Why does this group have so much spam?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On 9/1/2009 9:22 PM r said...

If that's your job (as it's sometimes mine) then that sounds about
right. Otherwise, you must have a lot of practice rebuilding!

I could have nuked the machine and rebuilt it from scratch, but I
couldn't find my WinXP original media. Besides, when I started the
process, I had no idea it would take so long.

I learned one thing though. System Restore sounds like a good idea, but
in my experience it's only good for restoring malware when you reboot.

(I won't tell you how many times I deleted the same spyware apps before I
worked out what was happening. Grrr arrghhhh.)

 

[Terry Reedy]

So, if somebody leaves their car unlocked, is that evidence that they
were intending to rob a bank and wanted a fast getaway car?

If you leave your window open on a hot summer's night, is that evidence
that you're planning to fake a burglary?

If you leave your knife and fork unattended in a restaurant while you go
to the toilet, is that evidence that you intended to stab the waiter and
blame somebody else?


I assume you would answer No to each of these. So why the harsher
standard when it comes to computer crime?

Your cases are not at all analogous or parallel.

First, I did not say 'computer crime'. I said 'illegal activity, whether
properly so [illegal] or not'. The latter is much broader, sometimes
including the viewing of non-sexual pictures of undraped young adults.

Second, I was talking about advocacy of 'open windows' by someone who
knows how to close and lock a window.

So the analogy would be someone who advocates leaving your living room
window open so that if the Feds come knocking on your door about
'illegal' materials being sent to or from your home, you can claim that
the within-house sender or receiver must have been a stranger that came
in through the window. Hmmmm.

[Of course, with unlockable street-side mailboxes, a stranger would not
need an open window to do such.]

Terry Jan Reedy

 

[r]

On Sep 2, 12:33 pm, Steven D'Aprano <st...@REMOVE-THIS-
cybersource.com.au> wrote:

(snip)

I learned one thing though. System Restore sounds like a good idea, but
in my experience it's only good for restoring malware when you reboot.

System restore is a joke! and a complete waste of HD space even if you
have TB's to spare! Actually i can do with almost very piece of built-
in software on this stinking windows platform. Microsoft's whole
system of security is a joke as evidenced by Stevens experience.
Windows ships with back doors wide open just begging for an infection!


---------------------
BS Packaged software
---------------------
Windows Mail -> virus magnet/backdoor use gmail
Internet Exploder -> virus magnet/frontdoor, use Chrome|Mozilla
Windows Calendar -> only slightly useful
Windows Media Player -> complete bloatware
Windows Media Center -> bloatware built on bloatware
Windows sync center -> what a joke!
Windows Movie Maker -> yea for kids and housewife's!
Windows Photo Galley -> only slightly useful.
Windows Update -> well i don't like hosting viruses so...?
My meeting place -> worthless junk
Windows Games -> *puke*

--------------------
*Dangerous and annoying services and settings from the factory*
--------------------
-Remote Resitry -> completly moronic!
-Remote assistance
-hide known filetypes -> Donde es "destroy useless bloatware button"
-UAC -> what a nagging POS!
-Menus are hidden by default in explorer
-Ready Boost -> *puke*
-Internet Connection Sharing
-NET Tcp port sharing
-Secondary Logon
-Terminal Services
-Windows BackUp
-Windows remote managment
-Routing and Remote Access
-All Peer * services
-all Windows Media center/player network services


----------------------
Accessories crap!
----------------------
Calculator -> POS, use the python shell instead
CMD -> What else ya gonna use?
Notepad -> What a useless POS, only one undo! COME ON!
Paint -> are you jokeing M$ -- Glorified etch-a-sketch!
sidebar -> Yes i love wasting memory just to see an analog clock!
sound recorder -> very slightly useful, needs more functionality
WordPad -> no thanks, OO will suffice!

charactor map -> only slightly useful
defragmenter -> too slow
disk cleanup -> obviously made for morons!
Internet Explorer(no add-ons) -> polish a turd, still a turd!

Windows Experience index -> useless bloat
Computer Management -> horrible UI
Task Manager -> The worst UI i have ever used! (Vista)
Windows Help -> maybe for complete morons!

-----------------------
misc bloat
-----------------------
Desktop backgrounds -> crap! use a solid color (black is my fav!)
Sceen savers -> crap! ohh...look at the pretty colors!
Windows Transparency -> crap! vanity run muck!
Themes -> crap! adolescent accessorizing!

