China Signs Anti-Spam Pact 157
Iphtashu Fitz writes "The Chinese government has joined an international anti-spam effort started by the U.S. and UK. Over the weekend China stated that it would join international enforcement efforts against spam by adopting the London Action Plan on Spam Enforcement Collaboration. The London Action Plan was launched after a conference on spam enforcement hosted jointly by the UK Office of Fair Trading and the US Federal Trade Commission in London in October 2004. It was the first international forum to focus exclusively on spam enforcement. China is well known for being one of the biggest origins of spam, with as much as 20% of all junk e-mail originating from within its borders."
China is only 4th (or so) (Score:5, Informative)
China is a very distant 4th place when it comes to spam. You want to know who leads the world in spam output; its the wealthy EU countries followed very closely by Japan-Korea and the US. I don't know where that 20% for china comes from. From a study done in March of 2005:
1) Europe(*) 24.70
2) Japan-Korea 24.24
3) US 22.80
4) Greater China(**) 14.45
(*) European Union countries: 21.85%; Top spam-distributors: French, Spain, Germany, UK
** Including: China, Taiwan, Hong Kong.
source: http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/email/article
Of course, I also see numbers like this from a slightly older article:
"Sophos, Inc., an anti-virus and anti-spam company based in Lynnfield, Mass., reports that the U.S. -- sending out 42.53 percent of all spam -- sits far atop its list of the world's Top 12 Spam-Producing Countries."
So, just depends on who you ask on how it breaks down, however, either way, it isn't China.
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:2)
But they're in first place where it counts -- (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But they're in first place where it counts -- (Score:2)
OK with me as long as it includes those blog spamming online poker dicks!
Re:But they're in first place where it counts -- (Score:2)
Re:But they're in first place where it counts -- (Score:4, Funny)
Only if spammers actually use the products they advertise, and if these products actually do work as advertised.
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:3, Funny)
I hear the Amish are also very good about not polluting the internet.
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:3, Insightful)
2.4% penetration, 1.3b people = 30m people. A reference for China's net penetration is here [financialexpress.com]:
"In the case of internet connectivity, South Korea once again comes out with flying colours. Twenty six out of every 100 South Koreans are connected to the world through internet while 12 out of every 100 persons in Malaysia have internet connection. Around 2.4 out of every 100 Chinese have internet access but India again is at the bottom of the l
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:2)
However, something to remember (Score:2)
So it could make a major impact, at least so long as they maintain state control over the Internet in their country.
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:1)
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:1)
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:1)
Would you really trust statistics on spam coming from an online marketing company (clickz.com)? Come on! To me, but that may just be me (I don't think so), this kind of marketing sites are responsible for a huge amount of spam... Figures coming from a respected computer security company: Sophos (sophos.com), which you mention, are in my opinion more to be trusted.
Anyway, of course China is not the top spammer for now; and here is my hypothesis on that. If you closely look at the figures, you realize that t
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:2)
===
Why the US hasn't enacted stricter spam legislation is beyond me, I doubt congressmen are getting "spam kickbacks" (except perhaps from Hormel)... so the usual hold-up of 'greed' isn't in action...
So... WTF?
European spam kings? (Score:5, Informative)
Both the USA and the EU have approximately the same number of internet users (US 200 million vs. EU 215 million as of March 2005) and their share of the total spam generation rate (US 22.8% vs. EU 24.7%) roughly roughly corresponds to those numbers. This is not surprising since alot of the spam generators are zombie Windows boxen owned and operated by people with a very limited computer knowledge. It seems to me that all we can conclude from these statistics is that the level of 'computer-cluelessness' among the general public is about the same on both sides of the pond. Even so, I care fairly little about where the actual Spam Servers/Zombie PCs churning out the crap mail are located. What would be more interesting is a statistical analysis of where the people owning or controlling all these spam servers and zombies are located? Which countries are failing to deal with the spam companies causing the problem? Take a look at the top ten list at the bottom of this page [spamhaus.org] the USA claims no less than six of the top ten ROKSO spammers I don't see a single spam king from an EU country on that list.
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:2)
I looked through my last 300 abuse reports and over 80% of mine go to...(drum roll) Korea! Most of them from Kornet. Does anyone know if Kornet has actual legit customers that aren't spammers/scammers? Or are these folks just a bulletproof hosting company?
