May 2008
75 posts
PC World: Web 2.0 Sites a Thriving Marketplace for... →
sounds like the bad guys totally grok the new new marketing
2 tags
Mean Ol' ISPs, WAHHHH
Friend of mine had a call a few days ago with a customer of theirs. They’re having some concerns about their delivery. It seems they used to be able to buy addresses and mail them and see really good response and delivery and stuff. Now, though, those Mean Ol’ ISPs have changed their filtering such that it’s just not possible for an innocent company to spam the world...
6 tags
OECD: Malicious Software (Malware): A Security... →
OECD, an international policy organization, has published a “Ministerial Background Report” to help lawmakers understand what malware is and why it matters. It may help to illuminate corporate decision-makers, too.
Intellectual Intercourse: Do you want to fund the... →
another good article from Mickey today, wherein he describes some recent “good ideas” from the email marketing industry and asks “Are you prepared to fund the lawsuit to prove that your dubious idea isn’t a violation of the law?”
Intellectual Intercourse: A 13 Year Old Gives a... →
Mickey Chandler explains how a 13-year-old girl’s advice to a politician applies to deliverability discussions
NZ Herald: Hacker in $300,000 ATM fraud jailed for... →
“He set up bank websites and sent thousands of unsolicited emails inviting individuals to provide personal details including credit card numbers and PIN numbers under the illusion they were being provided to the bank.”
(via fergdawg)
Broadband Reports: Comcast Domain Hacked - Comcast... →
not sure if guessing someone’s password counts as a “hack,” but this should serve as a reminder to everyone to remember your registrar accounts when defining security policies.
Jerusalem Post: Knesset outlaws unsolicited spam,... →
‘Israel’s new legislation employs the stricter “opt-in” approach, with the exception that those who purchase an item and send their details to a company can be sent bulk mail if they have not specifically opted out. Another exception included in the bill allows for bulk mailing for political or charity purposes.’
Seth's Blog: Angry people are different →
‘“I’m never coming back to this restaurant again!” is angry. “Our special next week is lasagna…” isn’t going to do the trick as a response.’
As Laura wrote, “Every marketer should ask where their recipients are on that curve.” And, ask honestly — let go of the self-delusion that every recipient wants to hear your message.
Return Path: From the Email Insiders Summit: The... →
at the disingenuously named spring break for email marketers, a bunch of college kids surprised everyone by explaining that they like to be social with their friends, and don’t like marketing that holds no value to them
Email Marketing Reports: The hidden costs of... →
Mark Brownlow reviews the effects on human reputation (what the recipient thinks of a brand) from lazy email design
SFGate: Yahoo files suit against lottery spammers →
After years of just lying there and taking it, Yahoo! has filed suit against the phishers who claim to be some sort of Yahoo!-sponsored lottery.
(via the freshly redesigned word to the wise)
ClickZ: Inside MySpace's War on Marketing Abuse →
an interesting interview with MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam
A (Budding) Sociologist’s Commonplace Book: The... →
“the modern radio industry was given birth in part by spam”
ICANN: "Worst spam offenders" notified by ICANN →
after many years of extremely obvious inaction, ICANN has finally decided to politely ask spam-supporting registrars to enforce their stated policies
Center for the Childbearing Year: Delivery Status... →
allowing posting to your blog by email can be dangerous; you never know what might end up there
“out of office” messages may seem like a good idea, but may reveal things you didn’t want exposed
the combination of the two may result in unexpected hilarity, at least for those of us who spend way too much time looking at email
Obayanahannahlwd: Rise: Preventing spam. →
one unpronouncably pseudonymous splogger’s advice for preventing spam
US FBI: Phishing Related to Issuance of Economic... →
this “New E-Scams & Warnings” page looks like it could be useful for end users, or anyone charged with educating & protecting end users
Microsoft Research: How Dynamic are IP Addresses?... →
Researchers at Microsoft (including Hotmail’s long-time lead MTA/anti-spam developer) have developed an algorithm to identify dynamic traffic, and report some interesting findings.
(via Dr. Dobb’s, where the author used a lot of words but doesn’t appear to understand the research)
ClickZ: What Is Your E-mail's Value? →
Stefan Pollard asks “Look at your last e-mail message from your reader’s viewpoint. Why would that reader ever want to get another message from you?”
ZDNet Australia: Antivirus is 'completely wasted... →
“There are too many companies in the world that actually believe infection is just a cost of doing business and are getting used to doing it — as opposed to stopping it completely.”
Adventures in Email Marketing: Political Spamming →
Anna Billstrom reviews common practices & legal requirements for political email; also interesting are Laura Atkins’ reply, and the comments for both articles
F-Secure: Phishing Piers on Legitimate Sites →
F-Secure reports an increase in phishing sites set up on hacked (but otherwise legit) web servers
(via scmagazineus, via fergdawg)
PC World: MySpace Hit by Application Spam →
Just like Facebook, MySpace has had to change their application development rules “to prevent developers from building self-promotional features into their applications that result in intrusive and deceitful behavior, such as generating unsolicited messages to other users or tricking application users into approving such actions.”