Sadly none of these built in memory robbing hard space eating annoying
POS bloatwares can be uninstalled. The only advancement (if you could
call it that) with Vista is the search from start menu is much better
than the previous "puppy dog" search of XP. Short of that Vista is
just lipstick on a pig! Thanks M$ for bending us over yet again!

 

[r]

The preferred option these days is to slow down net access of the
offenders, not cut them off completely. I'm not sure how many ISPs
actually do that yet.

That seems to be the case with ISP and "good" users also in the form
of quotas ;-)

 

[Emile van Sebille]

On 9/2/2009 7:07 AM Unknown said...

A spam/malware merchange who can't afford/arrange other
internet access? How is net access on the critical path?

Mailbots (a significant source of spam IMHO) thrive on net access -- for
them, is there anything _more_ critical?

Emile

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Your cases are not at all analogous or parallel.

I disagree, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have posted them.

First, I did not say 'computer crime'. I said 'illegal activity, whether
properly so [illegal] or not'. The latter is much broader, sometimes
including the viewing of non-sexual pictures of undraped young adults.

You're talking about *crimes* ("illegal activity") committed via
*computer*. Having an open wi-fi connection isn't going to be an alibi if
you're caught with a scrapbook full of such photos, or if you have a meth
lab in your bathroom.

Second, I was talking about advocacy of 'open windows' by someone who
knows how to close and lock a window.

If you're known to advocate "open windows" *for the express purpose of
being an alibi*, then some people might (improperly, in my opinion) draw
the conclusion you do. But I read your argument as being that having an
open wi-fi connection was prima facie evidence of intent to commit crime
regardless of whether you were a public advocate or not. Perhaps I
misunderstood.

The distinction you seem to be making between people who known how to
lock windows (lock their wi-fi network) and those who don't is
irrelevant. The question we're debating is whether or not the deliberate
decision to leave your windows (your wi-fi network) open is prima facie
evidence of intention to commit crime. You say it is. I say that such a
conclusion would be seen as ridiculous if applied to common everyday
situations, and wonder what's so special about wi-fi that it is treated
more harshly than analogous situations involving non-computer crimes?

The only other example I can think of is that now that mobile phones are
so ubiquitous, and since they can be tracked so easily by police, leaving
your mobile phone at home can be treated as prima facie evidence that you
were committing a crime during the period you were untrackable. So far
this outrageous conclusion has only been applied to "Mafia bosses"
accused of murder (as far as I know), but how long will it be before
people are arguing that if you've got nothing to hide, why would you
object to being tracked by police 24/7?

So the analogy would be someone who advocates leaving your living room
window open so that if the Feds come knocking on your door about
'illegal' materials being sent to or from your home, you can claim that
the within-house sender or receiver must have been a stranger that came
in through the window. Hmmmm.

So it's the *advocacy* (for the purposes of alibi) which is evidence of
wrong-doing? Not the open windows themselves?

What do you make of those who advocate for open windows but don't have
illegal materials in the house? Or those who have open windows, and
illegal materials, but have never spoken about the use of open windows as
an alibi?

How would your answers change if we lived in a world where strangers did
routinely drop illegal materials into people's houses (or at least to
their front door), and police frequently treated the recipient as a de
facto criminal?

We live in such a world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor's_residence_drug_raid

This sort of episode -- a botched, probably illegal, paramilitary raid by
police against innocents -- is only unusual because the victim was white
and the mayor of the town.


There's an interesting parallel here. Many patent lawyers recommend that
you never search the patent records for technology before attempting to
market something you've invented, because if *don't* search, and
infringe, you are liable to damages, but if you *do* search, fail to find
anything, and then nevertheless infringe inadvertently, you are deemed to
have willfully infringed and therefore are liable to triple damages.
Given the difficulty of finding every possible patent you might infringe,
the risk of triple damages if you search is very high. Food for thought.

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Mmh, sounds like a presumption of guilt. I wouldn't go so far on this
way. The metaphor of terrorists in the bedroom applies up to a point.
While it's evident that you can not be unaware of people living in your
home, modern malware is made to be silent to the infected computer, so
it's a hidden menace and not so evident.

