Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 20:00:52 -0400
From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] Another twist on spam
To: Tim O'Connor <tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >When I examined the bounces, it was clear that they came from
> >many disparate sources clearly NOT my domain; this was evident
> >in the headers. The forgeries all claimed to come from my domain,
> >"dachshund DOT com." But each message had some insanely fake
> >username before the @ sign, and each was directed at anywhere from
> >three to six AOL victims.
Congratulations. You've been "joe-jobbed". That's a slang term for
one of the many sleazy tactics that spammers use to try to (a) evade
anti-spam measures and (b) shift blame elsewhere. In your case, it sounds
like you were just the next random victim to be used; other folks have
experienced obvious deliberate targeting (usually after they've caused
some discomfort for a spammer) to the tune of several millions spams.
Those of us who have been active in the anti-spam movement for
a long time have been pointing out things like this (and network
hijacking, and open proxy scanning/hijacking, and domain hijacking, and
nameserver hijacking, and denial-of-service attacks, and mailbombing,
and forge-subscription attacks, etc.) for years. Unfortunately, there
are a lot of under-informed people out there who still -- foolishly --
cling to the "gosh, it's not a problem for me, why don't you just hit
delete?" mentality, instead of being perceptive enough to recognize that
spam is currently the net's #1 problem by a wide margin, and that the
myriad effects of it are costing us ALL a heck of a lot of time and money.
As to the digital shotgun, I can't approve of that. However, I am in full
agreement with FTC Chairman Orson Swindle, who said "What we need are
a couple of good hangings". (Much tidier than the the shotgun, you see.)
---Rsk