Why can’t the social networking community learn...
Security Park: Employees perceive spam as an... →
In a study in the UK, “[n]early one third…were satisfied with their company not fully protecting e-mail as they didn’t feel they would be targeted by cybercriminals.”
Oops.
Royal Pingdom: Gallery of Network Operations... →
it’s a safe bet that “deliverability” isn’t on any of these fancy screens
DNSBL Resource: DSBL Current Status: DOWN →
yet another hobbyist-run blacklist disappears without warning, and without a recovery plan
InfoWorld: 38 in U.S., Romania charged in phishing... →
“The indictments…focus on two related phishing schemes with ties to organized crime….”
(via fergdawg)
Word to the Wise: Verifying email addresses →
Laura Atkins describes another case of mistaken identity, and her travails in trying to unravel it so she can unsubscribe from multiple layers of lists.
When it’s this difficult for an extremely dedicated expert, is it any wonder that most humans will just click “spam” and get back to their lives?
Washington Post Security Fix: Most Spam Sites Tied... →
we linked to another article earlier, but this story has many more details
CDT PolicyBeta: Charter-ing a New Course in... →
this is likely to be the next big internet privacy debate
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: No new money for FBI's... →
“Despite a powerful surge in bank robbery, mortgage fraud and white-collar crimes, the Bush administration’s 2009 budget leaves an already handicapped FBI criminal program without the agents it needs to respond…” even though data shows “…a spike in bank robbery and continued sharp increases in white-collar crime,” and “Cybercrime increased 20 percent...
John Levine: CAN SPAM and Affiliate Mailer Opt-Out →
under the FTC’s latest CAN SPAM ruling, ostrich-like marketers may finally be held responsible for spam sent by their affiliates (wink wink nudge nudge)
CircleID: A Case of Mistaken Identity →
an email address is not as reliable an identifier as many sites assume — especially when they neglect the confirmation step
Spammer Anti-CAPTCHA operations and Mass-Mailing... →
A good description of the most effective spam tactic(s) in use today.
Email Marketing Reports: The new email marketing:... →
in part 3 of an ongoing series, Mark Brownlow reminds us that “accountability communicates trust” — and explains some ways to be accountable when sending mail
Security Bytes: Google Docs used in latest spam... →
Matt Sergeant describes Google Docs links appearing in spam, intended to fool users into clicking through — proving once again that no online service can assume it’ll stay free of abuse for long
The Guardian: Yahoo downgrades antispam measure... →
This seems like something that should have been rolled out in a ‘log only’ mode for a day or two to see how much traffic it would affect.
The idea in general isn’t bad, but they probably should have counted how many different domains a given customer IP address sent as in a day and then only hit the ones that used an abnormally high number.
Terry Zink: Sample stats on botnets →
interesting stats on botnet sizes & activities, as seen from Hotmail
Joho the Blog: Jonathan Zittrain →
David Weinberger’s live recap of a talk in which Jonathan Zittrain discusses the balance between the openness which let the early internet grow and experiment and thrive, and the need for security on the modern result
Slate: eBay v. Craigslist. →
a good round-up of links & info, to augment the opinion posted earlier
Daytona Beach News-Journal: Locals accused in $77... →
the article doesn’t mention spam, but it seems likely
(via fergdawg)
5 tags
Ebay Phishing?
Not specifically email related but close enough.
ZDnet has a blog entry talking about Craigslist’s claim of phishing by eBay against them.
As a part of the ongoing legal drama between eBay and Craigslist, Craigslist has now sued eBay. Among their claims is something they are calling phishing attacks. In reality it looks like what they are talking about is a very misleading Google ad.
...
Terry Zink: Hard to see, the future is →
a fine summary of the difficulties of measuring anti-spam effectiveness
Chicago Tribune: MySpace tells AP it has won $234M... →
MySpace won (not surprisingly) against Sanford Wallace and Walt Rines, both of whom have lost case after case after case but still haven’t learned anything
(via fergdawg)
GCN: Whittling spam down to a manageable level →
“According to a study…by KnujOn…90 percent of the illicit Web sites using spam to generate traffic are clustered on just 20 registrars…”
The Email Wars: Sweet so is Google a Spammer Now? →
Dylan seems very excited about the tales of Google being used as a spam relay. Misplaced schadenfreude, perhaps?
I’ve been reading The Email Wars for some time, but for some reason he never rarely approves any of my comments. Here’s the comment I submitted this time (which he did approve, after all):
Sausage, an anonymous contributor to Box of Meat, had an interesting take on...