damn_registrars's Journal: Filters And The Idiots Who Cling To Them...

This afternoon I started speculating that they work much the same way. Spam filters look for specific elements of messages - though supposedly not the entire message - and make assumptions of how to handle the message based on that. I figured that people who errantly cling to filtering as an "answer" to the spam epidemic were probably doing much the same with the reality of spam.

Then today a front page article questioning the financial feasibility of spam (posted by our beloved and ignorant samzenpus) offered an unexpected chance to test that speculation.

The summary claims that the author of the linked article stated

spam filters have become too good

Which is utter bullshit. There are many more factors that have a lot more to do with spam volumes than that - not the least of which is the general tendency of spam volumes to swing wildly over time anyways. Nonetheless, I went in and called bullshit on filters being responsible. Not surprisingly a few people jumped in to sing praises for filtering, with one idiot in particular claiming very profusely that his filters were the answer.

What really surprised me though was his insistence on not actually reading my comments. He asked for my solution, and I gave it. Then, since it didn't pass through his filter, he asked again. Indeed, he is a filter. I have never before seen such long comments from someone who didn't bother reading what they were quoting and replying to, but here we see such a feat in all its glory.

Borked...

[mcgrew]

What really surprised me though was his insistence on not actually reading my comments. He asked for my solution, and I gave it. Then, since it didn't pass through his filter, he asked again. Indeed, he is a filter. I have never before seen such long comments from someone who didn't bother reading what they were quoting and replying to, but here we see such a feat in all its glory.

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Re:

[mcgrew]

Hmm, it copied the whole thing even if it didn't display it. Are these guys actually testing the code?

Re:

[damn_registrars]

Hmm, it copied the whole thing even if it didn't display it. Are these guys actually testing the code?

Are you new here?

Re:

[damn_registrars]

Which link did you follow to get to it?

I followed this link [slashdot.org] in FF for Linux and it rendered correctly.

Though when I followed this other link [slashdot.org] it did not render quite so well.

The difference is that the first one had the journal title (hyphenated where space were) and it's number in the address, while the latter had my name and the journal number. In other words:

http://slashdot.org/journal/267446/Filters-And-The-Idiots-Who-Cling-To-Them/ [slashdot.org] Works

But

http://slashdot.org/~damn_registrars/journal/26744 [slashdot.org]

Re:

[mcgrew]

Didn't look at the url, followed the link from messages.pl. Just hit the first link you showed and it rendered fine. I think it's a failing we (nerds) all share, biting off more than we can chew because we think we know more than we really do. It takes a lot of years and mistakes to get figure out that you don't know everything.

Re:

[damn_registrars]

I think it's a failing we (nerds) all share, biting off more than we can chew because we think we know more than we really do.

I hoped that when Pudge departed, they would have hired a more humble programmer who is actually familiar with the concept of testing code before rolling it out on the site.

Re:

[tqft]

When you can't even click the links to open the page on which you can click links it really sucks

No wonder I just gave Pudge a troll mod. Cruel, unfair and just punishment for leaving the site in such a crappy state. Mind you the new person seems to be as such a crappy programmer as Pudge.

By madly clicking around I finally got it to work.

Re:

[damn_registrars]

I've been wondering who has taken over Pudge's former role (as programmer, that is, not as resident hyperconservative lunatic) since his departure. I haven't noticed any new people running around with the slashdot logo after their name, although I haven't been looking hard for one, either.

for leaving the site in such a crappy state

While I am no fan of Pudge, I don't hold him as the only party responsible for the disarray that is slasdhot. I suspect there were plenty of others as well, as it is hard to imagine one hack doing this much damage with

Re:

[tqft]

" I haven't noticed any new people running around "
Look for the monkey accounts

I did see Jamie lay into Timothy the other day and that was fun to see
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2270668&cid=36575646 [slashdot.org]
Under the intentioanl flooding of America's Heartland

"Rob Malda"
Probably busy drinking beer and making babies - or at least practising.

"While I am no fan of Pudge I don't hold him as the only party responsible for the disarray that is slasdhot"
Someone should standup and take the responsibility

I read them

[yarnosh]

Seriously? You're referencing this embarrassing thread (for you) on your journal? I read your troll comments thoroughly and not one mentioned any specific solution to the spam problem. You mentioned something about removing the economic incentive for spam but no real solution. You never once gave a real solution and couldn't even quote yourself when challenged. Fuck you, troll. I'm not even the only person to call you a troll in that thread.

Re:

[damn_registrars]

How nice of you to come here to continue lying. I figured you would by now have added all of my communications to your filters so you wouldn't have to see it - and thus could continue living in your fantasy.

You are of course free to opt to not do anything about the spamming problem. You are free to select a short-sighted and inadequate approach. You are free to continue lying openly in your posts on the matter.

However you are not entitled to your own truth. It is well understood that filtering will

Re:

[Dingbat1967]

How do you fix the problem then?

What you're saying is that filtering is not a fix.

I agree -- it's not a permanent fix. It only attacks the symptoms. But it's not a cure. And it has side-effects (false-positives). And it costs.

--
If we were talking about a disease, Bronchial Dilators & Aerosol Steroids for a treatment of Asthma isn't a fix either. Unfortunately, there's currently no cure for asthma right now (although research is always ongoing). If we were to continue the analogy -- asthma suffer

Re:

[damn_registrars]

So how do you fix it?

You fix spam by going after the driving force behind it - money. People are paying spammers to send spam, so you need to stop the money from getting to the spammers - either in whole or in part. There are several ways to do this:

• Interrupt payment to spamvertised sites (this has already been done, and shown to be fairly effective)
• Find the payment system that is used for spamvertised persons to pay spammers, and interrupt that
• Go after the registrars that do business with the spamvertised domains, to disco

Re:

[Dingbat1967]

I like that -- however how do you deal with the fact that spammers can be all over the planet?

I think it was McAfee that did some reasearch that shows that something like 10 or so banks that keep funding these operations. Even if you managed to shut down all of them, all that will change is that the money is going to go underground.

You also have another issue. There's people making money spamming, and people making money providing spamming services by renting out access to their botnets. I think those ra

Re:

[damn_registrars]

I think it was McAfee that did some reasearch that shows that something like 10 or so banks that keep funding these operations.

Actually a recent study found that the vast majority of all transactions through spamvertised websites were handled by only three banks. Some active work was done to pressure those banks and that did seem to slow down the business that the spamvertised sites were turning out.

Of course, if you are actually talking about who is paying for the spam versus which banks are facilitating the transaction, those are two different groups (most likely).

Even if you managed to shut down all of them, all that will change is that the money is going to go underground.

The spammers don't want to meet in public with the people t