Spamcop vigilantes > really helping or exacerbating the spam problem? - Bill Davison, LED 1931 Everyone knows that it's profitable to spam. Except if that were true, why do I read no stories in Forbes and Fortune about people who've gotten rich selling inkjet refills, little blue pills and rolexes through email? Everybody knows that it is free to spam. Except if that were true, why do I get so many emails offering to send 28 million spam for me, for a modest fee. The fact is, selling from an email is like selling door-to-door. It works for the kids from the local school and it works for the Schwann truck driver, because you know them, but it stopped working for strangers selling vacuum cleaners years ago. I get emails from bn.com that send me to their website - but I go to the store to buy my books. Or maybe I buy them at Border's, if I'm headed that direction instead. The people offering spamming solutions - software, addresses and mailing services - and the people offering anti-spam solutions - software and filtering services - both profit if spamming continues. The average spammer spends $300 to $500, tries sending out some spam from his own computer, and loses his broadband connection. He gets hooked up with DSL instead of cable, and uses a mailing service to lose another $800-1200. He gets less than $100 in sales, and it starts to dawn on him: it isn't some little thing he's doing wrong. It's the whole approach. You buy from people you like, not from people who start off by POing you. So he licks his wounds, and keeps his mouth shut because he's embarassed that he was so stupid, and next month, some other damnable fool, three blocks away, gets the clever idea that he could get rich by spamming. Barnum's Law. And as long as the anti-spam activists promote the idea of spammers as people getting rich off the rest of us, it will continue. When they start pointing out that spammers are clueless losers that invariably lose their keisters, we'll start to see a reduction in spam. The other thing we need to do about spam is make it possible for every victim to sue. I was getting junk faxes, ended up suing Vision Labs Telecommunications, and got a nice $1000 check for about 30 minutes of my effort. They now stop their customers from faxing me, because they don't want to write any more checks. If Congress were to simply allow *individuals* to sue spammers in small claims court as they can sue junk faxers, we'd soon see a marked decrease in spam. And I'd file enough suits that I'd be forced to pay more income tax. You wouldn't mind if I paid more so you could pay less, would you? Deke Hammel amishhosting.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Richard Graham Subject: RSS I always figured RSS was too techie and not so useful. But yesterday I saw my Mum using it to check the BBC headlines. I figured if my Mum can use it then so can anyone! So I went back over the LED posts and set up my own feed of the new additions to my site. Thank you to everyone for the great advice! A couple of other things to add are; If you would like the orange icon to appear on Firefox ( worth doing) you need to put a <.link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href=http://yoursite.htm /> in your headers. I think it's also worthwhile explaining to your viewers that if they set the "create in" option to be "Bookmarks Toolbar folder" they can see it on the toolbar. I think it's a great tool, now my regulars can check when updates are made without having to visit the site! Be genki, Richard Graham http://www.genkienglish.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Tom Anson Subject: RSS I want to thank Joe Halbrook for his response to my post. I've added his template to my desktop. I'm still totally in the dark as to what RSS is all about or how to use it. Since this thread got started, several people have posted some really interesting things; the problem is, I have no idea what any of you are talking about. Unless I can get my head around the most elemental concept of all this, none of the rest helps me. Can anyone suggest a really good primer on RSS -- I prefer a book form (paper and ink) so I can mark it and fold corners and sleep with it under my pillow (I guess I'm hoping for osmosis . . . ). Maybe then, some of the rest of this will make a little sense. (I don't speak Chinese, either.) Tom Anson Anson Digital Concerns http://www.ansondigitalconcerns.com/ ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Sheryl Coppenger Subject: SpamCop > Site owners who have a large number of opt-ins / subscribers / > customers and who want to communicate with them via email cannot. > Why? Because Spamcop openly admits even the number of emails > is part of their "grading" system. - Bill Davison, LED 1931 Well, no, if you check "How the SCBL Works" on www.spamcop.net, it says that their point system makes it *unlikely* to block people who send out a lot of mail -- if a small percentage generate complaints. In other words, if your lists are truly opt-in, your opt-out procedures are adequate, and your subscribers are not idiots, SpamCop will never block you. Or so they say. I haven't seen the formulae, so I can't vouch for them. And w.r.t. "selling" people Postini as an alternative -- if most sites followed the recommendation on Spamcop and filtered the mail based on SCBL instead of deleting or bouncing it, the service would be more useful. In other words, they would be operating just like the for-profit services. My home ISP uses Postini, my work email is filtered with Brightmail. When I ran a fairly large email system, I used some of the other blacklists available. The way I did it was to put in a different X-header for each blacklist or homegrown filter triggered. Then I gave users the option of whitelisting individual email addresses or entire domains, and they had access to their SPAMFOLDER where filtered email landed. From the description on spamcop.net, if I had used spamcop I could have done the same. This is not a defense of spamcop, just pointing out that it sounds like some of the sites using it are to blame as well as users turning in bogus reports (and, of course, the spammers -- who made all of this necessary in the first place). Sheryl Coppenger ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Jim Berry Subject: Clusty.com - new search engine Adam, A good suggestion for a new discussion topic might be www.clusty.com, which you can read about at http://snipurl.com/9leo [home.businesswire.com]. Best regards, Jim Berry www.bookkeepinghelp.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Diane Dennis Subject: mailto_cgi and scammers Hi All! You folks are great and I thank you for the help I've received in the past. :) I have a new question... I have a few forms set up at my site for folks to send me quick notes, ask me questions, etc. These are set up so that the user submits his inquiry to me via my mailto_cgi bin rather than through his own email program. Today I received one of those mailto_cgi bin emails but it was one of those Nigerian scams rather than a visitor looking to communicate something about my site. Did this scammer actually go to my site and fill in my form manually or have scammers figured out how to utilize mailto_cgi bins? Thank you again everyone for all of your help! Have a terrific day, Diane Dennis http://www.thecontractorsgroup.com diane, thecontractorsgroup.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains © Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "No man can discover his own talents." - Brendan Francis |
