[AccessD] OT Friday: Comodo AntiSpam

Bryan Carbonnell carbonnb at gmail.com
Sat Aug 11 21:52:12 CDT 2007


On 8/11/07, jwcolby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:

> Yes, I am, but that is simply a "get up to speed week or two to manually
> handle all of the things that I know need to be handled.  After that I will
> not do this.  They get responded to or don't talk to me.

What about potential new customers? Are you willing to throw the baby
out with the bath water?

I can tell you that if *I* have to jump through too many hoops to deal
with a company, I don't deal with them if I don't have to. Automated
phone systems, not being able to deal with a real person, poor
service, etc,etc. They don't get my business. A CR system is the same
deal to me.

> And quite frankly I see your mind is made up too.

Has been for a very long time on CR systems. POS that passes your spam
filtering onto me.

> Brian, what you see is someone who has done the normal and even not so
> normal stuff which just didn't work.  I have stated several times that my
> mind is NOT made up, I am watching to see whether this works or not, and if
> not it will be abandoned.

That's not what I get from reading your posts John. What I get is that
you have no use for the opinions of the folks, nor the actual folks,
that do anti-spam and mail server admining for a living.

> Let me tell you something.  In my mind the "anti-spam community" is a bunch
> of whining spineless jellyfish.  The ONE and ONLY organization who actually

<snip of Blue Fish>

I can't and won't comment on anything that you have said about Blue
Fish. never heard of them. Never dealt with them, never knew they
existed.

> Brian, I like you, and I respect your opinion

Likewise John.

> but I have ABSOLUTELY NO USE
> for the "anti-spam community".

Why is "anti-spam community in quotes? Who are you referring to? The
folks the are the actual experts in the field or those that say they
are? You need to be specific.

I've got a ton of respect for the anti-spam community. They are doing
what they can with their hands tied behind their backs. They have
almost no legal ground to stand on. They have very little support form
any gov't agency. The can-Spam act is a ****ing joke. It take a lot of
hard work and dedication to deal with what they have to deal with on a
day to day basis.

> They have done almost NOTHING real.  ALL OF
> THE WHINING responses to CR are (IMNSHO) just more examples of their
> uselessness.  CR could work if the "anti-spam community" wanted to make it
> work.  They don't, they just want to whine and protect their own (pretty
> much useless) AS methods and programs.  I did not see anything in that
> entire list that could not be addressed if they wanted to address them.

You know what John, reading this paragraph make me thing that you are
only reading they hype and drivel by people claiming to be experts.
All the people I have respect for are not rabid in their approach.
It's here is the good, here is the bad. here is why the good out
weighs the bad. here is why the bad out weighs the good.

No there is not a single place to tell the good guys from the bad
guys. You have to do a LOT of reading and when you find someone who's
opinion that you trust you need to listen to what they say. From that,
you can then make informed decisions.

> It is far easier to whine than to do the things required to make a REAL
> difference.

Such as?

> So is my mind made up?  YEA, in fact I am PISSED. There ARE technologies to
> do MANY THINGS.  The experts can trace each bot back.  A PITA but it can be
> done.  There have been talks about installing programs on systems with holes
> that the spammers use to grab a bot but "whine whine whine we can't do that
> because whine whine whine".  You will never make ANY difference until you a)
> close the holes that allow botnets and b) take away their bots, and c) whack
> em where it hurts.  Whine whine whine.  NONE of them have done ANY of these
> three things.  Whine whine whine.

What would you like them to do John? The bots run on Windows
typically. Well crap, you and I both know MS won't do anything to plug
the holes because it'll make it more difficult for your grandparents
and mine to get pics of their grand babies until there is a huge
outcry from the security experts or they get threatened with public
disclosure of the holes.

> Make a difference or get out of my face.

Such as?

Here are typical stories I hear over and over again.

SysAdmin block IP range because of spamming
SysAdmin gets hauled on the carpet by CEO because he can't get e-mail
from IP range because of the block.
SysAdmin has to go and unblock the the IP range letting spam back into
his system

ISP SysAdmin block IP range because of spamming
ISP SysAdmin gets complains from paying subscribers that they cannot
get email from Joe Blow because of IP range is blocked.
ISP SysAdmin has to go and unblock the the IP range letting spam back
into his system

Last one

small time sysadmin implements new spam filtering.
small time sysadmin gets email saying why can't I post to any of my
mailing lists anymore? Did I do something wrong?
small time sysadmin has to unimplement spam filtering to let long time
posters back to thier mailing lists (Welcome back Rocky and Jon :)

It's not that easy John. CR systems just add traffic and volume to an
already over burdened system, while adding little to no benefit, IMO.

-- 
Bryan Carbonnell - carbonnb at gmail.com
Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well
preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out,
shouting "What a great ride!"



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