Blog for Antispam and Content Filtering Observations

Spammers Adjust To Economic Times

2009-04-06T12:55:00.007-04:00

Numbers. So much of the spam world is numbers.

IP address… numbers
Volume of spam email … numbers
Money lost due to scams… numbers

Behind every number is a person: A spammer running a rogue email server or a person opening an email. And with this simple act of opening an email, they fall prey to ID theft, malware installation and possibly an emptier bank account.

Spam emails with monetary themes are reported to be on the upswing and why not. Falling stock values, job losses and bailouts are top-of-mind for just about everyone. Newspapers hammer this theme home. CNBC parades a steady stream of analysts all predicting or not predicting “The Bottom”. The talk among parents waiting to pick up our darling children at my kids school, often centers around who lost their jobs this week. Bailout this. Don’t bailout that. Top-of-mind.

So is it any surprise the spammers have moved from pushing offshore drug distributors to pushing economic solutions.

A five minute search of my own quarantine folder brought these “economic” related subjects to the forefront…

Save Money on your Credit Card
Attention: Union Trust Bank Customer
Behind on House Payments? Load Modification
Stay at Home Mom Makes How Much?

And guess what? In the same search period, not a single email for cheap offshore drugs or Viagra knock-offs, not a single email. A total and complete retargeting (or rebranding) of spammer resources.

And since my personal interest lies in international spam (thanks to my company’s XE-Filter product designed specifically for international spam email), I want to bring up this little nugget from the “Emirates Business 24/7” web site…

"Spam is also getting globalised as Brazil, Russia, India and China are among the biggest emerging broadband markets worldwide and as such offer a tremendous opportunity for cybercrime ".

Kind of hits right in the heart of my company's demographic. Do your company a favor… check XE-Filter out.

Thanks

AAS

____________________[ AD ]____________________

XE-Filter offers six layers of email protection...

Block by Country-Of-Origin
DNS Blacklist
IP Address Whitelist
IP Address Blacklist
Sender Address Whitelist
Sender Address Blacklist

Sincere apologies for being away so long...

2009-04-06T12:01:00.003-04:00

Been a long time since I played with this little spam forum of mine so let me apologize to those who visit this little blog of mine. I know you are out there be cause I regularly get updates on web traffic and see y’all coming around.

So what jarred me into action and brought me back from my real work to this blog?

Well I was doing some Google Analysis on keywords and there, popping up several times in page one rankings were link to articles that I have written for the blog.

First thought... great… second thought … what was I doing not updating it.

So my second though won out, real work aside, I am now looking for a topical item to publish. Maybe something ironic? Maybe something downright idiotic? But I will publish.

So until then a side note from a Michigan State fan …

Sparty On .... GO GREEN GO WHITE …. Beat those NC guys in powder blue.

Holiday Spam is not Aunt Honey’s Fruitcake

2008-11-25T10:08:00.005-05:00

So the demise of ISPs McColo and Intercage has brought about a noticeable decrease in the amount of spam floating around the Internet but be wary… the upcoming Christmas season is prime time for scams and spams.

A quick check of my quarantine email folder has brought up several bogus messages with a holiday themes like “Get 10 Holiday Cards on Us” or “Gas Holiday Savings at BP Exxon” and surprise surprise, the associated email domains did not really exist.

Spammers are hoping to take advantage of distracted folks and the often hectic pace of the upcoming holidays.

A recent email scam has messages that appear to come from UPS carrying a message that your package is lost. In the hustle and bustle of the season with trees to decorate, relatives to visit, screaming kids home from school (oh wait… that’s my house), an overloaded person could really believe that Aunt Honey’s fruitcake was actually lost by UPS. A few distracted clicks later and your personal info is of into the land of cyber-crooks never to return.

So when your mailbox (or quarantine message folder) is full of cyber-messages of good cheer and special holiday offers keep a keen eye open to the actual sender of the message and be sure that you really have an interest in the product before you click.

It never ceases to amaze me that somehow after all these years of warning about email trickery stealing your personal information, your time and sometimes even hijacking your computer, spam is still profitable. A University of California study showed that even by getting just 1 response for every 12 million emails sent spammers still turn a profit.

Incidentally, Aunt Honey’s fruitcake will arrive on time… it always does.

