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Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of culture, technology, politics, and law. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.
This evening I heard back from Daryn at SpamArrest in a message that I was told I could excerpt but not forward to the list. Apparently the response to Daryn has been overwhelming. Fair enough. Daryn said: "We didn't think it was spam, we thought it was a valid marketing idea. I'm guessing we won't do it again." If that is true, my reply to Daryn was that SpamArrest should do three things: 1. Apologize publicly (not via email, a note here would work) to the people it spammed; 2. promise not to do it again; 3. change its privacy policy to prohibit such spamming in the future, backing up promises with a legal commitment. Until that happens, I see no reason why anyone should use SpamArrest. Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04457.html -Declan --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 16:22:37 -0500 To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> From: Neil Schwartzman <neil@peteMOSS.com> Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam At 2:09 PM -0500 2/13/03, it was written by Declan McCullagh: >But it's even worse because SpamArrest -- as a purported anti-spam service >whose website warns users of the "exponentially increasing problem of >spam" -- should know better. Well said! And, to quote that great thinker and professional wrestler, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin: Bu-bye, jackass! http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/sbl.lasso?query=SBL6866 Spamcop has been alerted, every anti-spam forum I know is abuzz, SPEWS'll no doubt take note, and within hours, these dolts will be pariahs. Heck, the anti-spam service I use, Mail-filters.com was ahead of the curve, and nailed another spam from spam arrest at 06:15 AM EST. Truly, Darwinism at its finest, and I thank you for having helped to make this possible - your leverage, I suspect, is what provoked the response, the nail in the coffin to speak. I wonder if any of their other businesses undertake the same ill-advised marketing strategies? ;-) http://globaldns.com/html/services.html -- Neil Schwartzman - Editor & Publisher Pete Moss Publications, Industry & Trade Journals <http://spamNEWS.com><http://spamFLAMES.com><http://peteMOSS.com> --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 22:58:09 -0500 To: daryn@spamarrest.com From: "Lawrence R. Ware" <larry@waywardhome.com> Subject: Welcome to my blocking lists Cc: abuse@pnap.net, declan@well.com Based on this: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04457.html The following has been added to my personal blocking list and will be added to the router deny lists at all of my customers roughly until the sun goes nova. NetRange: 66.150.0.0 - 66.151.255.255 CIDR: 66.150.0.0/15 NetName: PNAP-06-2001 NetHandle: NET-66-150-0-0-1 Don't bother to try and contact me, talk to Dave Null. <PLONK> ### My employer loves my opinions. I own the company. --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 14:02:18 -0500 To: declan@well.com From: Michael Clark <mclark@cdtmail.org> Subject: Re: FC: Spam Arrest does appear to be resorting to... spamming SpamArrest's Privacy Policy says they have the right to send email to any email address they receive from any source. So this could mean your white list you've created from your own client's address book is now a part of SpamArrest's database. They also say they can keep all email messages forever, even after you close your account. Not necessarily the best or safest business practices. This reminds me a lot of the e-Greeting Card companies a few years ago. If your spouse sent you a Valentines Card online, the company would then start spamming you since you used their services. Michael -- Michael Clark, Webmaster Center for Democracy and Technology 1634 Eye Street NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20006 voice: 202-637-9800 http://www.cdt.org/ Join our Activist Network! Your participation can make a difference! http://www.cdt.org/join/ --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 13:18:36 -0800 (PST) From: Sean Eric Fagan <sef@kithrup.com> Message-Id: <200302132118.NAA11059@kithrup.com> To: declan@well.com Subject: Re: spamarrest just fyi: they are sending their spam to people *who never followed through on the challenge*. e.g., me, who got their initial crap when someone on a mailing list started using it -- resulting in everyone who sent a note to that mailing list getting the challenge. so it's even worse than your summary. sean. --- Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 05:52:47 +0530 To: Wendy Seltzer <wendy@seltzer.com>, declan@well.com From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh@hserus.net> Subject: Re: FC: Spam Arrest does appear to be resorting to... spamming At 07:52 AM 2/13/2003 -0800, Wendy Seltzer wrote: >Or, if Spamarrest's verification messages are sent from the same IP, the >requests to confirm identity -- so these users will have their mail to >Spamarrest customers classified as spam. And so the cycle continues. True. However, please do note that an open relay server can be abused by a spammer to pump out far more spam in a few hours than all the mail that legitimate users of that server can send us in several days. Please see http://www.mail-abuse.org/tsi/ for more information on why open relays are a menace on the internet, and why sysadmins will block them. Relaying used to be a good thing, some ten years ago. Now, it is just a sign that someone has messed up his server config. srs --- Date: 13 Feb 2003 13:29:40 -0500 From: "John R Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com> Subject: Re: FC: Spam Arrest does appear to be resorting to... spamming > From: "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <suresh@hserus.net> > So, none of my users will have got this solicitation from them. Hi. If you don't know Suresh, he's the abuse manager at Outblaze, which is one of the largest web mail outfits in the world, behind Yahoo and Hotmail. (They're mail.com and a zillion other domains.) He manages a heck of a lot of mailboxes. The sad thing is this far from the only spam I've gotten touting anti-spam software. The clue level in the anti-spam product business is remarkably low. