News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Sendgrid under siege from hacked accounts. Parent comment

Re:Sendgrid under siege from hacked accounts by smabie on Saturday August 29, 2020 @09:32PM (#24320631)
Even if email worked like that, I don't think it would solve the spam problem. Spam emails are rarely personalized and the same exact message is sent out to many different addresses.

As such, the spammer would only have to store each unique message and the list of recipients associated with each unique message.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sendgrid under siege from hacked accounts by dredmorbius on Sunday August 30, 2020 @03:15AM (#24321903)
Even with single copy + list, with a poll-and-request delivery model (sender polls recipient's system, which then requests message on some schedule):

1. Sender canot simply mass-cram messages to recipients, as many spam engines today do. (Qmail for a time was notorious for doing this).

2. There's good chance that any bulk spammer will accrue a negative reputation by the time most recipients bother to request messages. So they won't.

3. Spammer must sustain a stable online presence --- not be knocked offline or blocked by ISP or hosting provider.

4. Spammer has to track successful deliveries vs. messages that are complete.

Upshot: the spammer's workfactor increases.

[ Parent | on HN ]