Subject: [Asrg] News Article - FTC targeting open relays

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 17:59:17 -0400

Just came across this article on CNET - it seems that FTC has been sending 
out letters to operators of open relays asking them to shut down the relaying:

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-1001868.html

The FTC site devoted to open relays is located at:

http://www.ftc.gov/openrelay

The question is do open relays matter anymore? According to report IMCR-016 
by the Internet Mail Consortium (http://www.imc.org/ube-relay.html) the 
following conclusions were reached:

"The results show that fewer than 1% of mail servers that are named in mail 
addresses allowed relaying in August 2002, a very sharp reduction from over 
6% from a year and a half earlier. In the same 18 months, the amount of 
spam a typical Internet users receives has gone up significantly. This 
shows that the amount of spam is not related to the number of open relays 
available."

---------------snip------------
Some interesting quotes from the article, particularly about advantages of 
open relays, legality of operating open relays, and the disadvantages of 
shutting them down:

"Federal and state law enforcement agencies pledged to take an aggressive 
new approach to fighting spam: identifying "open relay" mail servers that 
serve as conduits for massive quantities of junk e-mail. At an event in 
Dallas on Thursday, representatives of the agencies said they--in tandem 
with officials from Australia, Canada and Japan--had sent letters to 
operators of over 1,000 e-mail servers around the globe warning that an 
open relay "creates problems for consumers worldwide, for law enforcement 
and for your organization".

"Until a few years ago, nearly all Internet mail servers were open relays. 
That practice offered some benefits, such as making it much easier to send 
e-mail when traveling or when plugging in a laptop on someone else's network."

"Most antispam activists believe that shutting down or blacklisting open 
relays must be a top priority. Critics like Internet pioneer and Electronic 
Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore have argued, however, that the 
costs of prohibiting open relays outweighs the benefits and could 
precipitate other restrictions from Internet providers. "

"Groman, the FTC staff attorney, said the agencies were undertaking an 
educational campaign--but nothing more--directed at people running open 
relays. "It's not illegal to run an open relay," he said. "
--------snip------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yakov Shafranovich / <[email-masked]>
SolidMatrix Research, a division of SolidMatrix Technologies, Inc.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"One who watches the wind will never sow, and one who keeps his eyes on
the clouds will never reap" (Ecclesiastes 11:4)
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From: mathew <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 21:38:24 -0400

On Thursday, May 15, 2003, at 17:59 US/Eastern, Yakov Shafranovich 
quoted:
> "The results show that fewer than 1% of mail servers that are named in 
> mail addresses allowed relaying in August 2002, a very sharp reduction 
> from over 6% from a year and a half earlier. In the same 18 months, 
> the amount of spam a typical Internet users receives has gone up 
> significantly. This shows that the amount of spam is not related to 
> the number of open relays available."

I'd like to buck the trend for this list and admit my ignorance: if 
open relays have gone down in number but spam has increased hugely, how 
is spam now being sent, statistically speaking?  Illegal hacking of 
buggy OSs?  Or are the remaining open relays just taking more and more 
traffic?

mathew

---

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 22:49:16 -0400

At 09:38 PM 5/15/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>On Thursday, May 15, 2003, at 17:59 US/Eastern, Yakov Shafranovich quoted:
>>from over 6% from a year and a half earlier. In the same 18 months, the 
>>amount of spam a typical Internet users receives has gone up 
>>significantly. This shows that the amount of spam is not related to the 
>>number of open relays available."
>
>I'd like to buck the trend for this list and admit my ignorance: if open 
>relays have gone down in number but spam has increased hugely, how is spam 
>now being sent, statistically speaking?  Illegal hacking of buggy OSs?  Or 
>are the remaining open relays just taking more and more traffic?

I believe Barry (from The World ISP) has mentioned that most spam now is 
either being sent via off-shore servers and hacked/virus-infected machines.

Yakov

---

From: Steve Atkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 22:04:07 -0700

> either being sent via off-shore servers and hacked/virus-infected machines.

That's not what I'm seeing. I'd say that there was a lot coming from
normal legitimate servers - sometimes offshore, sometimes in the US -
a lot coming via open proxies, a fair few through open relays, some
being sent through scripted freemail webmail, a few coming from compromised
machines and a few from end-user accounts.

Of the open proxies... some of the proxies are trojans, some are
installed by the machine owner.

Note that the FTC announced action against both open relays and open
proxies, if I recall the announcement correctly.

Cheers,
  Steve

---

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 01:44:09 -0400

>proxies, if I recall the announcement correctly.

Perhaps, others on the list can provide us with some numbers and more 
information on sources of spam?

Yakov

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From: "Jon Kyme" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 09:50:32 +0100

> information on sources of spam?

Well, just an anecdote - proxies seem to be the major source of *our* spam
nowadays. I gather
( from http://www.sdsc.edu/~jeff/spam/cbc.html )
that proxies are outnumbering relays by almost 3:1 on blocking lists.

--

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From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 17:31:52 -0400

> either being sent via off-shore servers and hacked/virus-infected machines.

I don't know that I'd say "most" because I don't have the data, but I
wouldn't be surprised. Either that or there's some other explanation
why so much of it comes in from thousands (at any given time) of
different DSL and Cable broadband hosts.

On that note here's another relevant article:

      http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030516-012205-6003r

      Internet fraud initiative nets 130 arrests 

      WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- A nationwide initiative against Internet
      fraud and abuse has resulted in more than 130 arrests and the seizure
      of $17 million since January, the Justice Department said Friday.

             ...

I'd imagine the overlap with spammers is rather high. If you read the
articles one finds many familiar topics; russian brides, work-at-home,
envelope stuffing, etc.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | [email-masked]           | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202        | Login: 617-739-WRLD
The World              | Public Access Internet     | Since 1989     *oo*
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From: Kee Hinckley <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 00:41:09 -0400

>wouldn't be surprised. Either that or there's some other explanation

Looking at a sample of 100,000 relatively recent pieces of spam, 39% 
came through servers outside of the U.S..
-- 
Kee Hinckley
http://www.messagefire.com/          Junk-Free Email Filtering
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/   Writings on Technology and Society

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.
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