16 January 2004

Silly Ways to Fight Spam (Bloody Vikings!)

Spam spam spam spam

Spam spam spam spam

Spam spam spam spam

Shut Up!!!

Bloody Vikings.

The Spam problem has gotten so bad that the interception of Spam has become a business in and of itself, with some very stiff competition. Most Internet Service Providers use some kind of software methodology to intercept Spam messages before they reach their customer's E-Mail accounts. A number of Web-Based E-Mail providers give their customers a dedicated folder for junk mail and program their servers to drop any messages that even remotely resemble Spam in this folder. The new version of Microsoft Outlook, included with the Microsoft Office 2003 suite, includes new functionality for sorting out and dealing with Spam, and from what I'm told the new functionality alone is worth the cost of upgrading.

The point is that the problem is very real and very pervasive, but it can be dealt with to a certain extent.

Of course the only real way to deal with the Spam problem is to make the practice of Spamming Internet users illegal, but that can only be done by government decree. Here in Canada one gets the impression that the Federal Government has higher priorities. Besides which, it's primarily an American concern, isn't it? I mean, the vast majority of Internet regulation and administration is done in the States, isn't it? Doesn't that make it their problem and not ours?

And here's another thing, even if you do make the practice of Spamming illegal, how in the name of hell are you going to enforce it? How is the government agency responsible for this work going to monitor every single message sent by every single user to make sure that they're not sending Spam, and what powers are you going to have to deal with them when you catch them?

As it stands now there is no really and truly effective way to deal with Spam. Sure, you can take steps to limit the amount of Spam that floods your inbox, but that's about it.

The nice thing about using AOL as my ISP is that they go to great lengths to shield their customers from a lot of the Spam that is out there. But their primary method of doing this seems to involve their blacklisting entire ISP's, programming the AOL mail servers to refuse any message traffic from their outgoing mail servers. This practice creates incredible results and goes great lengths towards reducing the amount of Spam their servers have to deal with. However if you happen to exchange legitimate message traffic with someone who has an account on one of the blacklisted servers then you are shit out of luck, because the messages they send you will never get through. You also have no guarantee that the messages you send them will ever get out, because AOL may block those too, just on general principle.

I know for a fact that they are doing this because I have encountered this practice.

For some time now I have been having problems communicating with the Editors at the online magazine Bewildering Stories. They have received some of the messages that I have sent them, while others have just disappeared into the Ether. However, every time they try to send a message to me through any of the E-Mail services that they use, AOL bounces the messages right back to them with a tersely worded little note that informs them in no uncertain terms that the AOL network is no longer accepting message traffic from those servers.

The end result is that I cannot receive message traffic from the Bewildering Stories account, or the Allstream and University of Guelph accounts that Don Webb uses. About the only way that they can get messages to me is for Don to send them through his Rogers account. AOL will currently accept message traffic from that server, but I have to wonder how long it's going to last.

Needless to say this state of affairs is completely unacceptable to me. Being able to communicate with Bewildering Stories is extremely important to the development of my writing business. As I intend to work my way into a position where I make my living off of my writing then the development of this business is a priority to me. I need to be able to communicate with Don Webb and Jerry Wright. However, because of the AOL practice of blacklisting servers I have to look for an alternate way of doing this. In other words, I have to use one of my other accounts to communicate with Bewildering.

I have several E-Mail accounts so this isn't really a problem, but it is a pain in the ass and I fail to see any legitimate reason why I should have to do this. It's a silly way to deal with a serious problem and I think that AOL should be ashamed of themselves for having resorted to this measure.

Of course I could lodge a complaint with AOL and demand that they lift their restrictions for those accounts that I have to deal with on a daily basis, but I have no reason to believe that they will actually listen to my complaint, nor do I have any reason to believe that they will actually lift the restrictions. In fact, I believe that if I were to lodge such a complaint and make such a demand then AOL would just pat me on the head as if I were a frightened child and assure me that they're doing it for my own good. After all, we're just trying to protect you.

I don't need protection, not from Spam and not from the likes of AOL Time Warner. And I am not going to put up with having entire segments of legitimate message traffic intercepted and blocked just because AOL believes that someone with an account on that server is bombarding their incoming mail servers with Spam.

So what am I going to do? Simple. I'm going to send a very clear message to AOL that I am unhappy with their blacklisting of E-Mail servers by closing out my account with them and switching ISP's. A fool isn't going to listen to you unless you deprive him of money, and AOL is run by a ship of fools. If others do the same thing then AOL will be forced to reconsider their practices, and maybe future members won't have to deal with the problems that I'm having to deal with.