From alan@curry.epilogue.com Thu Dec 7 02:44:55 1995 Return-Path: Received: from curry.epilogue.com by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for /com/archive/cube-lovers id AA23735; Thu, 7 Dec 95 02:44:55 EST Received: (from alan@localhost) by curry.epilogue.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA01816; Thu, 7 Dec 1995 02:44:49 -0500 Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 02:44:49 -0500 Message-Id: <7Dec1995.013844.Alan@LCS.MIT.EDU> From: Alan Bawden Sender: Cube-Lovers-Request@ai.mit.edu Subject: Magazine Spam To: Cube-Lovers@ai.mit.edu So I thought it was time to send you all an update on unwanted magazine advertisements that have been broadcast over Cube-Lovers about once a week for the last few months. Here's the final story. First off, there is absolutely -nothing- that I can do IN THE SHORT TERM to stop these advertisements. Internet electronic mail was not designed to prevent unwanted advertising. As things are set up now, Cube-Lovers is a simple mailing list, so anybody, anywhere, can send mail to Cube-Lovers and you all get it. It turns out that the source of the advertising we've been getting is a fellow named Kevin Jay Lipsitz . I've written directly to Mr. Lipsitz politely asking him to remove Cube-Lovers from his list of advertising targets (it was hard to be polite, but I was) -- but Mr. Lipsitz apparently doesn't answer his electronic mail. Actually, I doubt he even -reads- his electronic mail, because he is a well-known Spammer, and probably gets hundreds of complaints a day delivered to his address. (For those of you new to the Internet, "Spamming" is the technical term for the kind of advertising Mr. Lipsitz engages in.) I really doubt that Mr. Lipsitz's technique has sold any magazines to any of -you-, but I suppose he gets enough suckers to make it pay, and he's got no motivation to bother removing Cube-Lovers, since MIT is paying for the resources that he's using to reach you all. So we're stuck with him. At least we're stuck with him until I can get the filtering technology in place to cut him off. Which I wanted to avoid, because I have better things to do with my time, but now I have no choice. So relief from Mr. Lipsitz's magazines is on its way eventually, but probably not until you've seen several more copies of his advertisement -- sorry. By the way, here's more information on Mr. Lipsitz. You'll notice that he has his own domain name: KJL.COM. They don't give you a domain name unless you provide a mailing address and a phone number, so the following information is publicly available from the NIC: Kevin Jay Lipsitz (KJL-DOM) PO Box 120990 Staten Island NY 10312-0990 Domain Name: KJL.COM Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Lipsitz, Kevin Jay (KJL2) krazykev@KJL.COM 718-967-1234 Record last updated on 25-Aug-95. Record created on 20-Apr-95. Domain servers in listed order: NS1.ABS.NET 206.42.80.130 NS2.ABS.NET 206.42.80.131 NS1.NET99.NET 204.157.3.2 If you want proof that this is the guy, you need only note that the address given here is the -same- as the address for ordering magazines given in all those advertisements. The phone number is in the same area code and exchange as the Fax number he sometimes gives. (Although the fact that the phone number ends in "1234" makes me suspect it is bogus -- I don't think think the NIC tries to -verify- any of this information.) Notice that ABS.NET provides the domain service for KJL.COM. You will find that ABS.NET is no more interested in answering your mail than Mr. Lipsitz is. Finally, I urge you all -not- to respond to this message in public. If you have further thoughts on Internet advertising, electronic mailing list administration, or clever acts of revenge, you can send them to -me-, but don't CC your message to Cube-Lovers as a whole. The whole point here is to keep Cube-Lovers relatively free of off-topic mail. As the list administrator I get to send out occasional administrivia such as this message because I do actual -work- to keep the list running. - Alan (Cube-Lovers-Request@AI.MIT.EDU)