[NTLUG:Discuss] the breaking point of spam

[steve]

Neil Aggarwal wrote:

> The only solution I have seen to that so far is to disrupt
> enough of their customers to the point where they find
> it more costly to deal with the problems of being blocked
> than to ignore the spam reports.

That's all very well - unless you happen to be one of their
innocent customers.  It's all very well to say "Well, if your
ISP is causing problems then switch to another ISP" - but
that's just not possible for a large fraction of broadband
users.

I don't pretend to have a solution - but one I rather like
(in the abstract) is to dissuade spammers by sending them
bad checks.

A typical spammer sends out a couple of million spams -
expecting to get a dozen or so responses from **STUPID**
people.  There are evidently enough stupid people to make
this a viable business model.

However, if they got (say) 200 bad checks (drawn on completely
fictitious accounts and in completely false names and addresses)
in response to every million spams then their ability to make
a profit would be sharply curtailed by the effort involved
in sorting out the 'genuine' customers from the bad fake
customers.  This effectively turns the tables on spammers
by using their own tactics back on them.

Obviously it would take a few thousand people who were
committed to doing this - but I do think a dedicated
campaign would be able to destroy a spammer's business
model by forcing them to do work in proportion to the
number of spams they send.   The most egregious spammers
are the ones who broadcast in the least focussed way
and this approach would penalise those bozo's in
proportion to their sins.

Sadly it's probably illegal to do this.

For me, personally, my Thunderbird Baysian filters are
working pretty well.  Currently, about 90% of the mail
arriving at my machine is spam - but only about 15% of
the mail I actually *see* is junk.   That ratio is
tolerable for me...the bandwidth it wastes is pretty
trivial and the time it takes to hit the 'Junk' button
for about a mere handful of messages a day is a negligable
fraction of my work day.