taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Irish techies — wondering what the next website to put the fear into your parents will be? Here it is: Blacklist.ie. It’s been getting a bit of coverage from the Irish technology press recently, it seems, as the new site from IE Internet.

(IE Internet are the Irish internet company that puts a press release every month or so telling us how much of their mail is being filtered as spam, which Silicon Republic et al dutifully report as news, month after month.)

I got a call from my mother last week, telling me that she’d been “blacklisted”, and asking how to fix it. Sure enough, when I found out that she’d heard this on blacklist.ie, I went to the site, and her IP address was indeed listed — as was mine:

The IP address 212.2.169.61 is blacklisted.

RBLs checked:

Spam Haus not listed

Spam Cop not listed

Mailwall RBL not listed

Abuse At not listed

SORBS not listed

NJABL listed: Dynamic/Residential IP range listed by NJABL dynablock - http://njabl.org/dynablock.html

510 SG not listed

Naturally, that IP is listed — it’s entirely ok for a home-user broadband machine to appear in SORBS or NJABL as a dynablock-listed IP. (Dynablock, for those who don’t know, is a set of records for addresses which are known to be residential/end-user “dynamic” addresses, rather than mail relays — so obviously most end-user desktop machines would fall under this category.)

Unfortunately, this distinction isn’t mentioned anywhere on the blacklist.ie page… just a large, red, “The IP address is blacklisted” warning.

Worried readers might then reasonably go on to read the site’s Frequently Asked Questions list — which, incredibly, includes a helpful suggestion that you sign up with IE Internet to avoid being listed in future! I’d be curious how that’s supposed to help a home user get off the NJABL dynablock list… a little fishy, if you ask me!

Tags: advertising, anti-spam, blacklist.ie, ie-internet, press-releases, scare-stories, spamhaus

Spam: So this Orlando Soto guy again — the story hit Slashdot today, and the /.ers did some digging. It appears that Mr. Soto runs dduo.com, listing himself at the bottom of the page as ‘Orlando Soto - Webmaster/Owner’. He sells a wide range of apps, including:

• IP Ad Web Sender: ‘Send your advertising message to millions of people instantly! Target your advertisement geographically! Advertising message on someone’s screen, the second you send it! To send messages, IP Ad Web Sender uses a program called net send which is part of windows and is installed by default in Windows 2000, Windows NT and Windows XP.’

Yep, that’s Messenger spam. But don’t worry, he flogs the solution too:

• IP Blocker: ‘Protect yourself against a new type of annoying pop up spam message called IP Ads that can be sent directly to your computer anytime while you are online.’

Or you could just save your money and turn it off the easy way.

Tags: advertising, guy, message, orlando, sender, slashdot, spam, story, web, windows

New Scientist: Turing tests filter spam email. “Simple tests designed to distinguish computers from humans are increasingly being used to clamp down on unsolicited, or ’spam’, email advertising.”

The article notes that Yahoo! has imposed such a test to block automated account-signup-then-spam bots. (Thankfully — that might discourage some of the more automated 419 spammers.)

Sorry ’bout the lack of blogging — very busy ’round here, what with a new SpamAssassin release in the pipeline and a move to the US in the offing…

Tags: advertising, article, email, filter, new, scientist, simple, spam, turing, yahoo

Incredible — Colombia Pictures fabricated a fake film critic, to provide ad-copy-on-demand.

Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 14:24:40 +0100
From: “Tim Chapman” (spam-protected)
To: forteana (spam-protected)
Subject: Fake film critic

http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Exclusive/0,4029,501215,00.html

Columbia critic exposed as a fake

Sara Gaines Monday June 4, 2001

A critic who has given ringing endorsements to a string of Colombia Pictures films has been exposed as a fake. Newsweek magazine discovered the gushing “critic” David Manning was created by the studio’s advertising department to boost campaigns for a host of new releases. The fake critic’s relentlessly positive quotes were included in advertising spiel for at least four films and the studio has apparently been happily churning out rave reviews in his name since last July. The glowing quotes attributed to Manning included tributes for A Knight’s Tale in which Australian actor Heath Ledger was praised as “this year’s hottest new star!” and for the Rob Schneider comedy The Animal which was hailed as “another winner!” Other endorsements were used in advertising copy for Hollow Man and Vertical Limit. Susan Tick, a spokeswoman for Columbia’s parent company, Sony Pictures Entertainment, admitted to Newsweek the reviews were “an incredibly foolish decision.” The company has now withdrawn adverts which contain the fabricated quotes although some newspapers had already carried them over the weekend. In the adverts Manning is named as film critic for The Ridgefield Press, a family-owned weekly in a small Connecticut town.

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Tags: advertising, colombia, company, critic, fake, film, incredible, newsweek, pictures, studio