Re: Spam by the numbers (March 23)
In my opinion, the conclusions drawn by Ipsos-Reid are dangerously misleading.
The only real reason that fewer e-mail spam are reaching
our user mailboxes is because of the vast amounts of money being poured into blocking them by both corporate Canada and Canadian ISPs.
And to draw the opinion that the flood waters are receding or that the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) is in any way reducing the number of spam being received is laughable.
Don’t they realize that the typical spammer doesn’t care what legislation is enacted to protect personal privacy, what do they have to fear from it?
To get a clear picture of the problem a good sampling of ISPs, business and end users need to keep concise logs of the numbers they both get and block, otherwise as Neil Schwartzman so eloquently put it, “they’re blowing smoke.”
Troy Fisher
Choice Solutions
Winnipeg
Re: Spam by the numbers (March 23)
I agree that the volume is not declining and that it is getting more difficult to block because the sender addresses are not consistent.
We are working under an assumption that we should never respond when the mail claims that it is not spam and that you can request to be deleted from their list because we think that we would only be confirming an address. Even if they do not send any more mail, they will likely sell the list with your name on it to another spamming company. I am interested to know if our assumption is correct.
Warren Browne
Director, Information Technology
Teknion Corp.
Toronto
Re: Spam by the numbers (March 23)
Spam is not getting better. It is getting far worse. From 10 spams a day we are now getting over 200. Web crawlers find our email address on our Web site and create spam lists. The bulk of the spam is coming from Canadian Internet pharmacies, mortgage sites, or porno sites. We spend at least 30 minutes a day per PC deleting the stuff which is a costly annoyance. Not only do we receive it once, but the same thing could be received at least three to four times a day. Worst yet, is that you cannot reply to them. They do not provide contact information and clicking REMOVE only confirms a valid address. Legislation must be done to force REMOVE lists, force senders to provide valid reply addresses, and ISPs to validate e-mail headers for a valid IP address before sending the e-mail. ISPs such as Yahoo should be limit the number of e-mails in a given time by a single sender, and should also validate the names of who is sending e-mail.
L.H. Kunin
Udisco Ltd.
Montreal
Re: Where did all the search engines go? March 11
Very good, but what about AltaVista? Am I the only dinosaur still using that wonderful tool?
Paul-Andre Desjardins
Re: Where did all the search engines go? March 11
For something completely different, there’s Canada’s own Kartoo. Perhaps you could do a special article on this one.
Richard Gagnon
Technical Services Specialist
Canadian Space Agency
Re: Canadian OEMs get the lead out (Feb. 28)
I read with interest your recent article. I believe you would be pleased to learn that one Canadian company has partnered with industry experts to help solve this issue — and has done so in an IT-friendly way.
In early 2005, Automated Learning released the first e-learning course in the new Lead-Free Soldering Suite. This course, “Orientation to Lead-Free Soldering,” leads decision makers through the maze of issues they will necessarily deal with in gearing up. With such a short time frame for implementation of lead-free, this e-learning course provides immediate access to information as well as an on-going resource they can refer back to.
Evelyn Abell
VP, Sales and Marketing
Automated Learning Corp.
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