The second largest country of report is China, and after that the good ol' USA (most of them go to Comcast).
Sending Email vs. Hosting Response Websites (Score:2)
The Great Firewall of China has a lot of hype about preventing Chinese people from receiving politically incorrect information, but as far as I can tell, it puts entirely no effort into policing English-la
Re:China is only 4th (or so) (Score:2)
You want to know who leads the world in spam output; its the wealthy EU countries followed very closely by Japan-Korea and the US.
Can I just point out that Europe is not one country!!! . I get a bit tired sometimes of all these comparisons (mainly by Americans) of the US or other countries with Europe, as if they are comparable entities...
great! (Score:1)
Re:great! (Score:2)
so the spammers.. (Score:2)
Just think, SpamAssassin on a cluster of Crays.
Re:so the spammers.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's even less than a "pact not to spam".
Read between the lines of the "protocol" they've signed onto. It's basically an agreement between a bunch of bureaucrats to get together with fellow bureaucrats and gab at each other about how spam's bad, mmmmmkay. Not a damn thing on the list that could possibly result in the slightest hint of policy, let alone legislation or any other form of action.
> 1. Designate a point of contact
"which in the case of our country, happens to be /dev/null".
> 2. Encourage communication and coordination among the different Agencies...
"Hi Joe, how's things in your neck of the bureaucracy? Pretty cool too, huh? Great! Kthxbye!"
> 3. Take part in periodic conference calls, at least quarterly, with other appropriate participants to...
"See #2. Well, see #2 in 90 days. Reading this post out loud means we're already done for this quarter."
> 4. Encourage dialogue between...
"When we talk, we'll even say we'd like other people to talk to!"
> 5. Prioritize cases based on harm to victims when requesting international assistance.
"This guy pissed off a campaign contributor of a buddy of mine, so his folder goes to the top of the stack of papers in the disused lavatory at the bottom of the stairs with the sign on it saying 'Beware of the Leopard'. But it's due to get our attention faster than the ones at the bottom of the stack."
> 6. Complete the OECD Questionaire on ...
"If we can host one conference call per quarter, I suppose we can also approve funding for a #2 pencil."
> Encourage and support the involvement of less-developed countries in spam enforcement cooperation.
I could read that as...
"J0IN N0W! MAKE L0BBY1ST FA$T! WOR-K IN UR OWN PVT GOVER|\|MENT OFF1CE! All u need is 2 fill out paper and be SITTING IN ON ONE FONE CALL EVRY 90 DAYS!"
Complaint Processes, Scalability Are Different (Score:2)
But the scalability problems are much different when you're a government bureaucracy looking for politically inc
Good (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good (Score:2)
They're letting Americans slip into the country for cheap drugs and medical care?
Re:Good (Score:1, Troll)
I don't remember Canadian mounties shooting people at the Gate of Heavenly Peace square in Ottawa...
Akwesasne's not in Ottawa... (Score:2)
In Communist China.... (Score:5, Funny)
China can stop spam much more easily because the state has control over the internet... Sort of like how my parents used to have more control over me when I lived with them (what are these Kmart Brassiere Catalogs doing under your mattress) than they do now, when I live with my grandmother.
Re:Yeah, yeah, until... (Score:1)
How long until the US does the same? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How long until the US does the same? (Score:2)
If you even read the summary, you'd see that this pact was started by the US and the UK.
I know Slashdotters are famous for not reading the article...but geez.
A long time. And right now. (Score:2)
Yeah, you know spam when you see it, but it's a little harder when you tell a country to filter every outgoing email. What's required is a lot more complex: a mechanism for coordinating, tracking, and aggregating complaints; for tracking down offenders across countries without violating sovereignty; resolving problems with private individuals in foreign countries.
In Related News (Score:5, Funny)
Screensavers as Corporate Message Boards? [whattofix.com]
Re:In Related News (Score:1)
But what about the hosting of spammed sites? (Score:5, Interesting)
But what about the so called "bullet proof" hosting that you can get in China? A lot of the Viagra spammers have their ordering site in China and no number of complaints filed make any difference. I think that might be a bigger issue than spam originating *from* China.
