You Have Spam!
How to prevent your machines from being used to advertise get rich quick schemes, Asian prostitutes and off-shore gambling.

Michael D. Sofka

Computing Information Services
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Upstate New York Systems Administrators Guild
April 1, 1999, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

|http://www.rpi.edu/ sofkam/|

Notes for slide :

• Imagine you are the administrator of the mail machine at a mid-sized college.

• Or, if not the administrator, you are on-call, and a member of the root mail alias.

• You get to Friday morning, looking forward to completing some OS upgrades, take the afternoon off.

• There are 50 voice-mail messages from people who cannot read their email. Logging onto the machine you find:
  • The mail spool is filled, having doubled in size overnight.
  • The outgoing queue has 10,000 messages in it.
  • Your mailbox is filled with hundreds of complaints, many of them nasty and vicious, accusing you and the school of all manner of low acts for supporting ``spammers.''
  • And, you find that many places will not accept mail connections from your school because you are harboring ``spammers.''

• Raise your hand if this has this happened to you? If it hasn't, you're lucky.

 

Overview:

• What is spam?
• How does Spam Spread?
• Promiscuous Relaying
• Server Solutions
• Client Solutions
• Community Solutions
• Conclusion
• Spam Resources

Notes for slide :

A quick overview of the rest of this talk

• What is spam? A brief history, some terminology. Spam occurs in many forms, we will be mostly concerned with email spam, or spam-lite.
• How does Spam Spread? Spam needs to get from machine A to machine B, how does it do this.
• Promiscuous Relaying: We will talk a lot about machines which relay mail, when is this good? Why is it usually bad.
• Server Solutions: Server bases solutions to Spam, especially email spam.
• Client Solutions: What can end-users do?
• Community Solutions: What can we do as part of the larger community of system administrators, and as members of the Internet.
• Conclusion
• Spam Resources

 

What is Spam?

• Spiced Pork And Meat (Hormel)
• Inspiration for Poetry
• Crashing a program via buffer overflow
• Massive cross-posting, or off topic News
• Mass, Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE)
• Mass, Unsolicited Non-commercial Email
• Mass, Solicited Email
• Chain letters

Notes for slide :

What is Spam?

• Originally, it meant Spiced Ham and Meat, and that is the definition that Hormel, the trademark owners of SPAM wish to maintain.

• It is also inspiration for poetry, as seen on the next slide.

• The Hacker's Dictionary, 1991 gives as the definition of Spam: [from the MUD community] vt. To crash a program by overrunning a fixed-size buffer with excessively large input data. The Contradictionary, 1995 by Stan Kelly-Bootle gives the same definition. So, Spam in the sense we are using it today is, in net terms, fairly recent.

• Over the past couple of years, to computer people, spam has come to mean:
  • Massive cross-posting or repeated posting of, generally, off topic articles to Usenet.
  • Mass, Unsolicited Commercial Email.
  • Mass, Unsolicited Non-commercial Email, such as please to write your representative about a important political issue, or for help in finding a missing person.
  • Mass, solicited Email: That is, a mass mailing to people who signed up for a service.
  • Chain letters.

 

Spam-Ku

Can of metal, slick
Soft center, so cool, moistening
I yearn for your salt

Silent, former pig
One communal awareness
Myriad pink bricks

And who dares mock Spam?
You? you? you are not worthy
Of one rich pink fleck

Oh tin of pink meat
I ponder what you may be:
Snout or ear or feet?

Old man seeks doctor
"I eat Spam daily", he says.
Angioplasty

Notes for slide :

There is actually a book of Spamku, Spam-Ku: Tranquil Reflextions on Luncheon Loaf, John Cho, editor.

 

A Brief History of Spam:

• April 12, 1994, Green Card cross-posting

• Jeff Slaton, Route 66, and Atomic Bomb plans.

• Sanford Wallace, and Cyber Promotions.

Notes for slide :

• April 12, 1994, Green Card cross-posting:
  • Two lawyers in Arizona, Laurence Canter and Martha Sigel, sent an advertisement to over 6,000 newsgroups. Advertising services with the ``Green Card Lottery.''

  • So many complaints were sent to their ISP that the mail server crashed, and they lost their account.

  • Canter and Sigel later wrote a book: How to make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway).

  • In the book, they told how to gather email addresses from Usenet, how to send junk mail, post commercials on Usenet, advertise on IRC, etc.
• Jeff Slaton, Route 66, and Atomic Bomb plans:
  • One of the readers of Canter and Sigal was Jeff Slaton, a Yellow Pages representative at US West Direct, in Albuquerque, MN.

  • He gathering email addresses and asked Route 66, his ISP, if they would mind if he sent out a mass advertisement.

  • They said, yes, he would mind, and suggested he read a book about making money on the Internet instead.

  • Well, he had read a book, but it was the wrong book.

  • Two days before his account expired, he sent out an advertisement for the ``original plans for the atomic bomb, $18.00.