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner "A book is a sneeze." - E.B. White, on the writing of Charlotte's Web --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 13:45:39 -0700 (MST) From: Jay Denebeim <denebeim@deepthot.org> To: declan@well.com Subject: MEDIA: [declan@well.com: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam] (fwd) > From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> > > I thank SpamArrest for replying, but the problem with SpamArrest's argument > is this: People who want to send mail to their customers must type in a > keyword to verify that they're human and not a spambot. But nowhere on that > page does SpamArrest admit that if you do it, you'll be getting spammed > yourself. Actually Declan it's worse than that. I'm subscribed to a mailing list that one of spamarrest's principals subscribed to. He briefly hooked up spamarrest to his mailbox so that anyone that wrote the mailing list was sent a message from spamarrest asking them to jump through their hoop. I never did this, nor would I ever jump through a hoop like that from a post to a mailing list that wasn't sent directly to the person requesting the hoop jumping in the first place. I got the spam from them as well. I never visited their web site, all I did was make a post to a mailing list. These people are scum, not only that they're stupid scum. If I was going to spam some people the very last ones I'd be wanting to spam would be the people on the anti-spam mailing lists. It seems like we were targeted instead. Someone has voiced the opinion that the only 'legitimate' companies that spam are the ones that are about ready to go under. It's kind of a last act of desperation. I don't know if that's the case here, but given who they spammed and the offensiveness of the spam, even if the company was formerly profitable they're not going to be any more. Nobody will be accepting mail from them. Jay -- I'm looking for a job, for my resume please see: http://www.deepthot.org:2001/newdenebeim.html functional or http://www.deepthot.org:2001/denebeim.html historical --- Date: 13 Feb 2003 15:15:39 -0500 Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.4.40.0302131510590.10806-100000@tom.iecc.com> From: "John R Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com> Cc: "politech@politechbot.com" <politech@politechbot.com>, "daryn@spamarrest.com" <daryn@spamarrest.com> Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam > I thank SpamArrest for replying, but the problem with SpamArrest's argument > is this ... ... you'd have to be nuts ever to respond to one of their "validation" messages again, since whatever else it might be, now we know that it's really a solicitation to add you to their mailing list. No thanks. I don't think I'm that desperate to send e-mail to any of their users. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner "A book is a sneeze." - E.B. White, on the writing of Charlotte's Web --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 18:06:32 -0500 To: declan@well.com From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam Cc: daryn@spamarrest.com Because someone ELSE added me to their whitelist indicates that I want to receive spam?!? What nonsense! >1. Every person who got this email from us has either sent an email to one >of our customers, or been added to one of our customer's whitelist >explicitly. There was no dictionary attack. --- To: declan@well.com cc: hmurray@suespammers.org Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam In-Reply-To: Message from Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> of "Thu, 13 Feb 2003 14:09:59 EST." <5.1.1.6.0.20030213134351.01653f68@mail.well.com> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 11:55:40 -0800 From: Hal Murray <hmurray@suespammers.org> > 2. We complied with both our own privacy policy, as well as > industry-accepted rules for sending email; such as 1. a valid return > address, 2. a functioning opt-out link, and 3. a clear subject line > including the advertising prefix "ADV:", which people who have spam > filters can look for and filter. Lots of spammers make similar claim. Opt-out is only the "accepted rules" of the marketing industry. Most spam victims consider it unacceptable - both users and ISPs. How can we explain does-not-scale to the marketing world? They are shooting each other in the foot (and back). -- The suespammers.org mail server is located in California. So are all my other mailboxes. Please do not send unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited commercial e-mail to my suespammers.org address or any of my other addresses. These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam. --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 