Re:But what about the hosting of spammed sites? (Score:2)
That's exactly what I was thinking when I read this. China isn't such a big problem with regards to the spam I see and report to SpamCop, it is the URLs within the spam. You'll see the same damn email address as the abuse contact for days, sub-domains off some site that has fairly non-contentious or spammy content, and it takes forever for them to get taken down.
Honestly, sometimes rather than report the spammers to Spa
Re:But what about the hosting of spammed sites? (Score:2)
Can you please back that statement up with a few examples? I'm having a hard time figuring out how capitalist scams are taking place in a communist country that isn't all that favourable to foreign business. IIRC you need government approval to do business in China as a foreigner. Which Chinese banks are transfe
Re:But what about the hosting of spammed sites? (Score:2)
Less than a fifth by my cursory glance, with the majority of the remainder being US and Russian hosts. But I am surprised that there were even that many; as I said, doing business in China is not all that easy. I'd suspect that these hosting companies aren't quite legal in China.
What about Nigeria? (Score:2, Funny)
BTW, when will Nigeria join the anti-spam ring? I mean honestly, with the bajillion dollars that each citizen has over there that they are dying to get off their country, it's a surprise they don't agree to have better computer protection worldwide.
^_~
Re:What about Nigeria? (Score:2)
As soon as you send their president $50 to put inside a bank account, in which $50 million will be deposited into the account, and you'll get 20% of it. He promises it.
Re:What about Nigeria? (Score:1)
Weird idea... (Score:2)
Make commercial emailing legal, but tax and regulate the hell out of it. Make rules that make it easy to block them where they are unwanted and all that... nothing new there (CAN-SPAM) but taxing it will give added muscle to encorcement since almost anything they do to skirt regulations might be twisted or spun into some form of tax evasion or another. (We kno
Re:Weird idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you think that a new law would be enforced?
Re:Weird idea... (Score:2)
Mod the Anonymous Coward parent up... (Score:2)
China signed = good. BAD for spammers :) (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:China signed = good. BAD for spammers :) (Score:2)
I'll be sensible once my daily inbox number becomes a sensible amount.
Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:1)
Re:Good (Score:2)
They could extradite Ralsky and give him a bullet in the back of the head. The same way the US sends "terrorist suspects" to countries that have no qualms with torturing them.
Taxing commercial email??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's find better technological solutions to spam control, and less government-based solutions.
After all, government never get it quite right. Moreover, there is the enforcement issue. It's just not workable. Anyone can purchase a web server in any other country other than the one they live in, so enforcement becomes a joke at best, or worse becomes so draconian that it will hurt hammers as well as spammers (or may not hurt spammers at all, since they can skate the loopholes in the system).
Ulterior Motives? (Score:5, Insightful)
Spam could potentially provide China's citizens with additional knowledge the government doesn't want them to know about.
It also cuts down on the amount of bulk China has to process to know what's happening with "its" internet. If China doesn't have to contend with spam, it can devote more resources to scanning their citizens software for disent.
Hey, I just thought of something: Maybe spam isn't a malicious, egregious and unsolicited marketing technique after all! Maybe it's just those countries trying to clog the internet filters with junk so they can disguise their normal communications. Spam is freeeeedom! If you try to squash spam, you're just one of them!
The revolution exists in penis enlargers and pain killers and we didn't even know it!
Re:Ulterior Motives? (Score:2)
How? Letting them know their penis size isn't up to snuff, so they better order some more viagra?
Re:Ulterior Motives? (Score:2)
Re:Ulterior Motives? (Score:2)
Re:Ulterior Motives? (Score:2)
More laughable than laudable! What a stupid thing to believe! What, do you think they censor out every gadget in the hollywood DVDs available everywhere in China? Why? It's POLITICAL thought they censor, not technology.
We aren't much better ourselves, unpopular speach isn't exactly welcome and is likely to get you a one way ticket to camp xray.
In other news, Hitler signs non-aggression pact (Score:2, Interesting)
Mod this as troll, mod it as flamebait. Apply Godwin's law (which is nothing but a dodge anyway...).
Then read about how Hitler signed a treaty with Joe Stalin saying the Germans wouldn't attack.
