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Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#41

Post by jasonjayr »

jcranmer wrote: post #27
matsemann wrote: post #8

Why does Gmail even show them in the spam filter? Shouldn't it be so obvious spam that I don't have to deal with it? And then only keep the dubious stuff and show it to me.

In general, what you see in the spam filter is the stuff that isn't obviously spam--the latter category is entirely black-holed. False positives in spam detection are really bad, so you want to tune your algorithm to have really low false positive rates--which means you get high false negative rates in turn. Having a spam folder to filter non-black-holed spam into allows you to introduce another level where false pos…

It shouldn't ever be black holed, it should rejected in the SMTP transaction.

I'd love to never have to ask "did you get my email message?"

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#42

Post by tptacek »

jasonjayr wrote: post #41
jcranmer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, what you see in the spam filter is the stuff that isn't obviously spam--the latter category is entirely black-holed. False positives in spam detection are really bad, so you want to tune your algorithm to have really low false positive rates--which means you get high false negative rates in turn. Having a spam folder to filter non-black-holed spam into allows you to introduce another level where false pos…

It shouldn't ever be black holed, it should rejected in the SMTP transaction. I'd love to never have to ask "did you get my email message?"

The stuff he's talking about getting black-holed is conclusively spam; it's not stuff they're guessing about.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#43

Post by starwind »

Ekaros wrote: post #40
low_tech_love wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess what happens when you click "unsubscribe"?

Your email gets added to known good addresses list and sold around?

I at least haven't seem to have had that experience with legitimate companies. Spam, yeah, I don't even load images to those emails

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#44

Post by netizen-936824 »

Finnucane wrote: post #18
netizen-936824 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for reimagining the email system, but considering how wide spread email is right now I think the replacement might need to be at least partially compatible to allow interoperation during transition

The tech industry’s ‘reenvisioning’ of a free/cheap older, but universal, standard is usually to replace it with something expensive, proprietary, and limited in scope.

My hope is that it would be an open and free standard instead of some of the usual bullshit vendor lock in

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#45

Post by humanistbot »

Oh good, looks like I get to be the one to repost this classic [1]:

"Your post advocates a:

( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses

( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected

( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money

( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks

( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it

( ) Users of email will not put up with it

( ) Microsoft will not put up with it

( ) The police will not put up with it

( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers

( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once

( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers

( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists

( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

*Specifically, your plan fails to account for:*

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it

( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email

( ) Open relays in foreign countries

( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses

( ) Asshats

( ) Jurisdictional problems

( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes

( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money

( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP

( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack

( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email

( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes

( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches

( ) Extreme profitability of spam

( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft

( ) Technically illiterate politicians

( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers

( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves

( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering

( ) Outlook

*and the following philosophical objections may also apply:*

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical

( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable

( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation

( ) Blacklists suck

( ) Whitelists suck

( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored

( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud

( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks

( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually

( ) Sending email should be free

( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?

( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses

( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem

( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome

( ) I don't want the government reading my email

( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

*Furthermore, this is what I think about you:*

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.

( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.

( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!"

[1] https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#46

Post by dazc »

teeray wrote: post #26

Outright spam is one thing. What’s more prevalent these days and vastly more annoying is corporate spam. Every purchase now is apparently free license to send you pure garbage emails multiple times per day.

I bought a pair of car sidelight bulbs from a small ecommerce outfit and received multiple emails about special offers and such. Can't remember what the cost was but I do remember the postage charge was the biggest part of the transaction.

I'm sure the business owner really thought he was promoting his business well but who buys bulbs in such quantities to make this worthwhile?

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#47

Post by jeffbee »

jonplackett wrote: post #23
beaconstudios wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost for spammers can be actually free because they often use botnets and compromised accounts to send spam.

I reckon it’s just a numbers game. Gmail will every now and then let absolutely ridiculous emails through the spam filter. Badly spelled, bogus URLs, with $$$$ all over the place and All CAPS and just so clearly to any human a phishing attempt or just general scumminess and gmail takes a look at it and says “yup everything seems legit here. On to the inbox!”

Google has to intentionally inbox a tiny fraction of spam, otherwise they'll never get corrective feedback on false positives, because basically nobody looks in their spam folder. Also, they have to permit a teensy fraction of stuff that would normally be temp-failed at SMTP time, for the same reason: otherwise it would be impossible for address and network reputation to improve. So sometimes if you see something completely ridiculous get inboxed, it might be that they are just trying to get data.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#48

Post by TehShrike »

I switched away from Gmail a couple of years ago – I have gotten the impression that spam is only still a thing for Gmail users.

Gmail's spam filters would break horribly for me every few years, either flooding my inbox with spam, or filing obviously-not-spam emails in the spam folder.

With Fastmail, my experience is that all spam goes to the spam folder, and only a few questionable newsletters get put in the spam folder by "mistake".

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#49

Post by gertrunde »

pwg wrote: post #2

> These emails are so bad and there is almost no chance of them finding their way through a spam filter, why are people still sending them? Most likely because the cost to send per email is so low as to be essentially free. As well, there may be some amount of 'Nigerian email' issue here. I've heard it said that the "Nigerian prince with 65M needs help moving money to your country" emails are so poorly worded on purp…

Correct - because the cost of the spam itself is negligible, but the cost of developing a prospective mark into cash-in-pocket is quite high in terms of time & resources.

The last thing the scammer wants is for the mark to back out after the scammer has invested resources into them, and before they have realised any gains.

Effectively, insufficiently gullible marks reduce their profit margins.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#50

Post by maxwell86 »

gertrunde wrote: post #49
pwg wrote: post #2

> These emails are so bad and there is almost no chance of them finding their way through a spam filter, why are people still sending them? Most likely because the cost to send per email is so low as to be essentially free. As well, there may be some amount of 'Nigerian email' issue here. I've heard it said that the "Nigerian prince with 65M needs help moving money to your country" emails are so poorly worded on purp…

Correct - because the cost of the spam itself is negligible, but the cost of developing a prospective mark into cash-in-pocket is quite high in terms of time & resources. The last thing the scammer wants is for the mark to back out after the scammer has invested resources into them, and before they have realised any gains. Effectively, insufficiently gullible marks reduce their profit margins.

I would like an email service where, when someone wants to send me an email, they have to first get some hash, e.g., "{hash}.myaccount@myprovider.com".

Then, in order to get the hash, they have to paypal me 20 cents.

If my attention is not worth 20 cents to them, then they should not be contacting me in the first place.

Further replies to the same thread should be free for some period of time (e.g. a month or so).

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