AAS

PS
Remember... XE-Filter makes the perfect gift for your email server this Christmas: Lighten it's load and improve its performance. And XE-Filter works great with existing outsourced hosted email and offsite filtering services.

Refer a Friend... Get an XE-Filter Discount

2008-08-27T08:49:00.002-04:00

We at CMS know that XE-Filter is an excellent product.

Our customers know that it is an excellent product and telling their friends and associates about XE-Filter is quite common.

So, we have decided to try to expand this viral, grass-root marketing of XE-Filter by offering these existing customer access to the XE-Filter Rewards Program. Refer a friend or associate to XE-Filter and upon their purchase, receive discounts of 20% to 100% on support fees.

It's a good deal. So if you are an XE-Filter site already, tell a friend and take advantage of the new discounts.

If you are not an XE-Filter site, maybe you want to buy one for yourself and then.... refer a friend.

AAS

Denial of Service Flood - Update

2008-04-01T10:56:00.003-04:00

Just an update on a previous blog...

Just about two weeks ago, one of our customers, a small trucking company, was under a severe "Denial of Service" spam attack.

Averaging about 1 million bogus messages a day, their use of the CMS XE-Filter product saved their operations and bought them time to ride out the email storm.

Over the period of the attack, XE-Filter refused 20 million spam email messages that tried to reach their server.

But now the onslaught appears to be just about over. And if it is just a lull in the storm, well they still have XE-Filter, their first line of protection.

So again, XE-Filter preformed admirably, but our customers knew it would.

AAS

Denial of Service Flood ... Rejected

2008-03-17T10:31:00.005-04:00

Normally I don’t venture into tech support. They are several buildings away from my desk and I spent enough time in tech support during my dark past, but an email I received from them today got my attention.

Apparently there is a small trucking and container company located on the West Coast whose domain was hijacked by spammers and is currently under a massive “Denial of Service" spam attack.

Since early March, this company, with 15 employee mailboxes, is averaging over 1 million incoming, bogus email messages per day.

Bad news? No, not really.

This company is an XE-Filter customer and XE-Filter has worked flawlessly in protecting their email server from this DoS attack.

The CEO of CMS, Lih-Tah Wong, thinks that the attack on this company goes beyond just ordinary spam…

“The stats show that they are still getting pounded with the same crap they have been getting since early March. Since this flood has not subsided, someone is continuing to use their domain name in sending out spam. It seems malicious and intentional to me”.

So the good news is that XE-Filter’s Denial of Service protection let these West Coast guys go about their normal business.

So while XE-Filter has started out as simply a “Country-of-Origin” filter, it has now become a major means of email protection for many, many companies.

AAS

Is Spam Declining?

2008-02-28T09:23:00.005-05:00

An interesting question has been posed to CMS technicians over the past few weeks.... "Are spam volumes declining"?

The answer of course is "NO". So what is happening?

Apparently somes XE-Filter sites are reporting a reduction in their spam filtering rates and spam volumes. So where is the spam going?

It took a little research but CMS technicians now believe that sophisticated spammers, monitoring their spamming success rates have noticed that certain IP addresses are not worth their time and resources. And so, they are de-listing these IP addresses.

CMS folks believe that XE-Filter, with many sites filtering over 95% of all incoming mail before it ever reaches a mail server, is apparently both getting noticed and getting ignored by large spammers.

So the recipe is quite simple...

Add XE-Filter, highly effective with four layers of email protection
Prevent unwanted email from ever reaching your email servers
Get the attention of large, sophisticated spammers
Get ignored by large sophisticated spammers.
Only get the email you want.

Simple.

AAS

Spam-in' On Up to the Eastside

2007-12-11T10:45:00.000-05:00

First, my apologies to George and Wheezy for paraphrasing their theme song as my title.

Now isn't this interesting. Apparently the “Russian Business Network” (RBN) has disappeared from St. Petersburg and is thought to be relocating to China.

For those who are unfamiliar with RBN, let me fill you in… Just see the “Rock Phish” item I published several weeks ago. This is representative of the clientele for the RBN, just your usual child porn, identity theft, spamming by the millions folks. Known to many but beyond the reach of authority (if an authority exists).

The current thinking is that this host to Russian cyber-crooks has found a sympathetic home within the vast Chinese internet (162 million Internet users, 1.31 million websites and 67 million online computers).

So now, spammer hosts have the anonymity to relocate under an international curtain. If it's too hot in St. Petersburg (hard to believe in December), move on to the next welcoming country.

