[anti-abuse-wg] Abuse: Too big to fail

Hi Andre
I have just read this whole thread (one day I will get a life). I would like to make an observation and a suggestion.
First the observation. You seem to be making the same point many, many times. You believe that Twitter is a spammer and no one will do anything about it. I think that sums up this thread. There have been a few comments (partially) supporting some of your arguments. There have been many comments expressing some doubt.

Now the suggestion. Do you have any proposal for moving forward and addressing this issue? Some people have suggested that individuals who believe they are being spammed by Twitter (and others) can set up their own email filter and take a small step to solve the problem. If this is a sensible course of action then it is a question of educating ordinary internet users that this action is available and explain how to do it. As most end users have never heard of the RIPE NCC it is not an education role for them. Most users only know who their service provider is. These are probably all RIPE NCC members (in this region). So maybe it would help if these service providers could publish information on their web sites about tackling this issue on an individual basis. If that would help then maybe either you, or a group of people from this anti-abuse community, could produce some standard information on how to set up these filters in the different technology circumstances of end users. Or maybe you have some other proposals for action to solve this issue?
I have a Twitter account. I have never tweeted anything in my life, but I follow a few RIPE and APNIC tweets. Apart from some daily notifications (which I have requested) I have never been spammed by Twitter. Same for Facebook. But Ebay is a different story for me. Twice someone has created an account using my email address. Ebay does not verify users email addresses. I was hit by hundreds of emails a day from these people's (most probably illegal) purchases. I complained to Ebay's abuse email address and was ignored. I even found an abuse address in the RIPE Database and complained, but still ignored. In the end I solved the problem another way.

cheersdenis


      From: ox <andre at ox.co.za>
 To: Volker Greimann <vgreimann at key-systems.net> 
Cc: anti-abuse-wg at ripe.net
 Sent: Monday, 19 June 2017, 17:30
 Subject: Re: [anti-abuse-wg] Abuse: Too big to fail
   
On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 17:15:35 +0200
Volker Greimann <vgreimann at key-systems.net> wrote:

Hi Volker :)

> It seems there is a definition issue here. I am sure Twitter does not 
> intentionally spam its users, but many users that receive messages
> from Twitter think of these as spam.
> 
Not to be pedantic, but as Twitter is aware of their abuse and does not
do anything to stop it - Twitter does intentionally spam and enable
criminals.

The emails are sent from Twitter infrastructure, so therefore = Twitter.

As Twitter ignores and refuses abuse reports, this indicates non
willingness to cease abuse, investigate abuse and stop enabling
criminals.

And Twitter abuse is ongoing...

They are multiple repeat offenders that are 'special' spammers.

 
> What is probably true:
> 
> - Real spammers may be abusing the infrastructure offered by Twitter
> to spam and Twitter is unable/unwilling to take action to stop this
> 

Twitter are 'real' spammers :)

and yes, their infrastructure enables many other nefarious creatures.

> - Twitter account holders have their settings set up that they
> receive too many notifications that they do not really want.
> Solving the second is easy: Just change your notification settings.
> 
none of the thousands of abuse I see are from any real people...
so, non relevant, in my case :)

personally I do have a Twitter account and have nothing personal
against or for Twitter. I have no agenda or anything other than to
simply state that there are multinationals that are evil and to point
out that playing fields are not level...


> Volker
> 
> PS: It may be helpful to say exactly which messages you consider spam 
> instead of opening up with the big guns right away but without 
> sufficient detail to verify your claims.
> 

Emails to trusted spamtraps - are spam

Emails to stolen data - is criminal activity & also spam

Emails to non existent people at non existent email addresses - is
spam/abuse

Emails continuing after requests to stop - is spam/abuse 

Forever 'confirmation emails' (as in more than 10) - is spam/abuse

Andre

> 
> Am 19.06.2017 um 17:08 schrieb ox:
> > If I do actually look at the abuse lists that list the spammer,
> > Twitter
> > - they are sorbs, etc and have a reputation for ethical behavior..
> >
> > What is interesting is how you & michele defend the spammer
> >
> > One has to wonder whether it is because the fact that Twitter is an
> > evil spammer hurts you guys personally?
> >
> > Or if you are products (have twitter etc) accounts and the truth
> > hurts?
> >
> > If you love the Twitter spammer that much, why do you not try to
> > get the spammer to change their evil ways? Instead of trying to
> > make it about a quarter of all the rbl's being useless, etc.
> >
> > or just plain stupid and obviously false claims that Twitter never
> > sends spam.
> >
> > Andre
> >
> > On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 14:53:07 +0000
> > Suresh Ramasubramanian <ops.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  
> >> On 19/06/17, 8:20 PM, "anti-abuse-wg on behalf of ox"
> >> <anti-abuse-wg-bounces at ripe.net on behalf of andre at ox.co.za> wrote:
> >>
> >>      And, apart from the fact that 25% of all spam lists does in
> >> fact list Twitter as a spammer
> >>
> >> Sturgeon’s law manifests itself all the time. eg: the number of
> >> weird and wonderful blocklists used by maybe two men and their
> >> dog, the population of cranks on the Internet…
> >>
> >> --srs
> >>  
> >  
> 



   
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