One of the stories that is circulating around the Internet this week is the announced imminent closure of the SORBS blocklist.  Al Iverson of SpamResource has a good summary of it.  SORBS has had its share of criticism in the past, however. ...

A few months ago, I put up an ad on Craiglist advertising something of mine (I can’t remember what it was).  It was easy, all I had to do was click on a few links, put in the description, fill in my email address and hit Post.  No muss or fuss...

Microsoft has just released a new search engine entitled Bing (but it's not Google).  The philosophy behind it is something that Bill Gates has talked about for a long time.  Today, Search returns a lot of results (regardless of whether it's...

I'm going to attempt to summarize a blocklist without going to the article on Wikipedia.  I'll be doing this straight off the top of my head. Motivation A blocklist is essentially a shortcut to spam filtering.  Assume that you have a content...

We all remember back in November 2008, the botnet command-and-control center hosting ISP McColo was taken offline.  Overnight, spam levels dropped by 40%.  It was one of the most significant antispam operations in the history of fighting spam...

With the explosion in popularity of Twitter (of which I am not a twitterer or even a subscriber), I've wondered to myself whether there is such a thing as twitter spam. Now, spam in the email sense is when spammers flood your inbox with unwanted email...

I have a bit more on my previous post about Click Fraud. To me, Click Fraud is much riskier than spamming.  Consider the differences: with spam, the spammer is spreading out abusive content all across the internet and each user only gets a small...

A couple of weeks ago, the Financial Times ran an article entitled "Secret War on Web Crooks Revealed."  Here's an excerpt: The people who run the world's internet systems are a rather secretive bunch.  Three times a year, senior technical...

The New York Times ran an article yesterday saying that Microsoft is suing three people in a click-fraud scheme.  The investigation took more than a year and the company is seeking $750k in damages. Click Fraud is when people manipulate clicks on...

The other day, I got the following spam message in my inbox (junk mail folder, actually): miaou skoal. ripe fanny hash tome? hypo kirk. griff trow canoe kirk. fix die dance. fix coach born hazy? silky brier mutt wrest. samp cad wrest adopt? ahoy pest...

In a story by PC World, spam kingpin Alan Ralsky has plead guilty to a stock fraud case where he pumped up Chinese penny stocks: Ralsky and four other individuals pleaded guilty on Monday, joining three others who had pleaded guilty earlier, the U.S....

Today, for the first time every, I got a phishing spam from a spammer targeting a bank that I actually use.  A couple of months ago, Washington Mutual held a "contest" where if you opened an account and put at least $100, they'd also contribute...