So how do Russian officials view the folks over at RBN?

"A spokesman for the Russian Embassy at first denied any knowledge of the RBN, then suggested that it was based in England." (Read)

One researcher suggests that to some, “Robin Hood” is alive and well…

"Hackers are bad-arse freedom fighters who are putting it to fat westerners with too much money, and that's not seen as a bad thing." (Read)

And of course the Secretary General of Interpol, Ronald K. Noble, states the obvious…

"It is clear that organized cybercrime has taken root in countries that don't have response mechanisms, laws, infrastructure and investigative support set up to respond to the threat quickly." (Read)

Even Robert Mueller, FBI Director acknowledges that cyber-threats are international…

"Increasingly, cyber threats originate outside of our borders". (Read)

So what can a small business, community or school do to protect themselves and email from international spam threats? I know. Filter your email based on Country-Of-Origin.

Simple fix. Grand results.

AAS

Rock Phish, Nepal and the Holidays

2007-11-23T09:49:00.000-05:00

It’s the Friday after Thanksgiving (Here in the USA) and I’m watching the kids while my wife shops. It’s also perhaps one of the slowest business days imaginable, so I have a chance to update the blog with a little spam news.

“ROCK PHISH RULES” (Read)

Rock and Roll! Is it the latest musical group from St. Petersburg, Russia? No, but as this articles suggests, it “might be the greatest success story of the former Eastern Bloc's high-tech boom – if only it weren’t so illegal”.

Rock Phish is raking in over $100,000,000 a year from unsuspecting email victims willing to give out names, addresses, Social Security Numbers and more to these international folks who can craft a well designed email.

END OF THE ROAD FOR SPAM IN NEPAL (Read)

At first I thought “Great, another international spam story, right up my alley and perfect for XE-Filter". But who knew that in Nepal SPAM really stands for “Seven Party Alliance and Maoists”.

Stopping international spam email is one thing, but I think the XE-Filter will have to stay out of rebellions, uprisings and other geo-political events.

“TIS THE SEASON”

The season of Christmas, Hanukah, and all the rest brings not only family, friends and fun, but also a deluge of holiday spam.

Fake Holiday eCards
Credit Card Phishing
Charity eMail Scams
And just about any other way a crook can think to separate you from your money

Be safe, be careful and as always... consider filtering email by "Country or Origin".

AAS

Spam for Fun and Profit in Vietnam

2007-08-22T14:30:00.000-04:00

“In your face world” is literally what some Vietnamese companies are saying by turning spam generation into an open and legitimate business. From the article “Spam eMail in Vietnam”, comes this beauty of a quote…

“Spam mail delivery service has been professionalised in Vietnam. In Hanoi, tens of companies publicly announce they provide this service to clients. Those companies are ready to help their clients to send spam emails to a million mailboxes a day”.

So while the rest of the world is attempting to legislate spam out of existence (good luck with that), some Vietnamese companies are embracing spam email as a capitalist, profit generating business opportunity. Forget the annoyance of “VI-ag-rah” subject lines or the millions of dollars spent to filter email, Vietnam will pump spam by the ton into your mailbox.

With anti-spam laws non-existent in Vietnam, notice this statement from a salesmen of spam generating software in Vietnam. It puts them in direct violation of the CAN-SPAM act in the USA.

“What law? What rule is there about it? Nobody in Vietnam bans you from sending advertising emails. Moreover, our software allows you to add any email address to the sender status so nobody can know that you are the spammer”.

Take that CAN-SPAM. These Vietnamese guys will put any email address they like into the sender and you can't do a thing about it. Can you?

Of course you can ... Try Country of Origin email filtering based upon the IP-Address and not just easily disguised domain names or message body text.

Or are you still convinced that “feel-good” anti-spam laws passed “look-at-me-I-care” politicians work? Remember, no legislation alone is effective when spam originates in countries that really don’t care and allow the establishment of operations that would be illegal in other parts of the world.

So you can reject email based upon its country of origin, check out our free XE-Filter software.

AAS

antispam spam email Vietnam CAN-SPAM spam origin

Browsing Through International Spam News

2007-06-28T14:18:00.000-04:00

A quick Google News search turned up these items of interest in the world of international spam.

