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FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

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Re: FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

#231

Post by nubinetwork »

alpaca128 wrote: post #97
jwr wrote: post #88

I gave up on trying to report abuse to Google, Amazon or Microsoft. It seems reports simply get ignored and the big providers do nothing. I hope the FSF with its weight and media presence can finally do something. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are my major sources of spam. These days, this is where spam comes from. At this point, they are also too big to block. We allowed this to happen, through neglect and laziness.…

On YouTube I reported bot accounts for a couple days, the only reaction I got was that at some point it showed a popup that told me too many false reports would lead to a ban. Not sure what Google gets out of it, but there is no way they could be that bad at fighting bots unless they're not even trying. Even trivial tricks like copy-pasted texts keep working.

> popup that told me too many false reports would lead to a ban

That would imply that someone actually sees them... vs shoving them under the rug, or giving them to a bot to delete.

Re: FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

#232

Post by e40 »

ilamont wrote: post #175
Cpoll wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What stopped them from continuing with a new similar Gmail address?

Yes, they could easily spin up another gmail address. The other part of the scam involved sending money to a bank account in Oregon with someone else's name attached to it. I notified the bank in a similar manner and hope they shut it down (not confirmed; my next step is to notify the Oregon banking regulator about the incident). The hope is that once the bank account and gmail account are shut down the scammer will…

If you are a high-value target, it likely will continue. I had a friend that was and the attacks were unceasing.

Re: FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

#233

Post by e40 »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #153
tag2103 wrote: post #140

Rhetorical question- but what is it going to take for the IT Community to start treating Gmail and the rest of the "too big to block" as adversarial entities and actually block them for their bad behavior. Pie in the sky I know.

Microsoft refuses to deliver legitimate emails to hotmail.com addresses so I tell clients how it is. I’m not jumping through hoops when I’m not doing anything wrong. SPF, DMARC, DKIM, IP address not on a blacklist, and I send zero spam. Only human-written client communications 1:1. So, my clients with hotmail.com addresses don’t get emails from me. I can call them, they can call me.

Microsoft refuses to send emails to itself? How bizarre.

Re: FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

#234

Post by DarkUranium »

Arnt wrote: post #54
nomel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's that simple. As a litmus test, try to set up your own mail server. See how many milliseconds it takes for it to be blacklisted by gmail. And then observe the response time for their support, when you try to clear up the confusion that google has about your intentions.

I run my own mail server, not blacklisted. Now I'm a bit of a special case, I know mail well. But when a moderately technical colleague wanted to do the same, I told her to use Mox, she set it up and Gmail doesn't block her either. So... would you please elaborate?

I'm curious, what about Microsoft/Outlook?

I also have my own MTA. No problems with anyone ..... except Microsoft, who (silently) never delivers the mail.

Re: FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

#235

Post by xenophonf »

benoau wrote: post #193
titzer wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to realize that once Google flips the bit on you and they think you are trying to scam them (or others via them) you are absolutely dead to them. They don't want to hear from you ever again. You're banned to hell. The fact that a billing system didn't get switched off isn't so surprising; the internal architecture of their systems is so complicated that it would take multiple human lifetimes to explain how i…

> The fact that a billing system didn't get switched off isn't so surprising; the internal architecture of their systems is so complicated that it would take multiple human lifetimes to explain how it all works. There was a lawsuit about a decade ago where a company was owed about $500k in ad fraud refunds and Google kept saying they had paid it, it ended up being an incomplete part of their software that had inadver…

That "inadvertently" desperately needs scare quotes.

Re: FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

#236

Post by mindslight »

protocolture wrote: post #228
xeyownt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. The point is that they don't provide the level of services required by their position, which is dominant. When you have a legitimate problem with Google, they don't reply to you. The news here is again an example of that. The only thing you can do is abide by their rules, which often requires you to subscribe to their services or be at their mercy.

Thats the point? The point seems to dance around and shift every time I address it. I have had this specific issue with an absolute laundry list of email providers and senders, including Google. Googles probably not even in the top ten worst offenders. Getting Sony to remove an ip from its PSN email blacklist was much more difficult. So they are a monopoly in the sense that they aren't a monopoly, and just have massi…

Are you sure it's the point itself shapeshifting and not your responses to it?

> have massive corporate power, and that massive corporate power translates into them acting like every other [massive corporate] email provider with a spam blacklist

If that's how you want to sum it up, sure. Unaccountable corporate power is bad. That people instinctively reach for the "M-word" in response to this dynamic doesn't invalidate their criticisms. And no, I don't find your "if corpos didn't do this on their own then the government would force it" argument compelling. The problem isn't spam filtering (etc), but rather the details of how they're implemented.

Re: FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

#237

Post by dns_error »

tombrandis wrote: post #170
mschuster91 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, it's a mess to set up if you are not doing it correctly - which is all too easy if you are not doing this day-to-day. Spammers however, they have an economic incentive to have experts set up SPF, DMARC and all the other crap to appear legitimate.

I think that this is overstated, it takes ~15 minutes to set up SPF and DMARC correctly and few people run their own email servers. https://workaround.org/ispmail-trixie/anti-spoofing-dkim-spf...

[dead]

Re: FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

#238

Post by BenjiWiebe »

smalltorch wrote: post #230
ilamont wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Usually when a gmail account is being used for real spamming, it's an established one that's been taken over My incident is unlikely to be a real account being taken over. The name format was "firstnamelastnameofficial@gmail.com" and I have a somewhat rare name ... probably well under 40 people worldwide with the exact spelling.

I just encountered this exact pattern. I recently created a new app...recieved an email from what seemed to be a promenant app reviewer on YouTube [youtubersname]corporation@gmail. I said how do I know you are him? Then the weird part was somehow he was able to send me a email from the actual YouTubers public listed email but it went to my spam folder... Then after he told me everything that would be included in the…

The from address can be faked, but then due to SPF/DKIM it will likely be flagged as spam or not delivered.

Re: FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

#239

Post by BenjiWiebe »

DarkUranium wrote: post #234
Arnt wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run my own mail server, not blacklisted. Now I'm a bit of a special case, I know mail well. But when a moderately technical colleague wanted to do the same, I told her to use Mox, she set it up and Gmail doesn't block her either. So... would you please elaborate?

I'm curious, what about Microsoft/Outlook? I also have my own MTA. No problems with anyone ..... except Microsoft, who (silently) never delivers the mail.

Microsoft is the worst. I think our emails usually go through to them now, but they've been blocking our emails when no one else was.

Re: FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account

#240

Post by protocolture »

mindslight wrote: post #236
protocolture wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats the point? The point seems to dance around and shift every time I address it. I have had this specific issue with an absolute laundry list of email providers and senders, including Google. Googles probably not even in the top ten worst offenders. Getting Sony to remove an ip from its PSN email blacklist was much more difficult. So they are a monopoly in the sense that they aren't a monopoly, and just have massi…

Are you sure it's the point itself shapeshifting and not your responses to it? > have massive corporate power, and that massive corporate power translates into them acting like every other [massive corporate] email provider with a spam blacklist If that's how you want to sum it up, sure. Unaccountable corporate power is bad. That people instinctively reach for the "M-word" in response to this dynamic doesn't invalida…

Then forge the argument you think I need to be assuming exists?
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