Re:In other news, Hitler signs non-aggression pact (Score:2)
On a related note, it turns out that Hitler may have been the inventor of the inflatable sex doll [ynetnews.com].
Re:In other news, Hitler signs non-aggression pact (Score:2)
Actually there is zero evidence showing that the USSR was planning an attack on Germany. Somebody once wrote a book claiming what your saying, but scores of military historians has failed to find anything that could support that thesis. OTOH there is tons of archives supporting the thesis, that the USSR di
Re:In other news, Hitler signs non-aggression pact (Score:2)
Vladimir Rezun, aka Viktor Suvorov. I've read some of his books, and i agree that most of the stuff he writes is bullshit. The only one of his theories that has, as far as i know, held water (might have something to do with the fact that it wasn't actually his idea), the only one that even his opponents agree with, is the one that USSR was planning an attack. But no matter how Suvorov tries to spin the facts (for him, Stalin was a genius of military stra
Shameless plug (Score:2)
SKEM ( /usr/ports/mail/milter-skem [freshports.org] on FreeBSD) will not eliminate spam, but it will throttle the volume of it arriving from rogue servers and hi-jacked PCs, while the worst effect of a false-positive is delayed (rather than rejected) legitimate e-mail.
In Other News (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, like China really cares about the rule of la (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many extrajudicial executions still happen in China? How about the laogai [laogai.org]? Buy something at Wal-Mart lately? Well it could have been made with slave^H^H^H^H^Hprison labor. Tibet, the Uhigurs in Western China, the censorship of the internet, their bellicosity toward Taiwan, aborting babies because they're girls and more. Oh and they pretty much let their hackers take pot shots at the US' infrastructure with maybe a slap on the wrist.
The US, EU and Japan aren't perfect, but they are a lot better than China. For my money, I blame it on the "middle kingdom complex." Let's be realistic, China doesn't even really pretend to care about any law other than what it creates, and even that is flimsy as there are numerous loopholes for the state to get out of trouble with. China isn't going to really do anything to stop spammers unless it means they might not get the 2008 olympics or they might lose their MFN status in the US and neither of those will happen over spam.
Move on kids, this is just another feel good thing by the politicians. Nothing to see here that you couldn't see on C-Span.
Re:Yeah, like China really cares about the rule of (Score:1)
Re:Yeah, like China really cares about the rule of (Score:2)
In other words, it's a country with a big enough military to defend itself and a vibrant enough economy to risk pissing some of its partners off. Every country that has the power to do so follows that path at some point. China and the US are the current obvious examples but you don't have to look too far
The usual suspects are still up. (Score:4, Interesting)
There's no indication on the spammer [spamforum.biz] forums [specialham.com] of any fears about China-based hosting yet.
So, thus far, any crackdown is vaporware.
Re:The usual suspects are still up. (Score:3, Interesting)
Proxy Mailing Servers -- 1 server for $499/month
Re:The usual suspects are still up. (Score:2)
It appears that Earthlink/Time Warner might be blocking certain domains...
Can anyone confirm?
You'll know China is serious about spammers... (Score:3, Funny)
And I won't shed any tears. If they're going to be a murderous dictatorship, they could at least kill some people who deserve it. (No, I'm not defending dictatorships, I just hate spammers.)
Made in China (Score:3, Funny)
What spam? (Score:3, Interesting)
Two Words: Wireless Access (Score:2)
200 of them are spam. 30 are mailing lists, either digests or individual messages. 10 are press-releases (I'm a journalist.)
That leaves 10 "normal" mails a day.
Yes, I have SpamBayes for Outlook, which works great. Opera's M2 has a spam filter that works great too. Other desktop clients has various spam filters th
Suggestion (Score:2)
An arrangement like that could be set up on a rented box (you don't need
F China - too little, too late (Score:4, Interesting)
Until these countries can regulate the illegal activity of their systems, they don't deserve to have unfettered access to the Internet IMO... not when the abuse-to-legitimate traffic ratio is 1000000 to 1.
