Is Yahoo doing all it can to prevent the spread of viruses?

[Robert Clark]

Yahoo is supported by advertisers. A big chunk of their advertising
dollars is due to subscribers using their email system.
Just like free broadcast television, if most of their customers
decided to use another system they would soon go out of business.


Bob Clark

 

[Doc]

Yahoo is supported by advertisers. A big chunk of their advertising
dollars is due to subscribers using their email system.
Just like free broadcast television, if most of their customers
decided to use another system they would soon go out of business.

Interesting how crappy their support is then. I sent 2 e-mails and got
the same auto-reply that didn't address the question.

My question:

"Hello. Is it possible to block incoming e-mail with any kind of
attachments?
I.e. allow no mail with attachments from even reaching my account.


Thanks"


Their response:

"Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.

Mass distribution of unsolicited email messages (or "spamming")
violates
the Yahoo! Terms of Service (TOS).

Please include the following in your report of email abuse to assist
us
in a prompt and full investigation:

1. Original subject line -- Please forward the email with a subject
identical to the original subject.

2. Complete headers -- Email programs often display abbreviated
headers. To learn how to display the full headers in a Yahoo! Mail
account, please visit the Yahoo! Mail Help Desk at:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/config/config-11.html

If you are using a different client to read your email, please consult
your email program's help system for more information on viewing full
headers.

3. Complete message body -- Please include the complete, unedited
content of the email message in question. Please do not change or edit
the message in any way.

If reports of email abuse are missing any one of these three items, it
may take longer for the Yahoo! Mail Abuse Team to properly investigate
and take appropriate action. We appreciate your efforts in reporting
this abuse to Yahoo!. At this time, we will need you to forward a copy
of the message, as opposed to sending it as an attachment. Due to
security purposes, our custom messaging system is unable to access
attachments.

We understand your concerns about receiving unsolicited email, and can
certainly empathize with your frustration. Yahoo! Mail offers several
tools to help you keep spam out of your Inbox:

1. "This is Spam" link -- The most effective way to prevent spam
from
entering your Inbox is to use the "This is Spam" link next to the
"From"
address in every message you consider spam. By sending examples of
spam
to Yahoo! for review, it will increase the effectiveness of Spamguard,
Yahoo! Mail's filtering system. Yahoo! will use the messages you send
to
constantly improve the Spamguard technology and help ensure that
unwanted messages are delivered to your Bulk Mail Folder rather than
your Inbox.

2. Filters -- Yahoo! Mail offers you the ability to create filters
for your account. You can create filters to deliver emails to a
special
folder, or to the Trash folder that:

* contain specific words or phrases
* are from a sender's domain
* contain other characteristics you find in spam

Learn more about setting up filters at the Help Desk, located at:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/mail/manage/manage-06.html

3. Block an address -- Use this feature to block email addresses
you
do not want to receive email from. When an address is blocked,
incoming
email from these addresses will be automatically disposed of, without
bouncing back to the sender. When you remove an address from your
Blocked Addresses list, you will once again be able to receive mail
from
that address. For directions on how to block an email address, please
visit:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/read/read-22.html

4. Report the spam -- If you receive harassing or unwanted mail
from
what appears to be a "@yahoo.com" address, you can forward the message
directly to us for review at:

(e-mail address removed)

Please include an unedited copy of the original message along with the
full Internet headers. To learn how to display full headers in Yahoo!
Mail, please visit:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/config/config-11.html

If you receive unwanted mail from a non-"@yahoo.com" address, you may
try contacting the sender's email provider by identifying the sender's
domain and contacting the administrator of that domain. Unfortunately,
Yahoo! has no control over activities outside its service, and
therefore
we cannot take action in these situations. The sender's provider
should
be in a better position to take appropriate action against the
sender's
account.

If you have any further questions about spam, please see our Online
Support web page at:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/mail/spam/

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards,

Yahoo! Customer Care
http://www.yahoo.com/ "

 

[Steve M (remove wax for reply)]

Interesting how crappy their support is then. I sent 2 e-mails and got
the same auto-reply that didn't address the question.

Well, you're getting what you paid for.