12:24:45 -0800 From: Mike Rodriquez <mike@mike-sheryl.com> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en, ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: declan@well.com, daryn@spamarrest.com Subject: RE: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam" > 5. I know people fear the opt-out link, but I want to > reassure you and your readers that clicking on this link is > 1. safe, and 2. the only sure way to remove your address from > receiving future spam arrest promotions. Incorrect. The other sure way to "remove one's address", is for your company to simply stop spamming. Unsolicited commercial email is what you are sending, and that is spam. My writing to one of your customers does in no way imply *we* have a pre-existing relationship, which might allow for unsolicited email. --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 13:38:12 -0600 (CST) From: Michael Brennen <mbrennen@fni.com> To: daryn@spamarrest.com Cc: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam Wrong on #2. Blocks on the receiving server are very effective without ever touching your opt-out system. If you subscribe me without notice to a list for which I did not give permission, your mail will be added to the spam blocks without notice. -- Michael On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Declan McCullagh wrote: > 5. I know people fear the opt-out link, but I want to reassure you > and your readers that clicking on this link is 1. safe, and 2. the > only sure way to remove your address from receiving future spam > arrest promotions. --- From: "Michael F. Cannon" <mcannon@ncpa.org> To: <declan@well.com> Subject: RE: Spam Arrest does appear to be resorting to... spamming Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 11:01:26 -0500 i too received what i thought was a rather ironic spamarrest spam. Michael F. Cannon Director of Government Affairs National Center for Policy Analysis http://www.ncpa.org/abo/staff/mcannon.html 655 15th Street NW, Suite 375 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 628-6671 (202) 628-6474 fax mcannon@ncpa.org --- Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 06:09:00 +0530 To: declan@well.com, politech@politechbot.com From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh@hserus.net> Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam Cc: daryn@spamarrest.com At 02:09 PM 2/13/2003 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: >2. We complied with both our own privacy policy, as well as >industry-accepted rules for sending email; such as 1. a valid return >address, 2. a functioning opt-out link, and 3. a clear subject line >including the advertising prefix "ADV:", which people who have spam filters >can look for and filter. For what its worth - that doesn't hide the fact that it is blatantly optout. Please take a look at what ISP / DNS blocklist acceptable use policies say - http://www.mail-abuse.org/rbl/manage.html - MAPS RBL http://spamblock.outblaze.com/massmail.html - Outblaze.Com (mail.com etc) http://support.cp.net/masspolicy.jsp (Criticalpath.Net - large webmail provider) srs --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 14:06:44 -0600 From: Kenneth Loafman <loafman@spamcop.net> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20021003 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: declan@well.com Cc: politech@politechbot.com, daryn@spamarrest.com Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam There is a big discussion of this spam attack on the various newsgroups. SpamArrest has ended up on a couple of blocklists, and when the official reply from Daryn gets known, I'm willing to bet they will end up on some others as well. With this act, they have exited the anti-spam community and gone over to the dark side. The only scalable list management is Confirmed Opt-In. Anything else puts too much load on the recipient, especially Opt-Out. The two links below provide good instructions on how to run a clean Confirmed Opt-In list. Please forward them to your list. http://mail-abuse.org/manage.html http://www.cluelessmailers.org/info/listmanagement.html ...Thanks, ...Kenneth A SpamCop User --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 07:52:34 -0800 To: declan@well.com, "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <suresh@hserus.net> From: Wendy Seltzer <wendy@seltzer.com> Subject: Re: FC: Spam Arrest does appear to be resorting to... spamming Cc: wendy@seltzer.com At 10:03 AM 02/13/2003 -0500, you wrote: >Previous Politech message: >http://www.politechbot.com/p-04454.html > >--- > >From: "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <suresh@hserus.net> >To: <declan@well.com> >Subject: Re: Is Spam Arrest resorting to... spamming? >Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 20:04:10 +0530 ... >For what its worth, I was blocking spamarrest's IP as an open relay >(running an antiquated version of CommuniGate Pro) which had relayed >spam to our users, since the past several weeks. > >So, none of my users will have got this solicitation from them. Or, if Spamarrest's verification messages are sent from the same IP, the requests to confirm identity -- so these users will have their mail to Spamarrest customers classified as spam. And so the cycle continues. --Wendy -- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.com Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html Chilling Effects: http://www.chillingeffects.org/ --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 15:13:53 -0500 To: declan@well.com, "Daryn