anybody else been spammed by "no-ip.com" yet?

Sat May 4 17:58:18 UTC 2002

Also sprach measl at mfn.org
>On 4 May 2002, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
>> It does not cost "very little" to recieve spam.

>It costs the end-user very little to recieve spam.

>> [...]

>Whether we like it or not however, this is a cost of doing business
>now, and is a normal part of determining your cost of goods sold (at
>least it *should* be).

COGS gets passed on (eventually) to the end-user, therefore (sorry,
can't make the 3 dots in a triangle symbol with ASCII), it does cost the
end-user to recieve spam.  Those costs may not be *monetary* costs, the
industry typical dial-up access price ($19.95) really hasn't changed
over the years, but costs can be measured in other ways...lack of other
services that might have developed had ISPs not had to bear the brunt of
the cost of dealing with spam...for example.  Cost (in time) of dealing
with the spam themself, cost of other services that the ISP provides may
have gone up (web hosting, available disk space, etc.).  Costs of
development time of ISPs and other developers to develop tools to deal
with spam that might have been otherwise used to develop other cool
tools for the end-user.  IgLou, for example, has put a lot of time and
effort into developing a service that we have called "Mailblock" who's
whole purpose is to block spam for customers (user various prepackaged
tools and pre-defined rules to block common spam characteristics, as
well as the ability for the end-user to define their own rules to block
spam that they personally are gettings, etc. all from a nice web-based
front-end).  What sort of services would we have had time to develop if
we hadn't had to fart around building Mailblock?  Who knows...but the
end-user not having whatever services that we might have come up with is
rightfully considered a cost.

The costs are there, period.  They may not be monetary costs, but they
are costs, nonetheless.  

>Spam is a reality that none of us, either alone or in concert, will
>ever be able to eradicate.

No, but, in concert, and in concert with legislative bodies, there is
the possibility that we can eventually put a serious dent into it and
either get the level of spamming back down to a more reasonable level,
or have mechanisms in place to where we can recover some of those costs
that are incurred (both as ISP's and as end-users).

No, we won't ever be able to get rid of all of it, and I wouldn't want
to as the steps that would have to be taken to do so would almost
assuredly result in abridging First Ammendment rights (for us 'murkin's
anyway), but curbing the rampant levels of spam that we're dealing with
now will be a benefit to all...*INCLUDING* legitimate mass mailers (ie,
people that are sending email to legitimate opt-in lists...few and far
between, I know, but they are out there)

>automating a filter system (for those who specifically ask for it, of
>course) via the purchase of services from Vixie or your favorite
>equivalent is likely to be a reasonably inexpensive alternative to
>having us spinning our wheels.  <asbestos underwear in place ;->

In the short term, yes.  And in the short term, ISPs such as us here at
IgLou, use those automated systems (such as our MailBlock) as
differentiation to draw customers to us.  Long term, however, that's not
a solution.
-- 
Jeff McAdams                            Email: jeffm at iglou.com
Head Network Administrator              Voice: (502) 966-3848
IgLou Internet Services                        (800) 436-4456