  • Slaton claims he sold thousands of copies world-wide.

  • Slaton went on to be the first to offer spamming as a service, and billed himself as The Spam King. He was also the first to forge a fictitious return address to divert complaints.

• Sanford Wallace, and Cyber Promotions.
  • No brief history would be complete without mentioning Sanford Wallace, and Cyber Promotions.

  • In the spring of 1996 Sanford (later to be know as Spamford) took the Spam king crown for himself.

  • He was also the first to Spam AOL, and AOL and he have exchanged lawsuits. And so have Cyber Promotions and Prodigy, CompuServe, Concentric Networks, etc.

  • Wallace was suing because these ISP's were blocking his advertisements.

  • They were suing because cyber promotions would forge AOL return addresses.

  • The entire history of Cyber Promotions can be found in Schwartz and Garfinkle, Appendix B.

  • If you had an AOL account during the days of Cyber Promotions, you know of the problems Spam caused: people would log in and find 50 or 60 messages a day, all of them spam, which they had to pay to download.

 

Why Is Spam Bad?

• The economics are wrong:
  • The recipient pays most of the cost.
  • The sender pays too small a cost.

• Hidden Costs
  • Larger servers
  • Admin time.
  • User time deleting

• Degradation of service

• Lack of accountability

• Theft of service and reputation

• The Future: It just doesn't scale

Notes for slide :

• Why is SPAM bad? Isn't it just like other advertisements? You will hear many arguments, mostly con, but some pro. Why is spam bad?
  • The biggest problem is, the economics are wrong. They are wrong because:
    • The recipient pays most of the cost.
    • The sender pays too small a cost.
  • Absent negative feedback in the for of paying the cost of advertisement, advertisers are encouraged to advertise more.

  • Hidden Costs: Larger servers, admin time put into cleaning up after a spam attack, time to delete spam.

  • Degradation of service: AOL's message system was rendered useless for a time by Cyber Promotions.

  • Lack of accountability--often intentionally. Who is advertising? Can you trust them?

  • Theft of service and reputation, when spam is distrubuted through third parties, or complaints are redirected to an innocent bystander.

• The Future of Spam: The number one problem, It just doesn't scale. (Read from page 41 of Schwartz and Garfinkel.)

 

How Does Spam Spread?

• Original Spam: Usenet.

• Canter and Sigal Green Card post:

• Then it got out of hand:
  • Spam Cancels
  • Usenet Death Penalties
  • Good Housekeeping cancel services.

• Cancels chasing Spam.

• Cancel Strike, ISP filters.

• Spam-lite: email
  • Cyber promotions
  • Get Rich Quick
  • Chain-mail,
  • Virus alerts
• Chain mail insignificant compared to UCE.

Notes for slide :

How Does Spam Spread: Two basic varieties Usenet and email.

• Original Spam: Usenet.

• Spam started on Usenet with the Canter and Sigal Green Card post. From there it really got out of hand.
  • Spam Cancel Services (e.g, CancelMoose).
  • Usenet Death Penalties.
  • Auto-Cancelers, using the Breidbard Index ( $\rm copies\times\sqrt{\rm newsgroups}$).
  • Good Housekeeping cancel services.
• This war was going full force when I inherited Usenet.

• At one point it seemed half of Usenet traffic was cancel messages chasing the other half.

• April 3rd, 1998 the cancelers went on strike.

• By the 17th, enough ISP's ran filters to have an effect.

• Spam-lite: The other spam is email, which includes not only the cyber promoters, but also chain-mail spam, get rich quick schemes, urban legends, virus alerts, etc.

• Over time, the chain mail--while still a problem--has become insignificant compared to the UCE relayers.

 

Promiscuous Relaying:

• SMTP: Simple Mail Transport Protocol
• Purpose of SMTP: Relaying email
• Originally, anybody could relay
• Still the default out-of-box
• Invitation to be exploited by spammer
• Solution: Restrict relaying

Notes for slide :

Promiscuous Relaying:

• The Simple Mail Transport Protocol is used to send email around the Internet.

• The most common programs which implement SMTP are sendmail, qmail, smail, Netscape Messanger, Pegasus Mercury Mailer, Post.Office, and others.

• Sendmail, qmail and smail probably handle 90

• The purpose of an SMTP server is to relay mail, so why is relaying bad?

• It isn't: promiscuous relaying--relaying email for just anybody--is bad.

• Once the standard, still the default:
  • Audit lines were in the message for debugging
  • Servers started doing reverse lookups to identify the sending machine.

• Machines configured in this way now are open invitations to be used to relay spam.

• The solution is to restrict relaying.

 

Server Solutions:

• Block The Sender IP or Account

• Blocking has several disadvantages:
  • Takes place after the fact
  • Blocking a users easy to get around
  • Blocking an IP address blocks everybody
  • Difficult to keep lists up-to-date
• Mail Abuse Prevention Systems: Realtime Blackhole List.
  • Uses a DNS server to distribute IP addresses
  • RPI once on the list
  • Block legitimate mail
  • Other checks as effective
• Sanity Check Sender
• Blocking Promiscuous relaying.