Seriously, I have gotten the attention of a human being only one time.
Their first reply said, go to the online support page, so I did and
asked again. I kept asking, including the subject of their return
email to me, and finally it got the attention of somebody who
evidently answered my question.

Another time I suspect they paid attention was when I wrote them a
letter by paper mail. I explained that SpamGuard wasn't worth a damn
and that 80% of the spam in my Yahoo mailbox would have been stopped
if they were using ORBS (I think it was). If they didn't do
something, I was going to quit using Yahoo altogether.

I don't know what they did, but within a few weeks, maybe a month,
SpamGuard was trapping >90% of the spam sent to my Yahoo account.
That was two years ago.

I suspect that paper mail might be the best way to reach them now.

 

[Robert Clark]

Well, you're getting what you paid for.

Seriously, I have gotten the attention of a human being only one time.
Their first reply said, go to the online support page, so I did and
asked again. I kept asking, including the subject of their return
email to me, and finally it got the attention of somebody who
evidently answered my question.

Another time I suspect they paid attention was when I wrote them a
letter by paper mail. I explained that SpamGuard wasn't worth a damn
and that 80% of the spam in my Yahoo mailbox would have been stopped
if they were using ORBS (I think it was). If they didn't do
something, I was going to quit using Yahoo altogether.

I don't know what they did, but within a few weeks, maybe a month,
SpamGuard was trapping >90% of the spam sent to my Yahoo account.
That was two years ago.

I suspect that paper mail might be the best way to reach them now.

I'll try the paper route as well. Do you have the regular-mail
address available?
Here's the latest email I sent them:

=============================================================================
Subject: Why your virus detection method has to be extended.

I was sent the attached message. It contained the "Microsoft security
update" virus. Frequently this virus gets sent without any significant
text in the body, just the attachment. Therefore asking users to
Filter out these messages by searching on key phrases in the body of
the message won't work.
My problem, and I'm sure alot of other of your customers problem, is
not being infected by these viruses. It's that they are so large and
get sent so frequently they quickly cause the account limits to be
violated, making our accounts unusable. Again, I KNOW not to download
these without scanning. So please don't respond again by telling me to
scan any attachment before downloading. My point is I don't want these
worthless, virus spreading emails sent to my account to begin with.
If you give users the ability to scan the attachments with a virus
scanner, AND YOU DO WANT THEM TO DO THAT EVERYTIME, why not give users
the option of doing that automatically for them, if that is what they
CHOOSE?
I don't want to be a pain about this but your policy really is
illogical. You want users to scan the attachments ALL THE TIME. And
you do the scanning at your end using the Norton virus scanner. So the
argument about the increase in processing time at your end doesn't
even hold water - IF YOU HONESTLY DO WANT USERS TO SCAN THEIR
ATTACHMENTS EVERYTIME.
The only conclusion you could draw is that you are in actuality glad
users sometimes don't scan their attachments (thereby increasing the
spread of the viruses) because this saves on processing on your end.
But you do realize of course this means you are glad that you
increase the spread of email viruses.


Bob Clark

=============================================================================

 

[Steve M (remove wax for reply)]

I'll try the paper route as well. Do you have the regular-mail
address available?

Not at this second, but look at the the bottom of the main Yahoo page,
under company info.

Here's the latest email I sent them:

My comment is, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. My
letter was much more positive, telling them how much I use my Yahoo
account and how many Yahoo groups I read. Also, how making a few
simple changes would make me continue to use my Yahoo mail and how it
would also save Yahoo's resources.

The particular things I focused on were, 1. allow users to delete
email with attachments, and 2. allow the filtering rules to actually
delete something instead of just putting it in the Trash folder, where
it still counts against the quota.

I used to get nasty with letters like this, but I have mellowed. It
works better. Especially with the price that Yahoo charges ...

 

[cquirke]

On 28 Sep 2003 00:43:26 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (Robert Clark)

=============================================================================
Subject: Why your virus detection method has to be extended.

I was sent the attached message. It contained the "Microsoft security
update" virus. Frequently this virus gets sent without any significant
text in the body, just the attachment. Therefore asking users to
Filter out these messages by searching on key phrases in the body of
the message won't work.