Re:F China - too little, too late (Score:2)
Care to back that broad, sweeping statement up with facts? Didn't think so, as you are talking nonsence. Most probes and DoS attacks come from zombie hosts, and out of the superpowers, China has the LEAST number of potential zombies, due to it having the least number of connected hosts. If the "lions share" of attacks come from there, then it would buck the trends that all the legitimate online security trackers ar
Re:F China - too little, too late (Score:2)
I can back it up with facts. I run three banks of servers in three different continents, and have been doing so since 1995. I menticulously monitor logs and most of the hardcore probes are coming from Chinese and Korean IP space... NOT from zombie PCs.
I've wholesale blocked Chinese IP space from my networks at the router level and my server performance has dramatically increased. I'm not keeping tab
Re:F China - too little, too late (Score:2)
So, the Chinese attacks aren't zombies? They are actually hackers actively probing? Interesting, I don't see either country cracking down on cyber attacks on their traditional enemies. But, if that's the case, then what I said is correct; most zombies are in the EU and USA.
Who are you? Some Asian broadband user who has no experience in this area and thinks this is some kind o
Re:F China - too little, too late (Score:2)
I don't know if they are zombies or a handful of servers that simply rotate their online address from a huge IP space pool. I always suspected it was the latter, but I don't know.
Re:do not find reason for your discrimination (Score:2)
1. A significant amount of spam is still comi
Enforcement Issues & Sleazy ISPs (Score:4, Insightful)
And then you have big corporations that are deliberately sabotaging anti-spam efforts. AT&T for example is hacking their nameservers to be authoritative for anti-spam RBLs [blitzed.org] so their users are unable to filter mail based on these services. That's unconscionable, and reason # 87,343 why you shouldn't do business with a provider like AT&T who is not only being ambivalent about spam, but actively interfering with their customers' own attempts to find superior solutions.
I'm sending them all I've gotten (Score:2)
I'm also sending a note to Vladimir about all of the Russian spam I've been getting. I do read Russian, and it's pissing me off.
I'd rather see less japanese spam (Score:3, Interesting)
So then I tried to just block *.jp, but Gmail doesn't support blocking by the hidden "Received" header the mail server set, where I could clearly see it came from Japan, despite the "From" field OF COURSE being faked.
Gmail is a great service, but it sure isn't perfect, and blocking on custom mail headers doesn't seem like a too hard work for their developers either, as all the headers are stored like regular text in the mails anyway.
Re:I'd rather see less japanese spam (Score:2)
Re:I'd rather see less japanese spam (Score:2)
its a start (Score:1)
the issue is not the source of the spams (usually zombies), but the spammers sites hosted in china that need to be nuked. Kill the sites, and the spammers are fscked
not done a hoster check on my domain block list in a while, but last time, about 70% where hosted in mainland china, with the rest spread over eastern europe and asia
don't know about anyone else, but the
Spam enforcement? (Score:1)
Why would anyone enforce spam?
Undersigned (Score:2)
China? (Score:2)
I obviously don't get out much, does anyone else in the world except the United States get spam? Does spam even come in non-English flavors?
Everyone talks about where spam comes from, does that mean we all kinda agree on where it's going? Maybe a little splashes up on some European shores, but China?
Who sends spam to China? What are they advertising? Do they really get spam?
Re:Easy Solution! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm assuming your friend's school has no Chinese students that would never need to keep in touch with family and friends back home? If I tried that at my workplace I'd be keelhauled (on a junk, but keelhauled nonetheless)
Re:Easy Solution! (Score:2)
That's what whitelists are for.
Re:Easy Solution! (Score:2)
I work at a university and about 1/3 of my email is between people in China. So, how is this solution supposed to work? Perhaps we need a better solution: Block all email from Earth!
Re:Easy Solution! (Score:1)
a more effective way is to BLOCK ALL EMAILS
Re:Easy Solution! (Score:2)
Re:Easy Solution! (Score:1)
Only in America!
Re:Easy Solution! (Score:2)
Re:Easy Solution! (Score:1)
Per-User Country Blocklists (Score:2)
Re:Easy Solution! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Easy Solution! (Score:2)
HOnestly, and truthfully, I do block all of china. Doing this, I just don't get the 700k+ SPAM emails per day -- they're blocked.
I also publish my blocklist [zhrodague.net] at one of my websites. I really do just take his
You moderators are fucked-up sometimes!