Nakhuda" <daryn@spamarrest.com> From: Michael Kohne <mhkohne@discordia.org> Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam >From: "Daryn Nakhuda" <daryn@spamarrest.com> >To: <declan@well.com> >Subject: Re: Spam Arrest does appear to be resorting to... spamming >Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 10:36:16 -0800 > >Declan - > >I'm not going to attempt to justify our marketing efforts with you; However >I do want to provide you with the following facts to debunk some of the >rumors I've seen. <sarcasm> If these are the facts, the rumors must have been really awful. </sarcasm> >1. Every person who got this email from us has either sent an email to one >of our customers, or been added to one of our customer's whitelist >explicitly. There was no dictionary attack. So in other words, I might e-mail if my friend uses SpamArrest and puts me on his whitelist. >2. We complied with both our own privacy policy, as well as >industry-accepted rules for sending email; such as 1. a valid return >address, 2. a functioning opt-out link, and 3. a clear subject line >including the advertising prefix "ADV:", which people who have spam filters >can look for and filter. <sarcasm> Well, I'm sure you do follow your own policy. You wrote it, after all. <\sarcasm> >3. Our privacy policy is at http://spamarrest.com/privacy.jsp . You can >click the link and read it without any fear (in regards to Bill >Ries-Knight's warning). We do not use any stealthy means of capturing your >email address; you have to type in it, or send an email to one of our >customers. So, in order to send e-mail to your customers, I effectively give you my e-mail address, which you then send advertisements to. In other words, if my friends sign up for SpamArrest, you hold contact with them hostage in exchange for the ability to send me advertisements. While I don't know for sure, I tend to doubt that many of your customers (who are all obviously trying to deal in some sensible manner with the spam problem) thought this was what they were signing up for. >4. We are a legitimate spam prevention service. Our website is not a false >front for a spamming business. Our customers prefer our sender-based >verification model to other content-filtering methods, and find our service >very successful in stopping the junk from entering their inbox. > >5. I know people fear the opt-out link, but I want to reassure you and your >readers that clicking on this link is 1. safe, and 2. the only sure way to >remove your address from receiving future spam arrest promotions. Why do you expect anyone to believe you on this? Other spammers lie, since I know nothing of your service, I might assume that you are just one more spammer, and lying. Unfortunately, you've got a problem with this because to me (and, I suspect, most of the folks who have complained) you look just like a spammer. Folks probably think you are doing dictionary attacks because of your use of your customer's whitelists to send e-mail. Since they have never had any contact with you, and may have no idea which of their friends has white listed one of their receive-only addresses, they can't tell you from any other spammer, except that you are in the anti-spam buisness! I think what you have here, Daryn, is a massive perception problem brought on by your own actions. You are in the business of stopping spam, which most of us define as unsolicited, automatically sent e-mail, which is sent out to addresses culled from all sorts of places in all sorts of ways, often without anyone's knowledge or consent. In order to promote your business, you are sending out unsolicited, automatically sent e-mail, sent to addresses culled from the e-mail and whitelists of your customers. While I'm sure you didn't violate your own policies, I re-iterate that I don't suspect many of your customers would have signed up if you'd have said 'Stop incoming spam by having us send unsoliciated advertisements to your friends!'. Not only that, but of course, you also get money from people for this service! Frankly if I were one of your customers, I'd be demanding my money back - whether you complied with your own policies or not. There are implications to running an anti-spam service, and one of the things that most people assume is that an anti-spam service isn't going to send spam or cull e-mail addresses from their e-mail! If it acts like a duck, Daryn... --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 15:17:37 -0500 From: [deleted] To: declan@well.com Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam Quoting Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>: [...] > From: "Daryn Nakhuda" <daryn@spamarrest.com> > To: <declan@well.com> > Subject: Re: Spam Arrest does appear to be resorting to... spamming > Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 10:36:16 -0800 > [...] > 1. Every person who got this email from us has either sent an email to one > of our customers, or been added to one of our customer's whitelist > explicitly. There was no dictionary attack. > > 2. We complied with both our own privacy policy, as well as > industry-accepted rules for sending email; such as 1. a valid return > address, 2. a functioning opt-out link, and 3. a clear subject line > including the advertising prefix "ADV:", which people who have spam filters > can look for and filter. > > 3. Our privacy policy is at http://spamarrest.com/privacy.jsp . You can > click the link and read it without any fear (in regards to Bill > Ries-Knight's warning). We do not use any stealthy means of capturing