Read up on Swen.A - it sends itself in two email forms...
- the lavish HTML message from Microsoft
- the no-message-text "bounce"

IOW, those "bounces" are prolly not bounces at all, but malware
spoofing the bounce process. "Hmm, I don't remember sending that, but
if I did, it must be safe because *I* don't have a virus... I'b better

My point is I don't want these worthless, virus spreading emails sent
to my account to begin with.

Some malware generates pure 100% malware messages and emaul
attackments. Some add 100% malware attachments to genuine outgoing
mail, and others inject malware code within genuine attachments.

The ISP's av has to know which is which, before it can intelligently
discard, clean, alert and so on... for example, alerts should never be
sent to "sender" if the malware is known to spoof "From:".

We still see av reporting "unable to clean..." on files that are 100%
malware, so we may wait a while before the av industry gets a clue.
The malware descriptions at the reference sites know the difference,
but often the av's engine is too inflexible to use this clue.

---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

A dog will give its life to save yours.
A cat will be annoyed by all the yelling and sirens.

 

[Robert Clark]

I found out why Yahoo feels no need to offer the option of automatic
screening for viruses: none of its competition does either.
I had read that Hotmail does automatic screening for viruses, but I
just found out this is offered only for the for pay customers.
Among the free email providers there doesn't seem to be any that does
automatic screening for viruses.
I say there is time for there to be one.



Bob Clark

 

[David]

What exactly do you expect to get for free?

 

[Robert Moir]

I found out why Yahoo feels no need to offer the option of automatic
screening for viruses: none of its competition does either.
I had read that Hotmail does automatic screening for viruses, but I
just found out this is offered only for the for pay customers.
Among the free email providers there doesn't seem to be any that does
automatic screening for viruses.
I say there is time for there to be one.

Virus scanners for the sort of server farms MSN and Yahoo operate cost real
money. You don't scan a massive system like that with a couple of free
copies of AVG, a lucky rabbits foot and some duck tape.

Would you be prepared to pay for it?

 

[Adam Russell]

I found out why Yahoo feels no need to offer the option of automatic
screening for viruses: none of its competition does either.
I had read that Hotmail does automatic screening for viruses, but I
just found out this is offered only for the for pay customers.
Among the free email providers there doesn't seem to be any that does
automatic screening for viruses.
I say there is time for there to be one.

Thank you for volunteering.

 

[Bart Bailey]

In Message-ID:<[email protected]> posted on Fri, 10

Virus scanners for the sort of server farms MSN and Yahoo operate cost real
money. You don't scan a massive system like that with a couple of free
copies of AVG, a lucky rabbits foot and some duck tape.

Well, maybe not the issue plagued AVG,
but something really fast like f-prot <g>
....and a Swiss Army knife?

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

On 10 Oct 2003 14:00:54 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (Robert Clark)

Among the free email providers there doesn't seem to be any that does
automatic screening for viruses.

"Who will rid me of this turbulent spam?"

I say there is time for there to be one.

I don't think they will, and here's why - maintaining such a facility
is an ongoing committment, whether they do it in-house (spam) or but
an off-the-peg solution from an av (malware) or whoever (spam).

If they were to buy av, you can bet it wouldn't be one copy of F-Prot
for DOS used "only for home use, honest!". The av would have in mind
the number of users and the value it would add to the ISP, and if the
ISP was silly enough not to recover the cost of that value, well,
that's not the av vendor's problem. Think about it; if you were a
wholesaler and one of your resellers wanted kit for free because he
wasn't charging his client, what would you say?

Protection against spam in particular is something identified (along
with pr0n) as one of the few things ppl will pay for.

Even Eudora 6 has got into that act - about the only big difference
between 6 and 5.xx that I can see is anti-spam filtering. For the
first time, there is a new feature present in Paid mode that is *not*
provided in Sponsored mode. Can anyone guess what that feature is?

--------------- ------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Sucess-proof your business! Tip #37
When given an NDA to sign, post it on your web site

 

[Anon]

www.myrealbox.com has free email with virus scanning, and spam filtering,
with no ads.

Yahoo is not a good email provider, since they like to spam their customers,
never answer your emails, and make it darn impossible to delete your
account.

