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Email

by Mike Masnick





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?

16 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

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  1. Funny

    by Jimi Spier - Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 6:47pm

    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!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Re: Funny

    by AZ - Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 7:34pm

    One way or another we can beat them! I think its a great idea!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Re: Funny

    by spongebill - Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 9:29pm

    damn straight!!!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Spyware companies are complaining? That's a riot..

    by DJ - Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 9:49pm

    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.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. I sure dont mind

    by Jeff M - Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 10:33pm

    I sure don't mind what the ISP's doing.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  6. Re: I sure dont mind

    by Mitch - Sep 24th, 2005 @ 8:41am

    Maybe if we didnt have retarded sysadmins int he work this wouldnt be a problem

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  7. No Subject Given

    by Anonymous Coward - Sep 24th, 2005 @ 11:07am

    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.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  8. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

    by DigitalBomb - Sep 25th, 2005 @ 9:51am

    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.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  9. yay

    by Asher Schweigart - Sep 25th, 2005 @ 11:05am

    good idea, this should help...some. this doesn't cover spammers who use web based apps for their spamming.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  10. Re: yay

    by Phil - Sep 25th, 2005 @ 11:46am

    What are you referring to? Email doesn't transport over HTTP.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  11. Re: yay

    by Dan - Sep 25th, 2005 @ 5:53pm

    If you read the article, it says it checks concurrent SMTP connections...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  12. It's about SMTP, not Broadband

    by Pete Austin - Sep 26th, 2005 @ 1:21am

    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.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  13. Re: It's about SMTP, not Broadband

    by Derek - Sep 26th, 2005 @ 7:07am

    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.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  14. Re: It's about SMTP, not Broadband

    by Derek O'Brieb - Sep 27th, 2005 @ 6:08am

    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.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  15. Re: It's about SMTP, not Broadband

    by Derek O'Brien - Sep 27th, 2005 @ 6:10am

    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.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  16. It's hurting small companies.

    by Colin - Aug 22nd, 2007 @ 11:32am

    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.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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