(Author's Note: I feel that this book and its subject are of vital interest to
the entire computer community. The book's content deserves the widest possible circulation,
no matter whether your platform of choice is a Mac, PC or Unix workstation. I urge
you to print this review in your newsletters, post it on your web sites and relay
it to your fellow computer users, not because the review itself is important but
because it calls attention to an important message. Ken Fermoyle)
Ken's Korner Book Review
More Important Than You Might Think:
Stopping Spam
by Ken Fermoyle
Most of
us know by now that Spam isn't just a Hormel canned meat product. Today, "spam"
also means any kind of unrequested, unwanted email or newsgroup article sent in bulk
over the Internet. Some people merely regard it as a nuisance. Unfortunately, Internet
spam is much more than that.
Spam is not something we can eliminate simply by clicking on "delete."
It poses a serious problem for the cyberspace community, one we should all recognize
and work to combat. The best weapon I've found so far is a new book, "Stopping
Spam," from O'Reilly & Associates (www.oreilly.com).
Authors Alan Schwartz and Simson Garfinkel have done an excellent job of explaining
how and why spam is a major headache. More important, they describe practical ways
in which individuals and organizations can use to combat this insidious menace.
"Spam messages waste the Internet's two most precious resources: the bandwidth
of long-distance communication links and the time of network administrators who keep
the Internet working from day to day. Spam also wastes the time of countless computer
users around the planet." They point out further that spammers increasingly
use fraud and computer abuse to deliver their messages.
They also present disturbing figures on the amount of spam jamming the Net today,
and warn that the volume is increasing. The reason? Spam is probably the lowest-cost
form of advertising available-to the spammer, that is. Unfortunately, it costs everyone
else far more than most of us realize.
One especially interesting chapter explains how messages are sent across the Internet,
possibly the best and most detailed explanation of the process I've read to date.
It also covers the methods spammers use to "harvest" email addresses and
exploit the system in other ways.
The most valuable sections of the book, however, are the strategies Schwartz and
Garfunkel offer to help stop the flow of spam. Some of their solutions are technical;
some are political. They tell how to use filtering and active responses to foil spammers,
plus how to track down and respond to spam sources. Tools and information on web
sites, programs and documents mentioned in the book are referenced in an 8-page appendix.
All in all, this is a valuable book on an important subject. Well written, it includes
technical material explained in such a way that you don't need a degree in computer
science to get the message, but neither is it "Spam for Dummies." It will
repay the thoughtful reader big dividends in useful information. I recommend it for
anyone who wants to learn more about spam and Internet messaging in general. Users
Groups should consider adding it to their libraries.
Stopping Spam, By Alan Schwartz & Simson Garfinkel,
1st Edition, October 1998. 204 pages, $19.95
O"Reilly & Associates
Cambridge, MA - Phone: (617)354-5800/(800)775-7731
Sebastopol, CA - Phone: (707)829-0515/(800)998-9938
Order "Stopping Spam" discounted through
the User Group Network
Bookshelf
other related titles:
- Practical
UNIX & Internet Security
Building
Internet Firewalls
The
CD Networking Bookshelf
Ken
(Author's Note: I want to give credit to Earthlink Network, www.earthlink.net,
source of much of the information contained above. Its site deserves regular visits
because it contains a lot of useful Web-oriented information that is updated frequently.)
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