SPEWS

SPEWS is a short term for "Spam Prevention Early Warning System". SPEWS began as a newsgroup-based compilation of e-mail addresses and IP Addresses that are suspected of spamming. SPEWS had become very influential by sharing their lists with spam-blocking services such as Spam Assassin and SendMail. Many, many people began to rely on SPEWS to keep their e-mail inboxes spam free.

Many people also believe that one must actually send spam to be labeled a spammer by SPEWS. That couldn't be further from the truth. SPEWS has IP addresses listed that have never run mail services. They also have hundreds of IP blocks listed to try to stop 1 or 2 spammers, yet the spammers can still send e-mail. Their tactics are ineffective and cause much collateral damage.

Just about anyone in this day and age will tell you that spam is evil. Not only do you have to worry about opening your inbox to something that frightens you, you also have to worry about spam. Every now and then, someone asks, "What is spam?" Spam is junk-mail. Spam is wasted storage space and is often times obscene. Spam can also cause problems when so much of it has been received that it starts to slow your computer. The only way to really describe SPEWS is: A good idea gone bad.

Not only has SPEWS become popular, it's also become inclusive and/or inefficient. In the beginning it resorted to blocking a single IP Address that has now turned into an entire blocking of ISP's..which means innocent have fallen victim and at the mercy of SPEWS. The SPEWS lists have became powerful enough to not only stop at blocking Internet Providers, they've moved on to the ability to block entire Countries.

Spam. It creates an incredible amount of load and wasted effort by admins and users who don't want to see it. IP-base blacklists are obsolete, and have been for several years. They worked great back in the day when dial-ups and dedicated servers were hard to come by, so everyone was stuck on static IP addresses.

Now you can pick up high-speed Internet access for $30/mo, or a dedicated server for $99 or less. So what if the spammer gets cut off after 2 days? They've already made their money and have a new account somewhere else to use. Most of them use fraudulent CC info anyway, so they don't have to pay for it. Open-proxies and hacked boxes make their job even easier .. use someone else's computer as a spam platform, you don't even have to foot the bill for the connection. By time an IP address makes it to SPEWS, the spammer is gone, leaving the ISP or HSP to clean up a mess they never knew they had.

Short of blocking all outbound traffic, it is nearly impossible to keep yourself off of the SPEWS list.

SPEWS became too powerful for it's own good. As it grew, it began to fall at the same time. The "owners and operators" of SPEWS began to realize that it was becoming impossible to keep up with these lists they've created. They soon discovered that once they started adding entire IP blocks to SPEWS, it was just about impossible to remove it. And here you now have inconsistency and inefficiency.

The day finally came when spammers and non-spammers had enough. SPEWS was brought down with repeated DDoS attacks for a short period of time. Unfortunately, that wasn't a complete winning battle. The day that SPEWS was shut down, Joe Jared (SPEWS Operator) shut it down and blacklisted everybody with "ban *.*.*.*".

By the time that day had came, most Internet Providers and Small Businesses had come to the conclusion that SPEWS wasn't exactly what they thought it to be. Unfortunately, in this day and age SPEWS is still being used...but with less credibility and less interest.

I believe the issue of SPEWS will be discussed time and time again. Fingers will be pointed back and forth until they're ready to fall off. How long do these have to continue? Until someone gets a clue? Until everyone agrees? Neither are going to happen...and we all know this.

This article courtesy Kylie, AKA QT_