I found out why Yahoo feels no need to offer the option of automatic
screening for viruses: none of its competition does either.
I had read that Hotmail does automatic screening for viruses, but I
just found out this is offered only for the for pay customers.
Among the free email providers there doesn't seem to be any that does
automatic screening for viruses.
I say there is time for there to be one.



Bob Clark


(e-mail address removed) (Robert Clark) wrote in message ============================================================================
=

============================================================================
=

 

[Phil Weldon]

Free, but it's a beta test. "Because of the testing nature of this site,
service outages are to be expected from time to time as problems are
discovered and diagnosed....If you are uncomfortable with these service
interruptions, please choose another email service."

Thanks, but no thanks.



--
Phil Weldon, pweldonatmindjumpdotcom
For communication,
replace "at" with the 'at sign'
replace "mindjump" with "mindspring."
replace "dot" with "."

"Anon" (e-mail address removed) wrote in message

 

[Robert Clark]

I copied below the latest email to Yahoo on this issue. I think this
might be a feasible solution.

Bob Clark

------------------------------------------------------------
Note: to reply to me by email, send to the same userid as
above but append Hotmail.com instead of Yahoo.com. Email
to my Yahoo account frequently gets bounced because of the
Sven virus flood causing the account limits to be exceeded.
------------------------------------------------------------

=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 08:55:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Robert Clark" <*********@yahoo.com>
Subject: Another solution to the Sven virus problem.
To: (e-mail address removed), (e-mail address removed)


Yahoo seems to be unwilling or unable to implement my
proposal for stemming the tide of Sven email overflow
by scanning all attachments for viruses before
delivery to users mailboxes.
Here's another suggestion that is easier (and
cheaper) to implement:
Yahoo is able to correctly direct most of the Sven
infected email to the Bulk Mail folder. I also have
filters in place that direct some of them to the Trash
folder.
Therefore in order to prevent the influx of Sven
emails causing the storage limits to be exceeded,
allow users to set how large either of these folders
is allowed to get.
Then when either folder grows larger than the
allowed size, delete messages from them starting with
the older ones first. You might also allow users the
option of transferring the older messages from the
Bulk folder to the Trash folder rather than directly
deleting them.



Bob Clark

=========================================================================

 

[Robert Clark]

I copied below the latest email to Yahoo on this issue. I think this
might be a feasible solution.

Bob Clark

------------------------------------------------------------
Note: to reply to me by email, send to the same userid as
above but append Hotmail.com instead of Yahoo.com. Email
to my Yahoo account frequently gets bounced because of the
Sven virus flood causing the account limits to be exceeded.
------------------------------------------------------------

=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 08:55:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Robert Clark" <*********@yahoo.com>
Subject: Another solution to the Sven virus problem.
To: (e-mail address removed), (e-mail address removed)


Yahoo seems to be unwilling or unable to implement my
proposal for stemming the tide of Sven email overflow
by scanning all attachments for viruses before
delivery to users mailboxes.
Here's another suggestion that is easier (and
cheaper) to implement:
Yahoo is able to correctly direct most of the Sven
infected email to the Bulk Mail folder. I also have
filters in place that direct some of them to the Trash
folder.
Therefore in order to prevent the influx of Sven
emails causing the storage limits to be exceeded,
allow users to set how large either of these folders
is allowed to get.
Then when either folder grows larger than the
allowed size, delete messages from them starting with
the older ones first. You might also allow users the
option of transferring the older messages from the
Bulk folder to the Trash folder rather than directly
deleting them.



Bob Clark

=========================================================================

 

[Bill]

I copied below the latest email to Yahoo on this issue. I think this
might be a feasible solution.

<snip>

That's fine except for the fact that Yahoo doesn't care what you
think.

 

[Anon]

Its not a beta email account, they just use it for testing their software.
Its been around for years, and is up FAR more often than other email
providers I've used. Especially Yahoo or Hotmail. They say that because
they don't want people yelling at them when they have a glitch.

Plus it supports pop3 accounts which I didn't mention, and web based.

 

[Anon]

Here is a link to a users review of myrealbox

http://www.mouthshut.com/readreview/24276-1.html\

It's always best to have more than one email account anyways.

 

[Anon]

Oops had a typo, it shouldn't have the backslash at the end.

http://www.mouthshut.com/readreview/24276-1.html