A penny per email, please...
 

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The "Spam Problem" grows like a cancer out of control.
I believe Hayne recently posted statistics that 94% (or was it 97%) of all all email today is spam.

My dismal conclusion is that there are only two cures for the email pandemic:

1.) Define this is a terrorist threat, undermining the very communications fabric required by democratic societies and the world of free enterprise. And insist that we must deal with it with a high-power combination of NSA-like intelligence and mobile, supra-national SWAT teams.

2.) Paid email. If everyone has to pay a penny or so for each email sent, then spam would no longer be economically viable. I would cheerfully pay my penny -- especially if the proceeds were to go into a development fund managed by, say, the One Laptop Per Child Project (see also here).

In fact, I would happily settle for the Bill & Melissa Gates Foundation!
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Personally, I wouldn't pay to send email - it's only popular BECAUSE it's free.

And spam, however annoying, isn't terrorism.

The pay to e-mail system would also pay you, and it's only a penny, so it's trivial. I can send 50 e-mails, pay only 50 cents, but if I receive 50 replies I get it all back.

However, it's kind of silly and impossible to administer. Also it does nothing over the "reply to authenticate" method that is already in use. If you're not aware of this, it's a system that auto-replies to every new sender asking them to click on a link or reply to prove they are human. It's flawless so far because spammers never send a real reply address. Simple, cheap, effective.

I would agree with paying a penny per email addressee with one caveat. You can send to the first 150 addressees (per month) for free. After that, it is a penny per addressee. That would essentially keep email free, as well as discourage your friends from sending annoying Urban Legends, jokes, and inspirational drivel.

Also, one can pretty well guaranty the same people who operate the spambots will find some way to hack this kind of system to funnel the cash their way. Possibly using (well-paid) inside assistance. :D

I use Spamnix with Eudora and gMail's own spam filters and rarely (less than one percent) get a spam message in either inbox. Once in a while, I clear them out without reviewing them. Why should I worry? Why should I pay?

What I haven't understood is why email isn't like FAX. Remember years ago you'd come into the office and there'd be 3 meters of fax paper spam. Somehow that got outlawed and stopped because they were using my resources without my permission. If I had a bandwidth limit, wouldn't spam be in the same boat? Why isn't it?

It would still be viable for the spammer because they aren't sending it from their computer. However it would be one way to let the zombies know their computers are part of a botnet if they start getting slugged for all the spam being sent from their computers. It would certainly be a big incentive for them to finally get some decent a/v and the end result would be to shut down the bot nets.

If the receiver gets a penny for every email they could get the bots to send all the spam to a dummy company to cash in before the botnets are shut down. If they were smart they could change the content to be a more believable email and distribute the load over their botnet to delay the demise of their bots.

Do these spammers actually make money? Seriously, who buys pennystocks you got emailed, or viagra from a nondescript company. For all you know it's acid-laced heroin. If spammers stopped making money they'd stop spamming

The spam problem is caused by lemmings who actually buy the crap. Email is so cheap you don't need a lot of responses for a ROI. I personally feel the penny charge for email would work. I don't send 200 emails in one day, but I do keep $2 in change in my ash tray. Trade my change for less/no spam? sure.

Yep. That's why they keep spamming.
Some people are dumb enough to fall for it. I think some day-traders are in such a rush to make money, they forget it's a spam message. Or maybe the day-traders are the ones sending out the spam to other day-traders?

The spammers, for the most part, are making money from sending spam for other people. Spammers are rarely selling their own product; they charge you to "market" your product and make money regardless of results.

But yeah, there's a new sucker connecting to the internet every few milliseconds so people do actually buy some of the crap being advertised.

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Well, I know someone who lost at least $ 7000 to Nigerian scam artists, rather early in that game. Would I classify him as dumb? No I wouldn’t. He runs his own ad agency and does quite well. Naturally he is most embarrassed and he refuses to say exactly how much he lost.

Do peoply purchase the stuff spammers advertise? Sure. Even a minuscule fraction of 1% makes that business highly profitable.

I think the best way to cope with spam is to make sure that spammers (and hackers who zombify boxes) are caught and prosecuted very harshly. 5 years in prison being someone's bitch might make a dude think twice. Maybe.

This one could just as well go to the Simpsons quote thread but I thought it applied here. :p

Unplugging elements of the botnet
 

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Wouldn’t it be nice if one could do the following:

1.) Switch off web services to machines that are part of botnets. After first sending them a warning what their machine is compromised.