Presumption of innocence doesn't apply when it comes to breaking of terms
of service. If an ISP wants to treat customers as guilty unless proven
innocent, the market will decide whether that's acceptable behaviour.

As for criminal charges against people sending spam, it's not presumption
of guilt. The prosecutor still needs to prove you were sending spam. But
if spam is coming from your machine, that's prima facie ("in the face of
it") evidence that you are sending spam, or at least, that you were aware
of it and did nothing to stop it. In the same way that if you are found
standing over a corpse who has been stabbed to death, the murder weapon
in your hand, blood to your elbows, that's prima facie evidence that you
stabbed the victim. You still have the opportunity to refute the
evidence, say by arguing that the blood is on your arms (but not
splattered all over your face and clothes) because you tried to save the
victim's life, and you had just picked up the knife.

The burden of reasonable efforts to avoid sending spam isn't high. Are
you using a platform which is resistant to malware (Mac or Linux, say)?
If you are using a platform prone to malware, do you have at least one
each of "industry practice" anti-virus and anti-spyware programs? Do you
run them regularly? Are they regularly updated? Do you have a firewall
enabled, blocking the usual ports? Are you blocking outgoing port 25? Do
you avoid installing random software and games (including Flash-based
games) from untrusted web sites? If your computer starts playing up, with
unexpected slow-downs, popups, crashes and so forth, do you take steps to
have it serviced?

If you answer No to more than one of the above, then you should be taking
extra efforts to ensure you're not sending spam, and failure to do so is
negligent. If you can answer Yes to all of the above, and nevertheless
have been infected, then you have done pretty much everything the random
non-expert computer user should be reasonably expected to do.

You are depicting a situation where the owner is perfectly aware of
whats happening on his machine, but this is not always the case. I agree
that ignorance is not an excuse but I wouldn't use the harsh manners at
first.

"At first"???

Viruses and malware have existed on computers for thirty years, if not
longer! Spam has been a huge problem for a decade or more. How many more
warnings do people need before they will do something about the spambots
on their computers?

We don't let people play load music at 3am disturbing the neighbours.
Regardless of whether they were aware of what they were doing or not, we
make them turn their stereo down, and if they don't, they can be charged
with disturbing the peace. Why should sending out millions of spams be
treated more lightly? At the moment, the only incentive people have to
remove spambots from their computer is if it causes performance problems
or extra ISP charges. It's time to hold computer users responsible for
what their computer does.

 

[Terry Reedy]

the conclusion you do. But I read your argument as being that having an
open wi-fi connection was prima facie evidence of intent to commit crime
regardless of whether you were a public advocate or not. Perhaps I
misunderstood.

Yes, as you realized later.

So it's the *advocacy* (for the purposes of alibi) which is evidence of
wrong-doing?

I said 'reason for me to be suspicious' rather than 'courtroom evidence'.

Not the open windows themselves?

Correct. The vast majority of open WiFi is due to ignorance or
insufficient motivation to jump through the hoops needed to add units to
a closed network. (I believe this can and should be easier, but that is
another topic.)

The other advocated reason is basically to 'stick it to the
corporation', under the delusion that it is possible to hurt the
fictitious 'legal person' rather than the real people how are owners,
workers, and other customers. ISP's price residential service based on
average fixed cost and average usage. Multiple homes using one
connection push those averages up.

Terry Jan Reedy

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

ISP's price residential service based on average fixed cost and average
usage. Multiple homes using one connection push those averages up.

Is that meant to be a problem?

When people buy more, the unit price they are paying falls, but the total
price they pay generally goes up. E.g. we've recently upgraded our
business link from AUD$150 per month for 60GB to $190 for 100GB. The per
GB price is less, but the total we pay is more -- and the ISP doesn't
have to do much extra work for that extra money.

 

[Ethan Furman]

Is that meant to be a problem?

When people buy more, the unit price they are paying falls, but the total
price they pay generally goes up. E.g. we've recently upgraded our
business link from AUD$150 per month for 60GB to $190 for 100GB. The per
GB price is less, but the total we pay is more -- and the ISP doesn't
have to do much extra work for that extra money.

The difference is that you *upgraded* your service and so incurred a
greater total cost. If my neighbor lets the rest of the neighborhood
use his wireless, while I do not, yet my prices go up because on average
more usage is happening, I am paying more but not getting more.

