Why You Can't Buy SpamQuiz!

I was puzzled recently when a friend couldn't get his email through to me. We have our own spam filter we called SpamQuiz which nicely takes care of Nigerian pleas and lottery solicitations. SpamQuiz is not a product - it's a project we did at TeleMuse Networks testing ISP correctness and email management. However, when I mentioned it on a special interest group email as part of our email changes a few months back, I found by the next day people were trying to piggy-back on our fame by "creating" a product called SpamQuiz for sale. Sigh. The world is full of crooks, isn't it?

So just for the record - don't buy SpamQuiz thinking that's what Lynne Jolitz, open source pioneer and co-inventor of 386BSD - the First Open Source BSD Unix Operating System, SiliconTCP and Massive Video Production (MMP) created and uses, because it's not from us! And it's not a product for sale because 1) we're not in the spam business and 2) we're not crooks. We just build cool technology. If you're a researcher or want to try it out for fun, I may help you - but that's not a product.

But back to my friend. Since he wasn't a crook, why was he getting trapped by SpamQuiz? Well, since the point of SpamQuiz is to catch nonconforming ISP's and their bad emails, it was likely that his ISP had some small issue that could be cleared up. It couldn't be all bad, could it? Or maybe not. So we traced the email. It's a wonder he get anything through anybody because his ISP looks like Spam Central.

Here's how it worked. Mail.localISPname.net traced to mx-v.mx-av.com, which looks like an unqualified audio-visual corp in Mexico according to Internet naming conventions. In other words, the forward and reverse lookups don't corrolate. There are a lot of companies that will silently drop email if the reverse lookup doesn't match the forward lookup, especially major corporations, investment firms, and banks. This can impact your business, because frankly you look just like a spammer. It doesn't matter for personal as much (who cares if it never gets through), but I've heard from some biz people who tell stories of being catagorized as spammers when they deal with venture firms, so it does matter.

Well, this was another interesting case for SpamQuiz, so we dealt with it creatively. Funny though - how many ISP's intentionally name themselves after spam sites?

He's not the only one with this problem. My brother, believe it or not, has an unnamed source for his email from China (Mexico, China, and South America are the three big monsters, and by our stats currently generate about %80 of automated spam), and he's with a major oil company! However, he looks just like Chinese spam sites, simply because his ISP was too lazy to complete the registration.

Customers should be aware of this issue and complain. After all, if they are paying for an ISP to provide them with service, they shouldn't be made to look like a spammer by their ISP.