2.) Switch off web connections for servers that have more than XXX botnet computers attached to them, or to IP providers that are forwarding large volumes of botnet traffic without taking effective measures.

3.) (You will love this one) Make illegal Operating Systems with inherent weakness that are so serious that they fail to prevent machines running them becoming botnet slaves.

It’s the thought that counts, right? Even if it is surreal... :D

The internet was conceived as a way to communicate and express oneself freely. PAY per email?. Dude, you're on the drugsss!!. No way!.

Please chill out, it's not worth getting how you currently are... and welcome to macosxhints

Uhhm I am perfectly "chilled out" but thanks for the advice. I'm allowed my opinion actually!.

You don't know how I "currently am", at all. I'm fine thankyou! :)

I would happily pay $ 0.25 per day for the emails I send, if that meant no spam.
Even if it would mean less money left over to buy drugs... :rolleyes:

Spam is a misnomer. The correct name is direct marketing, and it is a legitimate advertising form that has been with us for at least decades. The postal system has been inundated with it, and just recently it's found a new avenue through the e-mail system.

Attempting to charge money for e-mail based direct marketing probably won't make it go away, although it might change the game a bit. There are companies that spend or used to spend millions of dollars making postal-mail based direct marketing.

A world without junk mail would be much more efficient, but also a lot more boring.

Are you longing for high-quality DM email?
 

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Interesting point, ThreeDee.

Like many people I experience my email a bit more like the telephone, and not so much a digital version of my physical mail box. And unwelcome email feels really invasive. It’s a bit like calls from an overly friendly salesman who mispronounces my name, then beats around the bush before making her/his uninteresting point.

Invasive
The point is that I usually don’t let them get that far. Unwelcome telemarketers are just as invasive as encyclopedia salesmen with a key to your front door!

And furthermore, at least my homephone is "reserved" against those sales efforts. That’s easy here, and I believe in the USA and other countries you can register onto a list of people who say "no thanks". As far as I know, telemarketers and Gallup pollsters aren’t even allowed to call cell phones!

This reminds me of an old cartoon. It showed a befuddled mailman delivering post to a house that had two mail boxes. One was marked "The Smiths". The other had "Occupant" written on it in big letters.

A new dialog box
I think most of us would be ecstatic if we could open up a Dialog Box for each email address, and check off "No spam, please". Or "No DM email", if you prefer...


High quality DM email?
Come to think of it, if the senders had to pay a penny per addressee, we would not only see spam slow to a trickle. The remaining "DM email" might be of such high quality, and so well-targeted, that it might actually be worth reading!

It’s a bit like production of TV commercials, and I’ve written a few. The good producers really go out of their way to make ’em good, to catch your attention. Saying "Palmolive" twelve times in the space of 30 seconds, or claiming "It’s the king of beers", no longer does the trick for everybody.

-- ArcticStones

Any resemblance to legitimate marketing is coincidental. It is a legitimate advertising form when done through the postal system because direct marketers pay to send the mail. Spammers are not legitimate because they force the rest of us to pay for the enormous bandwidth used by junk email. Stealing computer time from unaware PC users is also criminal.

I would argue that direct marketing via e-mail ("spam") and direct marketing via postal-mail ("junk mail") are in essence the same. True, the specifics of the two are different, but we can draw many parallels between them.

Just one example:

cwtnospam says that "spam" uses lots of bandwidth, and I would agree in most cases. It is burdensome on networks, etc.

On the other hand, imagine the stress placed on the postal system by very large magazine-style catalogs from companies like Best, JC Penny, and others. Postal delivery men hate sending those out because they are back-breaking to have to carry around. The companies sending the magazines have paid money to the postal service, but even so, it has a burdensome effect on every stage of delivery, and slows down delivery of regular mail too. In the end everybody ends up paying for it.

One might even argue that the postal service would not even exist if it were not for junk mail since it has provided so much revenue over the years. Certainly there would be many fewer postal carriers, vehicles, and processing centers if we only ever received "useful" mail.

I'm not trying to make an argument for or against spam, but we should to realize that this is not a new phenomenon.

Another thought:

Charging money per e-mail or per spam will eventually turn the e-mail system into a revenue monster. It will become an industry dependent on spam for it's own survival.

People's jobs and the futures of certain companies will rely on a steady stream of spam. (just like the postal system depends on junk-mail) If spam were to stop, then these people and companies would all of a sudden have to be scaled back to adjust. Generally speaking, people don't like to lose their source of income.