Notes for slide :

Server Solutions:

There are a variety of proposed solutions to dealing with Spam.

• Blocking senders.
  • Block the sending sight by name or IP address.
  • Block the spammer by account name.
• Blocking has several disadvantages:
  • Takes place after the fact.
  • Blocking a users is easy to get around.
  • Blocking an IP address blocks everybody
  • Difficult to keep lists up-to-date.
• Mail Abuse Prevention Systems: Realtime Blackhole List.
  • Uses a DNS server to distribute IP addresses of ``Spam Friendly'' sights.
  • Many ISP's are using this.
  • RPI is not, but we were once on their list.
  • It would block more legitimate mail than spam.
  • Other checks were just as effective.

• Sanity Checking sender.
  • Spammers frequently use forged return addresses
  • Is the return address valid?
  • It is also possible to check if the full address is valid using SMTP's vrfy command.
  • Many ISP's refuse |vrfy| requests.

  • sendmail 8.9 can pattern match headers.

 

Blocking Promiscuous Relaying:

• Most machines relay
• Problem is, relaying for anybody
• Central Server:
  • Mail Originates in domain
  • Mail destined for domain
• Desktop machine: Relay to/from self
• Or, don't run SMTP server
• Limits spammer's ability to spam

Notes for slide :

Blocking Promiscuous relaying:

• Most machines that can send or receive mail relay--that's how mail gets delivered.

• The problem is allowing relaying by too many untrusted machines.

• A server usually relays mail within a domain.

• otherwise the mail must originate from the domain, or be destined for an account within the domain.

• The typical desktop machine need not relay to anybody but itself.

• Even that might be too much. Does the machine have to receive mail? Can mail be read from a central server?

• Restricting relaying reduces spam destined to others, and makes it harder for spammers to operate. It is also keeps your domain from appearing in the header of a get rich quick scheme.

 

Client Solutions

• The Delete Key
• Filters
• Procmail for System-Wide Filtering
• Address Munging
• Email Channels |http://lpwa.com:8000|

Notes for slide :

Client Solutions:

• The Delete Key: One of the quickest ways to eliminate spam, but not always practical--low signal to noise ratio makes email less useful.

• Filters:Eudora, Outlook, Netscape, elm, all allow the user to define filters.

• Procmail is a local delivery agent which allows users to define filters. It can also be used to setup system-wide filters.

• Address munging: Don't give out email addresses, or give out only a munged address which a program cannot interpret.

• Robert Hall at AT&T has developed a system of email channels, which can be used to restrict who can send you email (|http://lpwa.com:8000| has a service based on this idea.)

 

Community Solutions:

• Reporting Spam (accurately)
• Boycotting Companies (explain reasons)
• Anti-spam Legislation (carefully)
• Anti-spam Vigilantes (avoid)

Notes for slide :

Community Solutions:

• Reporting Spam: It's easy to just delete it, it takes time to report it, and it takes more time to report it politely and accurately.

• Boycotting Companies: Some people boycott companies that advertise spam. Most of the companies don't care, but some might. Some might not be aware that UCE is a controversial method of advertising.

• Anti-spam legislation: Several bills have been proposed. Some would legitimate spam, others would forbid sending advertisements with a forged return address. Virginia recently passed such a bill.

• Anti-spam vigilantes: Giving away the home telephone number of spammers, sending fax loops, denial of service attach against servers. MAPS? UDS?

 

Conclusion:

• Relentlessly Disable Relaying
• Police and Educate Users
• Respond to Complaints
• Blame the Right Parties
• Avoid Vigilantes
• MAPS, UDS? Borderline cases

Notes for slide :

Conclusion:

• Relentlessly disable promiscuous relaying.

• Police and educate Users.

• Respond to complaints. It isn't easy, but it must be done.

• Blame the right parties--usually not the sender.

• Avoid vigilantes.

• MAPS, UDS? Borderline cases.

 

Spam Resources:

• Sendmail, by Costales, with Allman, ORA, 1997.

• Stopping Spam, by Schwartz and Garfinkel, ORA, 1998.

• |http://www.sendmail.org/|, |http://www.sendmail.com/|: Free and commercial sendmail, with links to anti-spam pages.

• |http://www.sendmail.org/ ca/email/check.html|: Claus Aßmann's anti-spam provisions.

• |http://www3.mids.org/mn/704/spam.html|: Article from MicroTimes.

• |http://www.cauce.org/|: Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email.

• |http://maps.vix.com/|: Mail Abuse Prevention Systems: Realtime Blackhole List.

• |http://antispam.shmooze.net/spamdrive/|: The AntiSpam Mail List's SPAM Drive.

• |http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/archives|: For you NPR junkies, All Things Considered had two articles about spam, April 17, 1998 and July 14, 1998.