~Ethan~

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

The difference is that you *upgraded* your service and so incurred a
greater total cost. If my neighbor lets the rest of the neighborhood
use his wireless, while I do not, yet my prices go up because on average
more usage is happening, I am paying more but not getting more.

Incorrect -- you are getting all the downloads you make yourself, plus
the warm fuzzy feeling of happiness from the knowledge that other people
are making downloads you have paid for.

Of course, if you've *unintentionally* left your wi-fi open, perhaps
"cold feelings of dread and horror" would be more appropriate, but we're
talking about the situation where folks deliberately leave their wi-fi
open for whatever reason.

 

[Ethan Furman]

Incorrect -- you are getting all the downloads you make yourself, plus
the warm fuzzy feeling of happiness from the knowledge that other people
are making downloads you have paid for.

Of course, if you've *unintentionally* left your wi-fi open, perhaps
"cold feelings of dread and horror" would be more appropriate, but we're
talking about the situation where folks deliberately leave their wi-fi
open for whatever reason.

Read a little closer, Steven -- *my* wi-fi is *closed*, it's my neighbor
(in theory) who has his open, and all that extra usage is making *my*
rate go up -- no warm fuzzies, only irritation.

~Ethan~

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Read a little closer, Steven -- *my* wi-fi is *closed*, it's my neighbor
(in theory) who has his open, and all that extra usage is making *my*
rate go up -- no warm fuzzies, only irritation.

Okay, that makes zero sense at all.

If your neighbour left his wi-fi closed, but just downloaded twice as
much stuff, would you be irritated? What if he gets a roommate and they
share the same account?

What's the difference between "my neighbour is personally downloading
twice as much stuff" and "my neighbour is letting other people to
download stuff, doubling total usage on his account"?

Your argument supposes that open wi-fi will lead to increased average
usage, which in turn will lead to higher prices, neither of which are
obviously true.

If I'm leaching off my neighbour's open network, chances are that I'll be
using my own account less, so the average will tend to remain about the
same. Even if I download more than I otherwise would have, because I'm
not paying for it, the difference will be offset due to inconvenience: I
can't control when my neighbour has his account on or off, or bounce the
router if there's a problem. If I have to pick up my laptop and
physically walk outside and park in the street to access his open wi-fi
network, forget it, I'll use my own account.

According to the theory "increased usage leads to higher prices", we
should be paying more for Internet access now than we were in 1999, and
hugely more that from the early 90s when there were hardly any Internet
users. That's nonsensical. I don't know about you, but I'm paying about
the same for ADSL access now as I would have paid for dial-up access in
the late 90s. The explosion of Internet use has lead to more competition,
lower prices and lower costs. In the late 1990s, I was paying something
like AUD$35 a month for dial-up access just for myself. With inflation,
that's about equal to $45 in today's prices. Now I'm paying $60 for ADSL
access, for two people, that is, about $30 per person -- less than I was
paying for dial-up in 1999.

Even though the total amount I'm paying has increased, the cost per
person, or per megabyte, is lower than it was in the 90s. My total cost
has increased because my circumstances have changed, not because the
service is more expensive. That contradicts the prediction "more usage
leads to higher prices", and as far as I'm concerned, pretty much refutes
the hypothesis.

 

[Terry Reedy]

According to the theory "increased usage leads to higher prices", we
should be paying more for Internet access now than we were in 1999, and
hugely more that from the early 90s when there were hardly any Internet
users.

You are confusing historical changed with contemporaneous alternatives.

Suppose that all over the world, people coordinated so that one in three
households paid ISPs while a neighbor on each side piggybacked (and
perhaps paid the paying househould their one-third share). Do you
really think that would have no effect on the pricing and availability
of internet service?

tjr

 

[r]

*ahem*! You guy's do remember this thread (?at one time in history?)
was about spam on this list, right? Not internet connection fees. ;-)

 

[BJ Swope]

And I would kindly appreciate it if you fellas wouldn't go solving
this little spam problem! Selling Anti-Spam industry leading
appliances has managed to put me in a rather nice house and I'd hate
to lose it just because you fellas went and solved the problem!

 

[Ethan Furman]

Read a little closer, Steven -- *my* wi-fi is *closed*, it's my neighbor
(in theory) who has his open, and all that extra usage is making *my*
rate go up -- no warm fuzzies, only irritation.

