Customer Reviews

Stopping Spam: Stamping Out Unwanted Email and News Postings

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Stopping Spam is a good introduction to the major issues, but despite its claims has little to offer the system administrator. An example of a topic that should have been covered in depth, but wasn't, is the configuration of a mail server to use Vixie's Real Time Black Hole. It's not a bad book, but it's not the bat book, either.

Having said that, it would make a nice gift for your pointy-haired boss who needs a whack with the cluebat. It will even be of use to the advanced user who wants to write their first procmail filter to cut down on the spam in their mailbox.

This book is not just a great resource for home users annoyed by spam...in dealing with its subject matter, one gets a great and very readable overview of just WHAT all that alphabet soup at the top of your Email and Usenet postings actually is. Also, excellent recommendations for using Eudora's filters and other out-of-the-box softare, etc. are included.

However, I have to admit: This book is for intermediate users. An absolute beginner would get lost and a sysadmin already knows MOST of this stuff. Also, it is quite Unix-centric and gives zero advice on how to use MS-based mail servers and clients. However, IMHO it's good for anybody, if just for the URL's of important antispam sites and software download sites.

Another "Animal Book" masterpiece here.

Don't let the publication date scare you off. This book is timeless in its applicability. It covers all types of spam very nicely, and is acutely aware of the potential speech-related issues content-based filtering can bring about.

This book offers many options for combatting spam on the user and system levels, and makes sure to present the best way to stop spam: by teaching responsible system administration and shutting down open mail relays and public NNTP servers that allow posting.

I have had to admin mail and news servers for clients in the past, and I personally receive about 30 pieces of unwanted email daily. I've been particularly interested in the Procmail-based "friendly sender database", and the book presents the solution in a clear, concise fashion.

If you're tired of receiving more spam than real email, or having to really look hard for high quality, on topic postings in your newsgroups, then I strongly recommend this book.

It is an old book so some of the info is rather dated.

However, it is good for a historical perspective and it gives an ok overview of the whole concept.

It will not give you answers to what you need to do as much of the spamming techniques have changed since it's publishing.

For example HTML based spam, spam fighing software, and Baysean formula came after this.

It was a book for its time but it has passed.

Though I took copious notes on reading headers, reporting mail fraud, and tracing spammers back to their sources, this book solved my problem with one simple piece of advice. I set a filter in Netscape to shunt any mail that doesn't have part of my own email address in its "To:" field into a "low priority" folder, except for a few mailing lists (like Suck) that I actually want. It works perfectly. The junk e-mail doesn't clutter up my inbox, and I can get rid of it all with a glance and a click.

Yes, ORDB does recommend this book for server administrators with open relay. However, this server administrator found no information in the book that would be helpful in closing an open relay. Complete waste of money and time.

The book was written in 1998. Parts of it are heavily outdated. Especially one new antispam method that arose in 2003/4. If you have a blacklist of spammer domains, and you are a sysadmin, then you can do this against incoming or outgoing email - Find the links in the email body. If there are links, then find the domains in these, and compare with the blacklist. If any are in the blacklist, then you can classify the message as spam. (And perhaps delete it.)

Sounds obvious? Only in retrospect. In 1998, spam was already enough of a problem that this book was written. Has many ways to fight it. Including using a blacklist against the relays in the header. Yet nowhere in the book is the next crucial step. Applying it against body links.

But starting in mid/late 2003, almost all the major ISPs and message providers (like AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail), started doing the latter. It has proved one of the simplest and most effective antispam methods. The entire antispam field converted to this by 2004.

Technically, the method could have been done in 1998 or earlier. No obstacle to it. The book is key proof that the method was not obvious beforehand. A necessary criterion for patentability.

I rarely rate a book with 5. Here I do. Because we can cite this in support of our US Patent Pending, "System and Method for the Classification of Electronic Communications". Filed in March 2003. One portion of it described this method.

I thank the authors of the book. :)

This book covers the problems with Spam- and what one can do to stop it- quite well. However, it isn't of much use to the system administrator trying to implement anti-relay techniques (POP before SMTP in particular), RBL-style blacklists, etc. Not that the Bat book is much better-- you can't open it, read a chapter, and protect yourself immediately...

This is a good book for those that are new to the internet and just can't understand why they get so much spam. If you're a system admin or internet geek that's looking for some useful information, you probably already know what this book is going to tell you.

Stopping Spam by Alan Schwartz and Simson Garfinkel (no, not Simon & Garfunkel), provides the background history on the practice know as "spamming", insight into the potential harm that can be caused by spamming, and offers readers a textbook approach to handling this egregious violation of netiquette. They provide case studies, programming solutions, assistance in responding to spam and junk mail, and legal information that readers can arm themselves with.

Readers should find quite intriguing the events that brought the problem of spamming to the forefront. They will read up on the Canter & Siegel affair, the rise of Spam King Jeff Slaton, and the expoits of "Spamford" Wallace and his Cyber Promotions, Inc. outfit. The Cyber Promotions timeline at the back of the book recounts the major legal events brought on by the efforts of this one company to legitimatize the practice of spamming. These are all fascinating accounts that no opposer of spam should miss out on!

Readers will learn how major online services like AOL and CompuServe have handled incidents of spam. AOL for instance, published their top ten spammers list which included weight reduction gimmicks, marketing companies, and not too surprisingly, publishers of pornography. Elaborate blocking methods were put into place and court challenges filed to prevent further unauthorized targeting of these and other services.

The authors provide detailed analysis of e-mail messages to help readers determine for themselves the origin and/or nature of electronic correspondence sent to them. This analysis reveals that some spammers will take elaborate and very unethical measures to send spam and shield their identities. The authors demonstrate how easily anyone can forge e-mail.

This book offers plenty of resources that readers can access to become further educated on the matter of spamming. The authors point out that members of the online community have a number of legitimate ways to deal with it. This book is a good resource guide that anyone concerned about spamming should obtain. It's good reading!