Duo found guilty of international spam campaign

Interesting story on some men in the USA using computers in the Netherlands to send pornographic spam to folks in the United States. These guys made around 2 million dollars and according to the article, victimized hundred of thousands with their pornographic spam messages.

Now let’s think about this… how many of those email recipients actually had to receive legitimate email from the Netherlands? We’ll never really know but you can bet that the number was small. The simplest route to protection: filter email by country of origin. If you don’t need to receive email from the Netherlands then don’t accept email from the Netherlands.

Americans retain spam crown

According to this article, 45% of all spam arises within the United States. Not unusual, since the United States has been leading in spam origination since the first spam email was sent

Look at this 45% number from the other side… 55% of all spam in this study arises outside of the USA. So if your business dealings are exclusively in the Unites States then “Country-Of-Origin” email filtering instantly eliminates 55% of any spam before it ever reaches your spam filters and email servers.

Trying not to be too USA centric, if your business is located outside of the United States then just blocking any mail from the USA instantly eliminates 45% of all spam.

U.S. arrests "Spam King," spam goes up 8%

I really love this one from the Xinhua News Agency in China.

"On May 30, U.S. Department of Justice agents arrested a man they called the Spam King and he was arraigned in a Seattle courtroom on charges of mail fraud, fraud in connection with electronic mail, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering. The week after Richard Alan Soloway was incarcerated, the flow of spam rose 8 percent".

Maybe if they arrest a "Spam Prince" or "Spam Baron" the amount of spam will rise only 5% the following week. What about a "Duke of Spam"?

AAS

Estonia / Russia Cyber Attack Update

2007-05-29T10:57:00.000-04:00

Items in the May 28, 2007 edition of the International Herald Tribune have confirmed the spam attacks played an early roll in the cyber disputer between Estonia and Russia.

"In one of the first strikes, a flood of junk messages was thrown at the e-mail server of the [Estonian] Parliament, shutting it down" Read International Herald Tribune story...

While later attacks on the Estonian Internet Infrastructure involved hacked websites and Denial of Service assualts, this early flood of spam crippled servers, reducing the ability to communicate easily via email.

This is why "Country of Origin" email filtering makes so much sense. If you don't have business dealings with a country, who expose your servers to floods of spam email that could arise within its borders. Easily stop email from ever reaching your servers by analyzing the IP address of the originating server.

AAS

"Country-Of-Origin" eMail Filter Could Have Eased Cyber Attack

2007-05-17T10:17:00.000-04:00

According to news reports, the world has entered into a totally new realm with the possibility of the first state sponsored cyber war. Estonia has accused Russia of waging Denial-of-Service and spam attacks on Estonian computers.

“Estonia hit by 'Moscow cyber war” -- BBC
“Russia accused of unleashing cyber war to disable Estonia” -- Guardian UK
“Estonia recovers from massive DDoS attack” -- ComputerWorld

According to these articles, initially Russian computers were the point of origin but have since spread to the United States, Canada, Brazil, Vietnam and others.

“Our mail server was absolutely inundated with spam e-mails as well" -- Aet Suvari, Estonian journalist.

"The largest part of these attacks are coming from Russia and from official servers of the authorities of Russia" -- Urmas Paet, the Estonian Foreign Minister.

“However, analysis of the malicious traffic shows that computers from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Vietnam and others have been used in the attacks” -- Hillar Aarelaid, chief security officer for Estonia's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).

“Country-of-Origin” email filtering could have been used to ease the severity of these cyber attacks by instantly reducing the spam email portions of the assault. The flood of malicious email could have been blocked before ever reaching the Estonian servers.

Even without coordinated attacks, the Russian Federation is consistently among the top spam originating countries in the world. If you don't do business there, why receive email that originates there?

AAS

XE-Filter - Filtering Spam eMail by Its Country-of-Origin

Singapore Follows USA and Aussie Spam Law

2007-05-09T08:59:00.000-04:00

Well, Singapore just passed an anti-spam bill based upon the American and Australian models and apparently, they expect it to the just as effective in the prevention of unwanted email. (Note the touch of sarcasm there)

The Spam Control Act, passed by the Singapore Parliament in April of 2007, does not apply to all email, only those messages arising in Singapore. As cited in the article, “enforcement against foreign spammer would be costly as well as highly uncertain”. We’ve heard statements similar to this a lot, mostly from countries that try to legislate away the spam problem.

