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If anyone is interested in what it was like fighting spam in the early 2000s, I worked for a company that captured spam, analyzed it and then passed the analysi

If anyone is interested in what it was like fighting spam in the early 2000s, I worked for a company that captured spam, analyzed it and then passed the analysis s on to the law firms of the big email providers for targeting under CAN-SPAM. Twitter thread about it below but happy to do a AMA here. https://x.com/alexpotato/status/1208948480867127296?s=20 https://x.com/alexpotato/status/1208948480867127296?s=20

rapind 4mo ago
It's the same scaling issue we've had since the advent of the internet, and why spam and social media became such a dumpster fire. There are many things in life that are perfectly fine when uncommon / rare, but are disastrous when done cheaply at scale.
Chu4eeno 4mo ago
Ironically one of the first recognizable spam campaigns was perpetrated by lawyers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Sie...
- alexpotato 4mo ago
  On the flip side, the lawyers that represented the big tech firms at the time were some of the most impressive people I've ever met. You could speak to them as a peer when it came to technical issues or system architecture AND they were experts in technology law. Especially impressive given that anti-spam was still in it's infancy and rapidly evolving.
  - Chu4eeno 4mo ago
    Yeah, I didn't mean to slight lawyers in general, some of my best friends are lawyers (one of them even convinced me to switch to Signal before it was cool).
  - davidwritesbugs 4mo ago
    When I was a lawyer my selling point was exactly that I knew tech deeply, coming from a dev background, and was current as I read Slashdot daily compiled my own Linux kernels etc. It allows punters trust you & is a rainmaking skill.
- Grimblewald 4mo ago
  On par, a large part of that professional cohort has its entire career made by abusing rules intended to prevent abuse of rules. It's a self-perpetuating monster that breeds attitudes and behaviours that maximise antisocial and exploitative behaviour by the system's design. just look at what was done to copywrite, designed to protect inventors from cororates and related abuse, now unweildly for individuals and largly serves corporate interest more than the individuals it was supposed to protect. Same with patent system.

rapind 4mo ago

It's the same scaling issue we've had since the advent of the internet, and why spam and social media became such a dumpster fire. There are many things in life that are perfectly fine when uncommon / rare, but are disastrous when done cheaply at scale.

Chu4eeno 4mo ago

Ironically one of the first recognizable spam campaigns was perpetrated by lawyers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Sie...

alexpotato 4mo ago
On the flip side, the lawyers that represented the big tech firms at the time were some of the most impressive people I've ever met. You could speak to them as a peer when it came to technical issues or system architecture AND they were experts in technology law. Especially impressive given that anti-spam was still in it's infancy and rapidly evolving.
- Chu4eeno 4mo ago
  Yeah, I didn't mean to slight lawyers in general, some of my best friends are lawyers (one of them even convinced me to switch to Signal before it was cool).
- davidwritesbugs 4mo ago
  When I was a lawyer my selling point was exactly that I knew tech deeply, coming from a dev background, and was current as I read Slashdot daily compiled my own Linux kernels etc. It allows punters trust you & is a rainmaking skill.
Grimblewald 4mo ago
On par, a large part of that professional cohort has its entire career made by abusing rules intended to prevent abuse of rules. It's a self-perpetuating monster that breeds attitudes and behaviours that maximise antisocial and exploitative behaviour by the system's design. just look at what was done to copywrite, designed to protect inventors from cororates and related abuse, now unweildly for individuals and largly serves corporate interest more than the individuals it was supposed to protect. Same with patent system.