The internet is not what it was, and not what it was supposed to be. The spammers have seen to that.
Even the SpamWars has changed. Still the same crap being sent to our e-mailboxes, but at last count it was 79% of all e-mail. No longer can we read the e-mail headers to find the spammers, the best we can do is identify which of spammers' million-machine zombie army of spam-cannons sent it. Where spammers used to anonymize an e-mail's origin by passing it through another mail-server, an "open relay", they now order a trojaned Windows PC to send it - A PC owned by an unknown broadband consumer.
"The spam wars are about rendering email useless for unsolicited advertising
before unsolicited advertising renders email useless for communication."
-- Walter Dnes/Jeff Wynn
Although the nature of the SpamWars has changed, a growing number of sysadmins and netizens are working to wrest the internet back from the clutches of the spammers. The vast majority of the anti-spammers are volunteers, individuals completely unknown to the denizens of the 'Net on whose behalf they labor. Sometimes having a spaceship named after them is all the accolades they get, and when I need a name for a 'ship, I'm proud to give them that little bit of recognition.
Click on a ship-pic to go to a page with more pictures.
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