Okay, that makes zero sense at all.
[snip]

If I'm leaching off my neighbour's open network, chances are that I'll be
using my own account less, so the average will tend to remain about the
same.

[more snippage]

Ah, I think that's the communication problem between us -- you're an
optimist! ;-)

In my experience, the folks that would use the open wi-fi do *not* have
an account of their own, are *not* paying their fair share, and I feel
very differently about that situation than about somebody who *is*
paying for their *own* service, even if they use it *a lot*.

Don't you just love bold? ;-)

~Ethan~

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Suppose that all over the world, people coordinated so that one in three
households paid ISPs while a neighbor on each side piggybacked (and
perhaps paid the paying househould their one-third share). Do you
really think that would have no effect on the pricing and availability
of internet service?

Are the accounts unlimited downloads, or are are they capped? Does the
ISP charge for excess downloads, or do they slow the connection down to
modem speed? Or even disconnect the account until the end of the month?
Does the ISP offer only a single plan, or are there multiple plans with
different caps? Can people cancel their accounts without notice, or are
they locked in for 12 months? How many ISPs are there? If only one, does
the government enforce laws against anti-monopolistic behaviour, or is it
happy to look the other way? There are far too many variables to give a
definitive answer to your question, but I'll try...

Consider a typical set of neighbours, Fred, Barney and Wilma, all with a
10GB monthly cap, and each use 8GB of that cap in an average month.
Barney gets wi-fi, and leaves it open. Fred and Wilma immediately cancel
their accounts, and piggyback off Barney, and in fact increase their
usage to 10GB because its not costing them anything.

What the ISP sees is that their total usage goes from 24GB used out of
30GB paid for, to 28GB out of 10GB paid for. If they're charging for
excess usage, they'll rub their hands with glee -- excess usage fees tend
to be brutal, and pure profit. No matter how altruistic Barney is, he'll
surely soon upgrade his cap to 30GB (or more).

If the ISP has done their sums right, their profit on a 30GB cap will be
more-or-less equal to 3 x their profit on a 10GB cap -- and very likely
larger. Why? Because of fixed, per account, costs. The ISP's fixed costs
(administrative costs) depend on the number of accounts, which has just
dropped by two thirds. Their variable costs depend on the amount of
downloads, and have increased by one sixth -- but the transmission costs
themselves are quite low. It's not unreasonable to hypothesise that the
decrease in per-account costs more than makes up for the increase in
transmission costs.

Essentially, Barney is acting as a middleman between his neighbours and
the ISP. (The fact that Barney may not collect any money from Fred or
Wilma is irrelevant -- he's just making a monetary loss from the deal.)
Suppliers often, but not always, love middlemen, because they can palm
off the least profitable and most expensive parts of their business to
somebody willing to work for a smaller margin. In this case, the ISP gets
to supply three customers for the administrative and help-desk costs of
supplying one (Barney). It's not unreasonable for this to be a win to the
ISP. Sometimes you get multiple layers of middlemen, e.g. in Australia
it's not unusual to have ISPs like Telstra who deal direct with the end
consumer but also sell bandwidth to smaller ISPs like Internode, who also
sell to the consumer as well as selling bandwidth to tiny ISPs with a few
hundred customers. Would this be viable with thousands of (effectively)
nano-ISPs with two customers each? I don't know, but it could be.

 

[Albert van der Horst]

Here is another idea: for spam senders pointing to servers under=20
jurisdiction, size the server and check all incoming requests
from users - if they try to do a deal, prosecute a few of them
in the public for supporting a crime. (And of course if possible
get hold of the spammers too). Sure there would be corner cases
where for example a competitor might try to discredit a company,
but in most cases, cui bono should be the spammer after all.

You know what that is: terror. Those in power just picks just
somebody, punish them in a way that is beyond reason, to scare the
crap out of everybody. This is what the western justice system is
supposed to prevent. This is the exact opposite of what
"the Free West" is supposed to mean.

Terrorised by government, or by interest groups, is as bad as
terrorised by Scientology Church or street punks.

Think about it. Hitler came legally to power, and was able to
transform Germany in a police state based on laws that were very
liberal compared to what we have today. (Only later he went far beyond
that.) Of course a lot of Jewish business men weren't honest. (No
business men is.). So being Jewish is probably criminal. Were does it
end?

Groetjes Albert