Don’t throw the phone book at me!
 

One of Norway’s environmental organizations recently made the point that the paper telephone catalog is obsolete. Most people search for phone numbers online, or send sms queries to your equivalent of 411. They convinced the phone company to create a simple web form where people can say "no thanks" to the upcoming catalog(s).

That initiative saves paper and printing costs, and decreases the burden on the environment. The digital age does bring some blessings. :)

That's good thinking, (and slightly off topic :) ) but the users not getting the book must have an internet connection. Another solution might be to distribute the contents of the book on CD or other cheap, light, disposable media. Of course, this solution only works if we assume the user has a computer.

There is a biodegradable CD which Sanyo has developed.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,11...1/article.html
The article is from 2003, and I don't know if it was ever produced.

Perhaps a tiny RFID chip is all that's needed to store the entire phone directory.
That would be the perfect size for sending via post.
(…and now I'm off topic.)

How about this? For every unsolicited mail I get in my box, I receive $.05 from the sender that goes toward my DSL bill. After that, it accumulates into an account. For opt-in mails that I want to receive, I supply a number code within the subject or email text that allows a "free pass" to my inbox.

Difficult to administer, I know. But at least I will be happy to see those stupid Cialis/Viagra ads.

complain or...
 

1) get a good client side email filter such as spamsieve.
2) get good server side spam tools such as spamassassin.
3) pay a service to filter your email. There are services that will do this for one email account and services that will do this for thousands of email accounts.
4) insist that your ISP do 2) or 3)
5) change your email account to another provider that does good email filtering.

Those are your short term options

For the long term, you can get involved with spamhaus or some other organization that is fighting spam on a global level.

http://www.spamhaus.org/

mclbruce - Problem with Spam filtering is that I still need to administer it. It's not like I can turn it on and feel free. I have a business and cannot chance missing a "want to purchase" or "need support" email. I constantly have to check my Spam folder to make sure a personal email has not fallen through the cracks. There are measures I have taken that have greatly reduced my Spam mail, but again, it requires almost a daily maintenance.

I'm not for junk mail of any kind, but there's a world of difference between paying a business send to people and forcing a business to pass on virtually 100% of the cost to the recipients. Junk mail through the postal system adds to their economies of scale, thereby lowering the cost of sending a letter. Junk email adds significantly to the costs for all ISPs while providing no extra income.

I agree that if you could implement paid e-mail/paid spam it might stifle the current incarnation of spam, but that's in the short-term.

In the long-term, as soon as you attach a dollar sign to spam it basically guarantees that it will live on forever. Spam will change its form, laws will be laxed, and the revenue machine will be in effect. What organization is going to want to fight against spam or outlaw it if companies are paying good money to make sure it gets into your inbox?

If the desired effect is to stop spam, then charging for it is not the way to go. If the desired effect is to offset the cost of maintenance and bandwidth, then paid e-mail may be the way to go.

Pretty fascinating stuff.
Especially the part about the world’s 200 worst spammers being responsible for 80% of the world’s email spam. Wow!

But it is going to live on, as long as we have any kind of mail! The solution is to control it, much the way the postal system does. There's a minimum cost that anyone sending bulk mail must pay if they're going to use the postal system, and that limits the amount of junk mail that gets sent. Email essentially has no limits, and that's it's biggest problem.

I think that's what is most annoying about spam. It was never requested and there is no way to opt-out. In most cases the spam I receive seem to be trying to profit from criminal acts such as phishing for banking details or stock pump & dumps. This is a long way from a catalog in your letter box.

No, it was not, not even close. Where did you get that idea?

Which is it? A burden, or profitable? Do we all pay for it, or does it help create more profit? If the sending of junk mail wasn't profitable, then the USPS, a private corporation, would stop it.

Sigh. Around here it seems people still use that thing. I get a couple every year, which go directly to the recycle bin. I haven't opened a phone book in...probably 6-8 years. Same with newspapers of course.

I loathe spam/direct marketing mail. What a waste of energy, really. But like most people here I wouldn't pay for an email service. Also I believe any company setting up a paid service with advanced mail filters wouldn't be competitive because there will always be free email options like hotmail etc which despite poor spam filtering are very usable. Freedom is sweet.


I think internet access for starters should be free for every individual especially at risk groups like low income families or families close to the poverty line and for every student. Initiatives like One Laptop Per Child are a true blessing and its good that at least within the IT industry there are responsible social entrepreneurs like the Gates, Omidyar of eBay and some Yahoo execs.

