Fight SPAM - You CAN make a difference

ChowderMan

Pizza Chef
Super Site Supporter
>>As for an automatic alert

aye, Capt'n Kirk. nothing else will re-integrate the dilithium crystals, or work for the average computer user . . .

they don't back up their data
they don't image their machine
they don't manually initiate scans for malware; automatic programs do a CPU burden, the functions get turned off

if I was a mega-ISP I'd have a heavily vested interest in telling customers "heh, you're infected and your spam is clogging up my system."

but they don't see it that way.
system overloaded = more system needed = rate hike justification.
(sizzle sizzle) your brain on cable; ($ $ $) on your cable bill.
 

YeOldeStonecat

New member
>>a member of a netbot army.

not that I disagree . . . here's my question:

why have ISP / the web at large / et. al. not produced a utility that will monitor one's computers outgoing email count and alert the user:

"Gosh, yesterday you sent 100,000 emails. Are you infected?"

Ahh...actually, good legit question, and both sides started addressing that quite a while ago. One of my friends from high school works for Verizon, he runs the bandwidth for the eastern seaboard of the US. And I mean the whole eastern backbone/pipe. Now and then we have some "catchup" discussions about stuff...and I'm always poking around about ISP stuff from the high up birds eye view that he has.

One of the main reasons that broadband accounts for the home users have such a low "upload"? In case someone gets infected and starts spewing out bad stuff...you want to limit how much damage can be done by a rogue PC. Many ISPs actually do randomly monitor bandwidth, and they'll take action against an account that "shows up on their radar".

The bad guys know enough to keep stuff low enough to not show up on the ISPs radar, their bots don't spew out SPAM at full throttle. Remember, they want their little bot programs to remain silent, undiscovered. They just squirt out randomly varying amounts of e-mail, not full throttle. SPAM e-mail is small, usually spam is without attachments, small amount of content, so it's not a lot of data that shows up.

Regarding bandwidth for your ISP..it's the p2p/torrent kids/abusers that knock the heck out of that.
 

ChowderMan

Pizza Chef
Super Site Supporter
yeah but . . .

the ISPs (can) know everything every user is/has/was/ever did-doing.
what sites, how long, how many emails, etc.

it's not a technical "can we" issue. it's a politically charged / privacy / whatever issue.

actually, it is not even 'political' - how many users have more than one option of cable or FIOS or DSL?

users have many dial-up ISP, or one broad band provider. click it or leave it.

where there's a will there's a way.
the way is there, the will is not there.
 

Adillo303

*****
Gold Site Supporter
Chowder has just actually defined the issue.

Commercial interests have lots of options. End users can only choose from what is on the pole outside.

Back to being a food site. Anyone remember the recent debacle with food network and Cablevision?
 

YeOldeStonecat

New member
yeah but . . .

the ISPs (can) know everything every user is/has/was/ever did-doing.
what sites, how long, how many emails, etc.

it's not a technical "can we" issue. it's a politically charged / privacy / whatever issue.

actually, it is not even 'political' - how many users have more than one option of cable or FIOS or DSL?

users have many dial-up ISP, or one broad band provider. click it or leave it.

where there's a will there's a way.
the way is there, the will is not there.

But to sift through all that info, takes manpower and resources, and it's only worth it up to a point.

End users usually have just 1x cable provider, but you actually have many more DSL providers than just the local telco. People just assume it's the local telco and nobody else, but if the phone line goes to your house, there's usually another 1/2 dozen and more DSL ISPs that you can use.
 

Adillo303

*****
Gold Site Supporter
but you actually have many more DSL providers than just the local telco. People just assume it's the local telco and nobody else, but if the phone line goes to your house, there's usually another 1/2 dozen and more DSL ISPs that you can use.

Ah yes, but, the local Telco still owns / manages the copper. I have been told by the techs, they take care of their won first.
 

Keltin

New member
Gold Site Supporter
Ah yes, but, the local Telco still owns / manages the copper. I have been told by the techs, they take care of their won first.


True that. Major Telcos own the copper but lease it out to smaller CLECs all the time. I'd venture to say they (the major Telcos like AT&T or Bellsouth) make the majority of their twisted pair money on CLEC leases these days.
 
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