What is the reason for doubts about Singapore’s antispam measures? Well as usual, with the new law that is only relevant to spam within Singapore borders, foreign email is not under control. As stated in the article, “four out of five spam messages originate overseas”.

The conclusion… Even in Singapore, with 80% of their spam email originating on servers outside of the country, “Country-of-Origin” email filtering would be highly effective. In fact, “Country-of-Origin” email filtering would be more effective than Singapore’s legislative actions and that is pretty much true anywhere in the world.

AAS

antispam spam email Singapore Australia FTC

The “TOP-OF-MIND” Spam Season

2006-12-13T12:43:00.000-05:00

Those of us in the email security business know that spam traffic increases as the seasons of Christmas, Hanukah, Bodhi, Kwanza and the rest approach but this year it is apparently top of mind with the popular media too.

Earlier the week, CNBC trotted out the executive of an email security company and did a brief, generic interview on the increase in spam. Nothing new was reported but it did push spam to the forefront of their news for a minute or two.

Then I read Business Week and there were more mentions of spam in an article discussing international drug distribution.

"Rogue drug distributors find customers mainly via spam. Internet security experts concur that nearly 25% of all e-mail, or some 15 billion messages a day, is spam advertising drugs, mostly counterfeits". BUSINESS WEEK – BITTER PILL

Now, chatting with my tech support people, I’m hearing of the pressures the flood of spam is putting on messaging databases. They are hearing from our competitor's customers who are, as they put it, “getting hammered”. Apparently spam filters are straining with the messages of this holiday season.

Now one reason that CMS' filters are functioning well is that we use XE-Filter to block most international spam before it ever reaches Praetor, our primary spam filter.

Looking at our in-house XE-Filter I see that it has currently stopped 2.6 million messages from countries where Computer Mail Services, Inc has no business dealings.

These 2.6 million messages represent the beauty of XE-Filter and “Country-of-Origin” filtering. Without XE-Filter in place, these useless international spam messages would have to be handled by our primary spam filter.

To shamelessly paraphrase a popular TV show slogan... "Reduce the load...Save the Filter"

I know "Country of Origin" filtering makes sense for school districts, small businesses and local governments. Try it and ease the holiday pressure on your primary spam filters.

AAS

Country spam International CNBC Business Week Christmas Kwanzaa Hanukah Bodhi

Is “Country-Of-Origin” Filtering Just Too Logical?

2006-09-28T14:03:00.000-04:00

My mantra for the last year or so is “Why get email from countries where you have no interests”. It's a simple concept so why don't more folks do it?

Following are just three of many items that show how you could simplify your email by using “Country-Of-Origin” email filtering.

AUSTRALIA

“AUSTRALIAN telecommunications companies have been told to harden their networks against spam from eastern European crime syndicates.” Story...

Simple… You protect yourself from harmful Eastern European phishing schemes by accepting no mail from Eastern European email servers. i.e. "Country-of-Origin" filtering.

NETHERLANDS

"An Australian man is under investigation for allegedly using Dutch computers to send billions of spam e-mails around the world, most of them promoting Viagra". Story...

Again… If you don’t do business in the Netherlands, why get email from the Netherlands. This problem is gone in an instant.

UNITED STATES

"The FTC works to shut down illegal spammers through civil actions. But a loophole in federal law prevents its investigators from sharing information with other countries. That makes it tough for the agency to punish spammers and spyware distributors who have gone global, setting up homes, bank accounts and servers in separate countries". Story...

OK, the United States Federal Trade Commission realizes foreign spam is a problem but they can’t do anything about it."

Well you can. Repeat after me... "Country-of-Origin" filtering XE-Filter.

Say this five times, go to the XE-Filter website, download, install and instantly drop those countries where you have no business interests. Spam is gone.

Your eMail Life Then Gets Simplier.

AAS

antispam spam email Dutch Australia FTC

Back to the Blog World

2006-09-13T12:47:00.000-04:00

OK, it's been a while but...

The old CMS office is finally completely moved. The new CMS office is up and running, so now I can start actively contributing to this blog again.

It has been about a month since my last entry and since then, the leaves are starting to change, the Detroit Tigers are close to losing their lead, we've been through a five year rememberance of 9/11 and my kids are back in school.

Now I must get back to work.

AAS

Spam eMail Tactics Changing

2006-08-17T12:30:00.000-04:00

Here's a bit of CMS' latest press release. Some strange things are happening in the spammer world...

