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Microsoft takes on Hotmail spammers | |
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| Time: 17:48 EST/22:48 GMT | News Source: Computer Weekly | Posted By: Alex Harris | ||
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Microsoft has continued its fight against alleged spammers whom it accuses of abusing its MSN Hotmail service. Microsoft investigators have helped the California attorney general and the US Federal Trade Commission to file lawsuits against four alleged spammers, accused of sending out millions of commercial email messages to users via the MSN Hotmail service. The four are accused of breaching both state and federal anti-spam laws. Microsoft has so far helped to bring anti-spamming lawsuits against people in Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington state. | ||
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| #1 By 8556 (12.217.175.226) at 4/14/2005 10:37:35 PM |
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This comment is peripherally related to the article. Concurrently with the increase in storage space at Hotmail, to the day, the junk mail I receive jumped from a few pieces per day to over 20 per day. I believe that MS is either allowing the spam to get through for a fee from the senders, or only fully blocks junk mail for paid subscribers. I have had the junk mail filter is maxed and has been set since it was installed. Gmail hasn’t allowed a single spam to get through my account there. I’m going to migrate away from Hotmail even though I’m a Microsoft Partner. Do any paid subscribers have a junk mail problem at Hotmail?
I wonder whether the spam in free Hotmail is from the same senders they are now trying to block from using Hotmail as a spam server. |
| #2 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 4/15/2005 12:00:40 AM |
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#1, I have several types of accounts - each to be able to replicate what users we support experience and also to evaluate how to effectively deal with SPAM. As a provider, one of our products is managed messaging services, and we see a great many people who have corporate accounts that also have one or more either free, or low cost email accounts from MSN and Yahoo, or AOL.
Most use BYOA plans. We do measure and analyze SPAM patterns opposite various systems and filtration methods. Our work has revealed that user behavior and the time an account has been active are the two biggest contributing factors regarding the amount of SPAM an account receives. The longer an account of any type is in use, the more SPAM one will see - however, it is almost always the same type of SPAM and is easily managed with a combination of managed filters. The incidence of false positives is very low after a very short time. User behaviors such as adult content access, online gambling, or warez site access result in the greatest amount of SPAM. Female users between 25 and 45 for example, see almost no SPAM. Males in the same age group will see 144% more SPAM and nearly half of it contains malicious code. Paid Hotmail filtration is only better in one regard - more specifically identified addresses may be blocked. Free Hotmail's efficacy is just as high however. Yahoo and AOL accounts are by far the worst - where the amount of SPAM renders the account nearly valueless. AOL 9.0 Security Edition BYOA versions offer some filtration, but it appears that AOL allows SPAM to come from paying senders. I cannot of course confirm that, but it certainly appears that way - owing to the reverse DNS lookups that AOL does and their application of rule #4 to the SPF. Gmail accounts see very little SPAM if any. However, they are new and the addresses not well known. Specific tests with the same types of traffic that arrive from SPAM senders reflects that Gmail's anti-spam is ineffective. The best combination we have found to stop nearly all SPAM is, RBL lookup at the edge, GFI on mail servers, CVP Scanners at the edge and on each host (these kill mal-ware very well) and SPF (even on a low setting, SPF rule 4 can stop even the most persistent and clever SPAM techniques). I'll say it again and again, "Give us our SPF and give it now - and yes, with Microsoft's connectoids and quarantine areas, please!" That'd kill all SPAM forever! |
| #3 By 13759 (24.8.146.14) at 4/15/2005 10:16:33 AM |
| I've had a MSN account for a couple of years now. The majority of the typical (medications/mortgages) spam is filtered. I do get specific spam from Borders and TigerDirect which MSN seems unable (refuses) to block. But the worst spammer is Microsoft itself! They send me spam hawking their Microsoft products and block the email headers of thier emails as well! And then there is their "Member Letter" which is nothing but repeated attempts to purchase MSN/Hotmail products/services. For me, Microsoft is the biggest spammer on the planet. |
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