Christopher Bort wrote: > Bob Proulx wrote: > > You are trying to apply logic to a situation to which no reason can be > > applied. Spammers do not operate with a sanity of reason and logic. > > There is intelligence. But bludgeoning others for their own gain only > > makes sense to them and not to members of society. > > True enough. I suppose it's a good thing that I'm not entirely > able to think like a spammer. ;-)
People who see the exploits that are possible but work for the good of others are called "whitehats". Bruce Schneier made an interesting comment concerning ant farms related to this type of mindset[1]. I think the important thing is that if you are one of those that always see how things can fail or be exploited that you work to solve the problems. (This is where test driven development comes from and where security comes from and so forth.) And that if you are not one of those people that you don't become a block to improvements. Too often people close their eyes, put their fingers in their ears and hum. Instead they should be receptive to people trying to help them. > > Spammers base their existence upon extremely low probabilities > > multiplied by very large numbers of messages. > > True again. Your comments essentially reflect my own assessment, > but I was curious enough about it to bring it up on a list like > this one to see if I was missing some twist that would make an > iota of sense, but I guess not. It does make sense. You don't see it from the spammer's perspective. Someone who is running a nameserver for a domain just might at some very small probability be slightly more likely to allow relaying for that domain than other random servers on the network. But I think it is the reverse. I think a nameserver for a domain is more likely to be locked down for relays to that domain. I think nameservers for a domain would be less likely to relay than random other machines on the network. But obviously at least one spammer is testing this theory. Spammers are already working at very, very low probabilities and so poking at another low one isn't a problem. So for the spammer it makes sense to try wild ideas even if the likelihood is extremely small of it being fruitful. > I'll let it go now. 8^) Even though there's no actual problem, it's > still a low grade irritant to me that someone out there is stupid > enough to bang their head against this wall. I think it is good that you brought this up and allowed people to notice this behavior. Perhaps it will be useful to use in relation to generating block lists. Who knows? It is interesting. I don't think it is particularly unexpected. In this particular case though they are way behind the power curve. They are working behind the years of learning and selection that running any type of open mail relay is unacceptable. As far as spammers being stupid, I disagree. I think they show definite intelligence. The first time I observed a distributed spamming engine in operation I was definitely impressed. Unfortunately it is an evil intelligence. It works not for the public good but against it. Being annoying along the way is just one of the lessor ways that they show that they care nothing about others. Bob [1] http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/03/securitymatters_0320