Companies See 1600% to 4000% Increase in Spam eMail Volumes

Senior support technicians at Computer Mail Services, Inc. (CMS) have recently been following a rise in a certain type of spam email attack called Reverse NDR (RNDR). The rise in RNDR email volume appears to coincide with spammers changing the methods and format of their search for valid email addresses.

Recently, CMS and their customers noticed larger than usual volumes of filtered RNDR mail containing randomly generated character strings as an address. Coinciding with the appearance random addressing is a massive increase in volume. In one instance, a CMS customer has noticed a day-to-day increase of 1600% in RNDR-type spam trapped by their CMS Praetor Messaging Firewall. CMS’ own corporate email servers have on several days seen RNDR-type spam volume increases of over 4000% percent.

READ THE ENTIRE RELEASE...

AAS

antispam spam email NDR RNDR Denial of Service

New CMS Address

2006-08-07T10:40:00.000-04:00

Just to put the word out..... Computer Mail Services, Inc. has a new address for our corportate offices.

Computer Mail Services, Inc.
2899 East Big Beaver Road
Suite #260
Troy, Michigan 48083-2466

My new window won't be overlooking the front parking lot of the office building but green grass and tall mature trees. I guess I'll just have to kiss that asphalt view goodbye.

AAS

Stop Click Fraud with Better Ad $$$ Targeting

2006-07-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

Apparently the best efforts of Google, Yahoo, MSN and their like are fighting an uphill battle against click fraud according to Outsell Inc., a market research firm.

“The company [Outsell Inc], which estimates that 14.6% of all clicks are invalid, reached its conclusion from a survey of 407 advertisers who together spend $1 billion annually”.

The article further states that $800 million is wasted annually on click fraud.

Think about it, even on a small scale, if I wanted to, I could run up the numbers on various “Pay-Per-Click” (PPC) ads. Click a few times here at the office. Click the ad a few times at home. While I’m at my mother-in-law’s house I could click the ad a few times. Pretty soon, on my small scale and from several different IP addresses, I’ve added quit a few bogus clicks to an ad campaign.

I know that folks far more knowledgeable than me in the realm of search engines and PPC could massively run up the clicks, remain hidden and soon the fore mentioned $800 million wasted buck is reached.

So a suggestion, particularly to companies selling in to the IT and eMail market place…

CMS can offer a better focus to your ad dollars through our Ad Sponsorship Program. You see, CMS has developed a line of software (BL-Monitor, ES-Insight and XE-Filter) that in their non-commercial, freeware versions constantly display rotating ads to the software users. A market of IT and eMail administrators, using CMS software with highly focused, highly targeted ads right in front of their eyes.

If a product is targeted to IT admins why put it on Google where some kid sitting in their basement can click thru anytime. CMS embeds the ads into the day-to-day operations of software.

Your IT admin product ad right in front of the IT admin you want to sell to. It the triple play of advertising…

Captive audience.
Highly focused product targeting.
Reduced click thru fraud

CMS' Ad Sponsorship Program is looking rather good.

AAS

Tags: Pay Per Click PPC Click Fraud Google Yahoo MSN

Using Country of Origin to Counter Spam eMail

2006-06-27T15:00:00.000-04:00

Some CMS News Alerts:

NEW WHITEPAPER:

CMS has just published a whitepaper on how "Country Of Origin" email filtering can instantly reduce the amount of spam ever hitting a server...

The Role of Country-based eMail Filtering in Spam Reduction

It's surprising what a little email filtering by geographic area can do for the volumes of incoming spam. The facts and figures are all in the whitepaper.

XE-FILTER CUSTOMER REPORT:

A law firm recently installed XE-Filter and used it to monitor their email over a 24 hour period. It seems that in that time, they received 6000 pieces of email from China alone, a place where they do no business. Putting the 6000 peices of Chinese spam in perspective, this law firm received only 1500 email from the United States in the same time period.

XE-Filter's country of origin filtering is sure looking good to them.

And for those not yet trying CMS' XE-Filter, try it and you'll be surprised at the quantity of international junk email you receive.

AAS

antispam spam email interntational

OT But... How about them Tigers

2006-06-27T14:29:00.000-04:00

When I started this blog the Detroit Tigers were among the off topic areas I would venture into: Opening Day and Tigers Reach 500 for example.