Rather more effort should be put by r&d teams to bolster their spam filters. Is it really that difficult? We need innovation, hopefully some kid from MIT will come up with a solution that will make us all gasp.

I don't have an answer to that question, just guesses. Maybe I was trying to give two different ways of looking at the situation, and thinking out loud. Can not junk mail be burdensome and also be a source of revenue at the same time?

Not for a business. It's either profitable, or it's not. ;)


:D My in-laws are visiting, so we have newspapers in the house for the first time since I don't know when! It definitely has a different feel from a web site. It's funny though, that I tend to see the news paper as limited - fragile, easily lost, and hard to search, and they see the web as being even more difficult! :D

I suppose as a business person I can consider certain customer requests "burdensome," but if they make me a profit, that's what matters. If they make enough profit, I shift the burden to an employee.

Sounds great, but who should be forced to pay their way?

I wonder how good spam filtering can get. From what I read Postini is one of the best at it. They announced a deal with Google today. One of my clients also signed up with them today. It will be interesting to see how much management is involved.

For me, I wish I had a SPAM filtering option that stated that if ANY other address is in BCC, then it would be trashed. Even if Postini were close to perfect, I would still have a fear that I am missing a potential customer's email.

This is exactly what I’m looking for! Have hunted high and low in MS Engourage, with no success. If someone knows the magic word (or preference setting), please please let me know!!

-- ArcticStones

I have a rule in Mail set up to trash any mail that doesn't have my address in TO or CC, so anything that's BCC'd to me is automatically in the trash. It's not quite what you're looking for, but it might be close enough to what you want.

Some people fear losing an important email this way, but my feeling is that if it were important for me to read it, then I wouldn't be on the BCC list. ;)

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CWT, do you know how to set up such a rule in Entourage?
I would be grateful!

I don't use Entourage, but I believe it would be very similar to Mail. See attached.

Entourage has similar rules under tools menu

A 5th criterion?
 

I’ve opened Edit Rule under Tools many a time, but now it seems I finally was able to call forth the choices you indicated.

I’ve set four criteria, To and Cc for each of my two email addresses. I would, however, like to add a 5th criterion: that the email is OK if the sender is in my address book. That, however, does not seem possible.

Nevertheless I’m one key step further.
Thanks! :)

Under Criterion I can see "From" in the first menu and "Is in Address Book" in the second.

Another useful one is Attachment > Name Contains >".gif"

cwtnospam - Thank you for that. I will give it a try. Since my Spam goes straight to the trash, I could always monitor it for valid folk before I delete it to oblivion.

Other handy email rules?
 

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Thanks for the good help! I now have three rules in place:
1) Gets rid of blind copy emails.
2) Gets rid of emails with gif attachments
3) Puts all the MacOSXHints notices in their own folder.

I would be very interested in hearing what sort of rules people have set in their own email apps. But perhaps that belongs in a separate thread...

Maybe someone here could create a thread on "Handy Email Rules"?

-- ArcticStones

I would finger the availability of free email accounts as being more of the problem than free email. Rather than charge for carriage how about demand a 'good behaviour' bond - your account gets used (spoofing doesn't count) you lose your bond. And you have to provide another one to continue using it - might force those with lousy security to smarten up a bit.

My other thought is that if 95% of email is spam then the average user's email that s/he actually wants is at most 5%. This tiny figure makes me wonder whether it is more effective to train a semantic filter (such as the one in Mail.app) on email you want to receive (i.e so what gets flagged as junk is good email) and to pass all other email to your 'real' junk folder.

I'm not sure how effective the idea would be, or how to do this because I've only just had the idea, and a beer, stronger than I thought it would be, has robbed me of my higher brain functions.

If so, Bramley, then this is one "consciousness lowering session" in which I would be delighted to join you. So far the results are excellent!

:D

PS. The group Oregon once introduced a piece at a concert with the following words:

I set this rule, but ALL of my mail goes in the trash! I have the following rule...

If "To:" does NOT contain "schneb" then send to trash.

All of the emails with "schneb" in the "To:" address are now going to the trash. Any reason why this is?

If you are checking To and CC in the rule you need to set it to

If "all" of the following conditions are met:

No, just the one. It seems to me, as written, that if my address (which contains "schneb") is NOT in the To: box, that it should go to trash. If it IS in the To: box, it should stay in the inbox. Why is it not acting correctly?

Do you have any other rules or junk mail filtering that could be deleting the message?