Well, it's been an interesting end of summer for your humble (I heard that!) editor. First, we changed the system to a new server.

For the technically inclined, the change involved moving from FreeBSD to Red Hat Linux, upgrading to the latest version of sendmail, installing a number of additional security features, hooking into the Real Time Blackhole list, and getting used to making things work in the new environment.

For those who are not technically inclined, that's a lot of little details to trip over.

We started working on making the changes back in August, but a number of things on the physical server itself were delayed. Then there were the usual "Hmmm. That looks something like what we used previously. How different is it *really*?" Just a lot of little things that we knew would happen.

Surprisingly, there were no really serious problems. Credit for that goes entirely to Scott Temaat, of SOHOweb (http://www.bizserver.net). Scott had the foresight to leave plenty of time for the change, and the patience and good humor to keep things light and focused while we both learned what we needed to know.

The worst problem we ran into, at least from my perspective, was one of getting the CGI scripts working and relearning the new file formats for this implementation of sendmail. If you've done this sort of thing, you will realise just how little those things are compared to what *could* go wrong.

If you're looking for a good, inexpensive virtual server or web hosting service, with great customer service and tech support, check them out.

I mentioned last issue that I would be doing a review of Corey Rudl's Internet Marketing course. That's done and posted to an autoresponder. To get a copy, review@talkbiz.com

That led to an interesting situation. Rudl covers pretty much every significant aspect of marketing online, including the less acceptable ones. I caught hell from a number of people for a positive review of a book that includes instructions on spamming.

Curious. One of the first points I made was that those areas should be avoided as options. There wasn't any question of my stance, yet a few people, one in particular, decided that it was hypocritical of me to not have dumped the thing immediately.

Right. Ignore the other 450+ pages of useful info and the time it saves to make a point? Ummm ... Not a sensible approach. If you get a steak that has too much fat on it, do you throw out the steak or trim the fat?

Anyway, the one in particular who gave me hell was a fellow from Singapore. He's a familiar poster on a lot of bulletin boards. Claims to be anti-spam, anti-porn, and generally goes about talking about all his exclusive inside knowledge of the scam artists online. Never offers any proof, just makes accusations. You've seen the type, I'm sure.

Well, okay. He wants to be a big shot. Fine with me. I told him to go be a big shot somewhere else unless he had proof to offer.

That was the end of that, I thought. On to more productive business.

One morning a week or so later I check my email, and there are hundreds of messages in one mailbox. Bounces, mostly. But I hadn't sent any of the newsletters for weeks, and there were more bounces there than I get from a month of newsletters.

What's this? Removes??? Flames, polite remove requests, and a couple of mailbombs. (Weak attempts. The biggest was only a half meg.)

Someone had forged my address and domain name into a spam.

I thought it was funny at first, really. It's very hard to really hide the source of an email. This one was from Singapore. Pacific.net.sg

Okay, first things first. Whodunit? The address for requesting more info was a Yahoo address. Fired off an email to the address and got the autoresponder back. Hmm ... Selling Rudl's course. That's interesting.

Rudl doesn't allow the use of spam to sell his material.

Search the net for that URL. First place I find with it posted is a porn site. Not surprising. Spam and porn go together like ham and eggs.

Off to Deja News. The newsgroups were more useful. Find a couple of leads there, including a free email address. More digging. Asked a few people some questions.

While I'm doing this, I get a note from Marty Foley about a reply that someone posted to his bulletin board. Marty had asked for opinions on the Warriors, and I posted mine. Overall, positive. A few things that could be improved, but isn't that true of all of us?

The reply to my post was titled "Another bloody foul-mouth crack pot that smear other's reputation!"

Hmm. Okay, crackpot I can deal with. Been called that before. Foul mouthed? Not usually. Certainly not in a public forum that doesn't have a pool table, a juke box, and a minimum age for service. Smearing reputations?? HUH?

The body of the post evoked images of a drooling idiot. It was, of course, unsigned. (Don't you just LOVE anonymous criticism? Makes me want to believe it immediately ...)

If you take a look at the source for most posts to bulletin boards, you'll discover that they usually include the IP address of the poster. You can guess what I found. Same ISP. Pacific.net.sg

Well well. Ain't that fun?

I checked that post against some others from the person I suspected. Same syntax errors. Same tone. Hmm. Same misspellings ...

You might know this and you might not, but misspellings tend to be habitual. Especially when the author is writing in a second language. They think they've learned the word correctly, and their mistakes are like little verbal fingerprints. Get enough matches, and you've got a solid lead. Not proof, but a solid lead.

Next I got confirmation of the person's identity.

Guess who?

My friend the anti-spam, anti-porn, consumer watchdog.

His ISP has been slow to reply. (Typical of Pacific Net. They're ridiculous about spam complaints that don't originate inside Singapore.) I'm still on them about it.

Phone calls to the fellow remain unacknowledged. But they were more for shock value.

He's dropped off the face of the net. Which is almost good enough for me. As soon as he loses his accounts and the Singapore police are on him, I'll be satisfied.