Well it's been a while but look who's the best team in baseball. Remembering 1968 and 1984, I can only hope 2006 falls into that realm of success.

So recalling the team song from 1968...

"We're all behind our baseball team... Go get 'em Tigers
World Series bound and picking up steam... Go get 'em Tigers.
They'll be joy in Tiger town, we'll sing new songs,
When the bengals bring the penant home, where it belongs"

Sounds sweet to an old ballpark usher like me. My section... Upper deck between third and home.

AAS

Tags: Baseball Detroit Tigers World Series

IP Blacklisting Hits NZ Telecom Mail Servers

2006-05-30T14:47:00.000-04:00

The folks here at CMS have said over and over to always watch your mail servers for accidental blacklisting, now here’s a recent item from New Zealand on that exact subject.

SORBS wrongly listing New Zealand IP space

Just take a look at this double-whammy from the article.

First email server IP addresses get blacklisted. Read into this email lost, business delayed and whole lot of other revenue killing stuff.

“A large Telecom subnet has been black listed by sorbs, this happens to include some/all of their mail servers as well as many customers”

And now comes the second blow, “slow database updates” to correct the error

“A number of announcements have been made by SORBS in various locations - there is an issue with slow database updates currently..."

Nice one-two punch, you get accidentally blacklisted and it will be some time before you are taken off the blacklist. Yes we put you on the list but be patient, it will take some time to remove you. Makes you want to scream "I did nothing wrong but I'm getting screwed".

Sounds like this accidental blacklisting of innocent mail servers could cause a lot of New Zealand Dollars (NZD) to go down the toilet (or is it a Loo in New Zealand?).

Looks like the perfect place for CMS’ BL-Monitor PRO. A simple purchase could have saved a lot of grief and NZD.

Check out BL-Monitor PRO before your NZD, USD, JPY, EUR, et al go down the toilet, loo, john, out-house etc.

AAS

Tags: DNSBL DNS Blacklist New Zealand email server

Revisiting Spam Vigilantes

2006-05-19T15:22:00.000-04:00

I touched on this BLUE FROG service in a blog item in July of 2005 and they are back in the news again… “Anti-spam service shut down”

It seems that BLUE SECURITY (the Blue Frog folks) advocate running a “Denial-of-Service” (DoS) attack on spammer web to clog, slow and eventually shut them down.

So how did spammers view this problem and solve it? Well I quote from the news item… “spammers began threatening users and rendering the [BLUE SECURITY] site inaccessible”

Seems like the “DoS” approach has escalated to something more.

As I like to do, let's read between the lines...

Forget vigilantism. It mostly leads to the other side getting a bigger stick. Then you need a bigger stick, etc. etc.
Forget CAN-SPAM or any of its cousins now in place in countries around the world. Spam and certainly international spam volumes are on the increase.
Spamming is still a cash cow. Apparently, so much in fact that the need for retaliation to an anti-spammers “vigilante” approach has brought this reaction.

So folks, can the vigilantism, view legislation with a skeptical eye and protect your own mail servers through good software and good email policies.

AAS

Tags: spam filter country spam countries email filter international email

The International Nature of Spam

2006-05-03T12:37:00.000-04:00

Just today, I came across two articles lamenting “International Spam”…

Why No One Can Beat Spam - CIO Today – April 27, 2006
"The international nature of spam is a significant challenge. It requires a complex network to fight it, and participation." Maneesha Mithal, FTC Acting Associate Director for International Consumer Protection.

Spam Not Gone But Increasingly Forgotten - Toronto Star – May 1, 2005

Spammers regularly use computers in several countries to send their email and attempt to hide their tracks by routing their profits through multiple jurisdictions.

Just a little bit of "GOOGLING" and the solution is a “no-brainer”…

GET BUSINESS eMAIL ONLY FROM COUNTRIES WHERE YOU DO BUSINESS.

Your have no clients in Brazil, so block all mail originating in Brazil. Your company does no business in Nigeria, block all mail originating in Nigeria.

You get the picture so why get the email?

The solution (and with full disclosure I am biased) is XE-Filter, a country-centric IP-based email filter. Simple in concept and XE-Filter works with all existing antispam products.

I don't need email from Myanmar and with XE-Filter I don't receive any.

AAS

Tags: spam filter country spam countries email filter international email