This was a great MAAWG conference and there are a couple sessions I can write about. There were multiple sessions where representatives from various blocking groups and ISPs talked about what they block on. I have extensive notes and will be writing things up in the next few days.
The awesome folks at Mailchimp brought t-shirts for us.
Unfortunately, I am still in the throes of a week long ear worm related to the shirt.
M3AAWG awarded the second J.D. Falk award today in Montreal. The winner was Gary Warner from the University of Alabama.
Gary has been involved in fighting abuse and online crime since the 1990s. He developed the Center for Information Assurance and Joint Forensics Research at the University. This is an education program that not only teaches students about online threats and how to fight them, but collaborates with both industry experts and law enforcement.
You can check out Gary at his blog or on twitter.
Next week is M3AAWG 30 in San Francisco. We’ll be there and are very excited to see the familiar faces and meet new people.
I recently had someone ask me what would I recommend to someone going to their first M3AAWG conference. My recommendation to anyone in the sender or marketer space is to go to some of the talks that are not about email delivery. Go to the sessions that talk about malware or SMS or anything other than just email delivery. For anyone in the ISP space go to a session focused on mobile or email sending. Use this time to learn about something totally different than what you do every day.
Another question I get frequently from senders is if the people from the ISPs are open to sitting down and talking with senders about the senders’ email problems. Generally, the answer is no. Most of the time, the ISP has no knowledge of who you are and what mail you’re sending, so all they can say is “send me an email with the IPs and I’ll take a look at it.” That’s it.
We’ll be in the city starting Monday afternoon, and I always enjoy meeting readers. Stop by and introduce yourself.
Spammers have been moving into the phone market for a long time. Just recently security firms have discovered an Android botnet. This botnet sends viruses over SMS, and when a link in the SMS is clicked, the phone is infected with the virus which then sends more SMS.
The technology for blocking and reporting SMS spam is comparable to email blocking technology 10 or 12 years ago. There just aren’t many tools for people to use to control this spam. M3AAWG is addressing mobile spam, but it still seems that the volumes are increasing without much recourse. Even the 7726 reporting number doesn’t seem to stop the spam (nor remove per-text charges).
At least in the beginning of the email spam problem, we didn’t have botnets. Now, at the beginning of the curve for SMS spam, we already have self replicating botnets. I’m afraid the good guys might be behind on this issue.
Then again I might just be cranky because SMS spammers woke us up at 4:30 am.
Infoworld article
TNW article
PCWorld article