By the way, something you may not have known. Some of the free email services will give out the forwarding address of a user if you have a good reason (Like use of the address in a criminal act.) and ask right.

The kicker? I called and spoke with one of the people in Rudl's office, and she checked the stats for that ID number after telling me that "the rep that has that ID number will be removed." (Discreet. This is a Good Thing.)

Almost 800 visits to that page, and not a single sale.

Gotta love it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I still had all those removes and bounces to deal with. The bounces were easy. Save them to a file and get them out of the mailbox.

Sent notes to the remove requesters. Those who replied understood. No problems there.

I ignored one of the "mailbombs" as it was humorous. Really!

The half meg one needed a response. Yes, it was small, but it could be a hassle for someone with a limited mailbox size. And frankly, it's just as bad as spamming. Destructive tactics are not an appropriate answer to spam.

A note to the sender, the company that owns the return address they used, and AOL's abuse department. (The email was sent from an AOL connection.)

The sender replies that I need to clean up my act and keep better control of who uses my email address. Then gets nasty. Oh boy ...

If this person's IQ was two points lower, they'd need daily watering.

Another note to AOL. This time to someone who carries a clue and has a permit to use it. End of problem.

Happily, AOL has changed decidedly in the past two years. If UU.net would learn a bit from them, we'd all be better off.

Then, in the middle of all this, yet another spam related problem. My partner gets a note from the web host for a domain we use for a business. They want an answer to a complaint. Now. Or else.

Okay... What now?!

A while back we set up a section for visitors to ask questions of experts in various fields of business. We also created forwarding addresses which were used on the web pages, so that when spammers harvested the addresses from the website, we could simply change the addresses. This would keep these people from getting too badly spammed for their efforts. (That server doesn't support the kinds of blocking that are needed to keep the creeps out. We're moving that domain to this server soon.)

Well. It seems that one of those "experts" sent them a complaint, along with every other ISP through which the email had passed, regarding a spam from our site.

I sent the individual in question a note on the matter. In essence, I told them to learn what they were doing before they went around firing off complaints randomly.

I was informed that "You don't own the whole Internet" and "I'll complain as and when I choose."

Fine. We try to provide spam protection for this person and almost get a domain shut down for it.

Go figure.

Remember: Professionals are predictable. Amateurs are dangerous.

The points? Well, first things first: Do NOT respond to spams with mail bombs. It's very rare that the address in the From: field is the spammer's real address. They're usually not anyone's real address. You're likely to end up either bombing an innocent third party, or eating the mailbomb when it bounces back on you. But only after it chews up bandwidth bouncing about the net trying to find the "recipient".

Second: If you're going to start spending time dealing with spam complaints, take an hour or two and learn how to do it. Don't just start emailing everyone you can find in the headers. Many times, if you haven't learned how to properly read and verify headers, you won't even hit the right ISP with the complaint!

You may well just nail the wrong person.

Maybe the answer to the spam problem is for all the people with half a clue to stop reporting spams. Just quietly go about the business of protecting their own systems and teach no one.

Drop the RBL, drop all the publicly shared filters and such, and let the amateurs take over. The spammers would have a field day. They'd quickly realise that most average netizens don't know how to spot the forgeries, and they'd go berserk.

Think spam's a problem now? Wait until every local business thinks they can get away with it.

And just imagine the chaos as more people like the fellow described above start running off at the mail. He meant well, but that doesn't make his ignorance of protocols, both technical and social, any less dangerous.

I think it's the best choice, actually. The only way the problem will get addressed properly is when the majority of users quit complaining to each other and start complaining to the appropriate people.

Only way that will happen is if they see what the problem would be like without the "net cops".

Up close and personal.

The Yankees have done it again. Despite a lackluster last two weeks, the Bronx Bombers are going to the playoffs in grand style. And the Mets are, as of this writing, tied for the wild card spot.

A "Subway Series"?

No, it's not likely, but it would be fun!

On the baseball front, there has been a great hullabaloo about Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa shattering Maris' record. The stories that tell the story happen off the field.

Recently a fellow took his young son to a game, and when they got the chance, they moved down near the dugout. Sosa was warming up for his turn at bat in the ninth inning, with the Cubs behind in the game.

The kid told Sosa that he was his idol. Sosa grinned, and went back into the dugout. The kid thought he was going for more pine tar. Sosa came out of the dugout with a bat in hand, gave it to one of the people working at the stadium and pointed to the kid.

He's in the middle of a home run race, his team is trying to win a ball game that could help them get a wild card spot in the playoffs, and he took the time to make a little kids day.

The stories of pure class that have come out in this home run thing are great, but that one is the one I'll remember most. No press. Just a classy guy doing a classy thing because it seemed right to him.

And people wonder why I like baseball.

Enough Rambling. Go read the articles. Good stuff this month, including the first of a new series by "Guerrilla" Bill Gallagher, a great piece from Paul Lemberg on delegating, and lots more solid info.

See you in a couple of weeks, folks!

Paul