damn_registrars's Journal: Earth To Google...

There was an article today about google's spam tools, which is pretty well all about filtering messages based on content. Sure they try some clever methods of filtering messages based on novel patterns and other such bullshit, but they are by and large missing the point. By a long shot.

As I have said before, spam is an economic problem. Spam is sent out because it is absurdly fucking cheap and can be profitable for a minimal amount of work on behalf of the spammer. If you want to stop spam, you need to reduce the profit margin for the spammer. There are ways to do this, and google has the access to the proper tools to make that happen. But filtering is not one of those ways. We can play spam filter whack-a-mole until the end of fucking time, or we can look at the problem for what it is and actually try to address it.

Clearly the first option is, sadly, the more popular one by far.

Good cliff hanger there

[countertrolling]

So, how do you suggest we reduce the profit margins then? I hope you're not advocating prison

Re:

[Red4man]

So, how do you suggest we reduce the profit margins then?

Power sanders.

Re:

[darn_registrars]

Ahh. You are trying so hard to land your worthless name on my foes list, again. But I won't give you idiots that honor. Go troll somewhere else; you're not interesting, you're not amusing, and you're not worthy of what you seek. Perhaps you can pick up a freak somewhere else.

Besides, your game has been so damned inconsistent lately that you're more likely to lose fans than gain freaks. You guys need to get yourselves all on the same page; you really just look silly right now.

See Red, even though I dear

Re:

[damn_registrars]

Are you amusing yourselves? Not sure what your aim is but I doubt your going to accomplish it with the four people who read my journal entries (not including however many of you there are). You should do yourself a favor and find someone else to troll, you're out of your league here.

Re:

[pudge_confirmer]

Their aim appears to be, to get you to respond.  And they appear to succeed.

But I know that.

Re:

[damn_registrars]

Their aim appears to be, to get you to respond.

That is a reasonable assumption, though the fact that they don't respond afterwards leaves me guessing as to what they could possibly be getting out of that.

Re:

[jimmy_thlimmy]

Ooooooh I jutht love a good facial.

Jameth

Re:

[damn_registrars]

I hope you're not advocating prison

Only an idiot would expect to solve the spam problem by advocating prison sentences for spammers, as any half-wit can come up with multiple reasons why it wouldn't work:

• Spammers are operating out of countries that don't care about spam
• There are too many spammers to catch them all
• There are more spammers getting started all the time, so even if you caught all of them today we'd still have more spam by the end of tonight

So no, I don't advocate prison.

The solution lies in cutting off the profit. While we

Re:

[damn_registrars]

But how is google going to help?

Google has the data to show where (some of) the money is going in the spamming operation. For example, if a single spam email is spamvertising for "evilspammingdomain.com", they can easily determine the following from that email:

• Who owns evilspammingdomain.com
• Who sold the domain evilspammingdomain.com
• Who is hosting the web site for evilspammingdomain.com
• Who runs DNS services to resolve evilspammingdomain.com

You can be almost certain that those will be four different identities or companies. And they ar

Re:

[countertrolling]

Replace "evilspammingdomain.com" with "evilinnocenceproject.com", or "evilaclu.com", or the fact that they're already blocking "eviltiananmensquare.com", and I believe you'll understand the very high probability of abuse of such methods. It would allow any sufficiently large special interest group to make a complaint and to have anything shut down. The internet can provide any individual a voice that can be heard around the world. I'm not willing to give that up because of a small inconvenience caused by so

Sure...

[johnsonav]

As I have said before, spam is an economic problem.

You're absolutely right.

However, Google is a technology company. It's no surprise then, that they have implemented a technological solution to their spam problem.

There are ways to do this, and google has the access to the proper tools to make that happen. But filtering is not one of those ways.

Why can't they use both? Google, to retain customers, needs to stop received spam today. With their filtering measures, they basically have. Addressing the root economic and political issue takes time.

Google is a fairly innovative company. Spam costs them time and money to deal with. I have little doubt that they have evaluated their options, and d

Re:

[damn_registrars]

However, Google is a technology company. It's no surprise then, that they have implemented a technological solution to their spam problem.

My beef with google on this issue is that they chose to invest time and money on addressing only the technological - and not the economic - side of the issue. They opted for the immediate bandage for a gushing headwound.

I would say this is penny-wise and pound-foolish. In particular, their strategy ensures that they will need to continue spending more money to continue adjusting their technique as time goes on. Indeed one could argue that their strategy will carry on ad infinum...

Why can't they use both?

I did not intend to

Re:

[johnsonav]

My beef with google on this issue is that they chose to invest time and money on addressing only the technological - and not the economic - side of the issue. They opted for the immediate bandage for a gushing headwound.

But, it's not their gushing head wound. The technological bandage they applied did stop their bleeding.

In particular, their strategy ensures that they will need to continue spending more money to continue adjusting their technique as time goes on. Indeed one could argue that their strategy will carry on ad infinum...

Not quite ad infinitum. They only need to devote time and money to their filtering technology until spam is stopped. If someone else spends time and money working on the economic and political root causes to spam, and fixes the problem, Google can stop spending money on filtering.

Google could be behaving perfectly rationally. If A equals the amount of money Google projects it will spend on filtering until

Re:

[countertrolling]

Google is extremely dependent on advertisers. They hardly even index pages that don't carry any ads, and I am finding hem to be more useless every day. Especially when looking for drivers. When looking for troubleshooting pages, the first ones to pop up are mostly pay sites now. The whole internet is being clogged by ads. They really tear up on DNS requests. Watch all the "loading..connecting.. waiting for" crap when you load the Slashdot page before the content shows up even. The torrents and P2P are compa