Re: "Mail Exploders"

[vin@shore.net (Vin McLellan)]

        Wonderful tale!  I can see that -- maybe, just maybe -- AOL or
another targeted online community (a semi-moderated mailing list or even a
semi-moderated newsgroup) could be slapped for just bouncing the SPAM back
at the sender.

        I bet they could get away with it, however, if they appended a
brief polite notice that this mailing exceeds some (anti-spam) perimeters
that the subscribers of AOL (or other online community) agreed -- in their
intial subscriber contracts -- to have AOL refuse for them.

        (Which text, of course, would add to the reply mail burden for the
Spammer's IAP.)

        The only meaningful control on SPAM I can see is to start enforcing
a chain of contracts that forbid it (without reference to content) from the
backbone back through the IAPs to the users.  (I think Long-Morrow at Yale
had a nice paper on this a couple of years back.) But this sort of
auto-return mechanism could make a dent on the super-Spanners now.

        Yea for AOL!

        Suerte,
                        _Vin

>   On Nerd AOL using explosive mail, this Cyberia-L pointer:
>
>      http://infolawalert.com/stories/061496a.html
>
>   [Excerpts]
>
>   Cyber Promotions sends a collection of short ads, written
>   as if they were newspaper classifieds, to upward of 900,000
>   recipients, 600,000 of whom are America OnLine subscribers.
>
>   America OnLine contends that its computer systems have been
>   swamped by Cyber Promotion's mass mailings, especially when
>   5,000 undeliverable messages start to pile up each day. ...
>
>   When the mailings continued, an AOL employee collected a
>   bunch of Cyber Promotions's undeliverable messages and
>   redirected them to UUNET, a large Internet service provider
>   used by Cyber Promotions.
>
>   According to Cyber Promotions' complaint, this "stunt,
>   known as an 'e-mail bomb,' was knowingly and maliciously
>   sent to UUNET by AOL in order to severely tie up and/or
>   bring down UUNET's computer system." UUNET subsequently
>   cancelled Cyber Promotion's account.
>
>   According to Cyber Promotions' complaint, AOL bombed
>   another service provider used by Cyber Promotions. ...
>
>
>
>
>
>

         Vin McLellan +The Privacy Guild+ <vin@shore.net>
      53 Nichols St., Chelsea, Ma. 02150 USA Tel: (617) 884-5548
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