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News Flash: Spammers Don't Like Bandwidth Throttling
from the boo-hoo dept
ZaneK writes "Internet Retailer reports that "e-mail marketers" are having a harder time reaching their victims because more ISPs are implementing bandwidth throttling and rate limiting. From the article: "E-mail sent by marketers attempting to open too many concurrent SMTP connections or sending too many messages in too short of a period can result in 'time-out' errors or 'delays' at broadband providers." " Why do I get the feeling that not too many people are going to be too upset about this one?
Reader Comments
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Funny
All I have to say to the spammers is:
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
Serves you right, you bastards!
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Re: Funny
One way or another we can beat them! I think its a great idea!
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Re: Funny
damn straight!!!
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Spyware companies are complaining? That's a riot..
It seems that the increase in technology has made it harder for the makers of spyware to convince people that thier internet sucks and to trick them into buying something they really don't need.
Well, that's what you get for being dishonest, lying, disgraceful bastards... those of you making a living by exploiting other people honestly need to rethink your lives.
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I sure dont mind
I sure don't mind what the ISP's doing.
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Re: I sure dont mind
Maybe if we didnt have retarded sysadmins int he work this wouldnt be a problem
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No Subject Given
From the article: "60% of households with high-speed connections have incomes above $150,000"
I find this a 'very hard to swallow' statement. Other then that, as long as they only throttle SMTP traffic, I suppose I would not have a problem with it.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Finally some cyber justice. Internet Service Providers are finally stepping up to the plate and declaring spam a threat to business. Instead of trying to ignore spam like usual. I am THRILLED by this and find it absolutely hilarious.
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yay
good idea, this should help...some. this doesn't cover spammers who use web based apps for their spamming.
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Re: yay
What are you referring to? Email doesn't transport over HTTP.
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Re: yay
If you read the article, it says it checks concurrent SMTP connections...
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It's about SMTP, not Broadband
Here's another version at DMNews - the full report seems to be subscription-only. Phil's confusion is understandable, because the reference to "broadband" in the story is just a marketing "hook". Also "Web Mail" has nothing to do with this.
What is really happening is that many ISPs limit the number of simultaneous incoming SMTP connections from any IP address (probably "mail server"), in some cases to just one. This means that anyone (spammer or not) emailing multiple addresses at that ISP will experience slower delivery. This is not a new development and not news. Any competent email system can keep retrying until the messages get through, but email virusses will be slowed. Presumably ISPs hope that the delay will more allow more time for their blocklists to update.
AOL are not a small ISP, but they have an interesting spin on spam blocking. They count incoming emails and block them if the number looks suspicious, returning a "temporary" error condition so the sender knows to retry later. Then I think an actual human being checks a sample email and decides whether to blacklist the sender. I wish all ISPs would work this way.
The best approach for ISPs looking to fight spam is a combination of blocklists and whitelisting, but your mileage may vary. The best approach for individuals is to use several email addresses, never ever tell your main email address to anyone except friends and family, and discard the others when they start getting spam. Spam filtering may help, too.
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Re: It's about SMTP, not Broadband
I agree, nothing will stop junk mail better than using anti spam email accounts that you create and delete after they have there use, i create about 4 email accounts a year solely to register with companies or websites, once i get what i want or the mail box starts getting spammed then its time for a new email :D
I also have two other emails one for family one for business both are used sparingly for trusted users...
I still think ISP could do more also... but throttling is a start.
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Re: It's about SMTP, not Broadband
Spammers are arseholes that take up valuable internet resources on your computer and mine, flood ISPs with junk, and try to sell sex, dubious quality pharmaceuticals, penis growth programs and bonds to people not interested in their products.
I use SpamAssault to filter the spam and when the number of messages becomes a pain to set-up the auto-delete I change my email address. The idea of using a number os subsidiary email addresses sounds great, and I think I may set up a couple.
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Re: It's about SMTP, not Broadband
Spammers are arseholes that take up valuable internet resources on your computer and mine, flood ISPs with junk, and try to sell sex, dubious quality pharmaceuticals, penis growth programs and bonds to people not interested in their products.
I use SpamAssault to filter the spam and when the number of messages becomes a pain to set-up the auto-delete I change my email address. The idea of using a number of subsidiary email addresses sounds great, and I think I may set up a couple.
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It's hurting small companies.
Like, I got me several dozen emails stuck in various people's outbox's because of:
"Too many concurrent SMTP connections; please try again later"
I agree spam is getting out of control, but only because no ISP has the guts to deny DNS lookup to spamming domains.
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