your > email address; you have to type in it, or send an email to one of our > customers. > > 4. We are a legitimate spam prevention service. Our website is not a false > front for a spamming business. Our customers prefer our sender-based > verification model to other content-filtering methods, and find our service > very successful in stopping the junk from entering their inbox. > > 5. I know people fear the opt-out link, but I want to reassure you and your > readers that clicking on this link is 1. safe, and 2. the only sure way to > remove your address from receiving future spam arrest promotions. Call me overzealous, but, other than item number 4, IMHO this guy has just confessed to fitting one of the classic definition of a spammer. Item 1 describes a sniffing procedure. If I send email to person A, person B has no right to send me email. In the case of a "recommend us to a friend" form, if person A gives person B my email address, then _maybe_ they have the right to send me one and only one message. But by that same token, adding my address to a whitelist is not exactly a "recommend us to a friend" form, now is it? Item 2 is a toothless and meaningless privacy policy. Lots of spammers have privacy policies that basically say, "We can spam you. Too bad." Plus, as far as I know, there _are_ no industry-accepted rules for sending email. Item 3 is more of the same. Item 4, like I said, is irrelevant to the question of whether or not they are spammers. Item 5 is a red herring. Opt-out is a sham used by spammers, the ignorant, and the lazy. That's the problem with most spammers: they don't realize that they're spamming. (Please remove my email address if you publish this message. Last thing I need is even _more_ spam.) --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 15:24:07 -0500 (EST) From: Dean Anderson <dean@av8.com> X-X-Sender: dean@commander.av8.net To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> cc: politech@politechbot.com, <daryn@spamarrest.com> Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam This method is similar (direct knockoff) of Dan Bernstein's qsecretary program. We had a customer doing a similar service, (monstermail.com) that sent out messages notifying the sender of the changed address. (I think you could forward mail from another email service through monstermail, and then monstermail would send out a notice of the new address and included a plug for monstermail. A few people complained, but I don't consider that spam. If you send mail to my customers, I (or my server software) might contact you. It might be to tell you have the wrong address. It might be for some other reason. Clearly, we have a relationship. The fact that a communication occured is specifically exempted from ECPA coverage. It is more like Hotmail or AOL sending back a message saying "here is the new address, and by the way, why don't you try our services." This isn't really spam. But its nice they put in the tags for spam filtering. Sendmail can do that, and has for years. No one has thought of putting a plug in the message until recently. Actually, even that isn't true, as I think hotmail _does_ put the standard hotmail advertising footers in hotmail bounce messages. --Dean --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 15:52:51 -0800 From: Troy Davis <troy@nack.net> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam > 2. We complied with both our own privacy policy, as well as > industry-accepted rules for sending email; such as 1. a valid return > address, 2. a functioning opt-out link, and 3. a clear subject line > including the advertising prefix "ADV:", which people who have spam filters > can look for and filter. Accepted by what industry, the opt-out spam "industry"? Any set of "industry-accepted rules for sending email" require an explicit opt-in request. Troy --- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 16:03:46 -0800 From: Jon D----- To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Cc: politech@politechbot.com, daryn@spamarrest.com Subject: Re: FC: SpamArrest replies to Politech, defends its right to spam Those are all reasonable points from Daryn, but none of them obviates the fact that SpamArrest is sending unsolicited commercial email, which is spam by all common definitions. I wonder if THEY use their own "type-in-the-magic-word" interface for send each one they send, or if they simply blast them out en-masse. Comically, one of the two spam blocking systems that I use in series (junkfilter) flags Daryn's message as spam because of the phrase "not a spam" (the other one I use is spamassassin). [Daryn, please don't send me commercial spam] [Please remove my personal info if redistributed] Cheers, Jon Stanford, CA --- From: "Gary Funck" <gary@Intrepid.Com> To: <declan@well.com> Subject: RE: Is Spam Arrest resorting to... spamming? Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 20:22:04 -0800 Just fyi, this individual contacted SpamArrest, and this page chronicles his exchange: http://www.groovymother.com/archives/000545.html he took action, forwarding all the spam he received to an individual that he corresponded with at SpamArrest. The individual threatened to sue him, and so on (See the "what happened next" link). Fortunately for me: free, open source SpamAssassin caught their spam cold. The author above notes there's a free Windows version of SpamAssassin for POP3 users at: http://www.bloomba.com/saproxy/ - Gary ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. 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