Spam, Popup Blockers and Britney Spears

I know its ages after you wrote the article irfan...nonetheless, i have to say you possess a great sense of humor...

Keep it up!

babelicious:

Well, you`re right about one thing, this doesn`t happen everyday here on chowk. My email address, if you, or for that matter anyone, wants to drop me a note, is irfan_hamid at softhome.net

Regards,
Irfan Hamid.

punctuation may not be my strong point but hell im going to say what i feel like saying and there`s not a thing you can do to stop me. great article, short, funny and not rambling on incoherently all the while failing to make any point in particular. so ummm.... i dont do this a whole lot...ok i do it all the time but the point is i was wondering if i could have ur email address to you know get to know u better maybe? ( no im not 12!!) n hey, be flatterred coz im just guessing here but i dont think this sort of thing happens everyday

sairaq:

Well that shouldn`t decrease the problem. You see, spammers never use web-based email interfaces. They have to have script-based interfaces so they can send emails to thousands of people in a go. Web-based emails don`t provide you this possibility. There`s two ways to spam. Both given below:

1) Ever checked the `From:` email address in a spam mail? It`s usually something like `CPEQ48222191MN@xyz-domain.com`. What they do is buy the domain name called xyz-domain.com, which costs about 10 to 40 dollars a year. Then they get a static IP from an ISP which costs anywhere between 10 to 10,000 dollars a month, depending on the speed you want. They make xyz-domain.com point towards their static IP address. Now all they need is to install a mailserver software like sendmail on their server machine and they`re good to go. They can write scripts that create dummy addresses like the one I mentioned and use their email lists to flood the whole world. And nothing Microsoft or any web-based email service can do will stop them, because they are not using their services.

2) Sometimes you don`t even have to go to all that trouble. Many servers on the internet still have a non-authenticating mail server. This means that you can send an email from that server without actually logging in. So ANYONE on the internet can log onto that server on port 25 using a program like telnet, and if/she knows the smtp protocol, can send an email to anyone from that server.

Regards,
Irfan Hamid.

Your post reminded me of the current uproar on Bill Gates anti spam suggestion. The gist of it is that an email user be charged approx. 10 cents per email sent. Apparently Microsoft is quite serious about the whole scenario and has been approaching web based email providers to not only implement this set up but also support a law making it mandatory. Personally am quite against it even though the involved parties seem to feel it would result in less spam. 1. I`m sure spammers would come up with novel ways to achieve their purpose and 2. Most professional people exchange approx. 50 emails a day which adds up eventually.

Any thoughts?

irfan,

............ i loved your article .............

MBZIsphahani:

I welcome all kinds of feedback to my article, be it severely critical or even non-constructively so. But if you really want to get your point across, might I suggest short, clear sentences and reasonable (I`m not asking for immaculate) punctuation. If your argument in response is that God is omnipotent and that punctuation and clarity does not mean anything in the greater scheme of things, then don`t bother.

Regards,
Irfan Hamid.

Haha.. That was funny but so true as well.
Its sad that sites resort to such cheap tricks though!!

Cool article dude. Short and funny.

#1- MBZ Ipshooshwhoosh-whatever-
HAHAHAHAHAHA

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