Ron Paul Spam

I wrote about the Ron Paul fan club earlier.

I've been around since Canter and Siegel offered me a chance at the green card lottery, but this is novel:

Message-ID: <000701c81a53$0156f27e$3360289e@yeibw>
From: --obscured--
To: byoung
Subject: ***SPAM*** Ron Paul Eliminates The IRS! XqvMlJY
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:56:37 +0000
MIME-Version: 1.0

Hello Scott,

Ron Paul is for the people, unless you want your children to
have human implant RFID chips, a National ID card and create
a North American Union and see an economic collapse far worse
than the great depression. Vote for Ron Paul he speaks the
truth and the media and government is afraid of him. This is
the last honest politican left to bring this country out of
this rut from the War Profiteers and bush Administration has
created. Get motivated America, don't believe the lies of the
media he has also WON the GOP Debate On Sunday! Value Freedom
and Liberty instead of corporate lies and corruption. Bypass
this media blackout they are doing to Ron Paul, tell your family
and friends and get involved in a local group at meetup.com make
your voice heard! He will end the War In Iraq immediately,
He will eliminate the IRS and wasteful government spending, and
eliminate the Federal Reserve and restore power to the people
and the only person not a member on the CFR. Can any other runner
make these claims or give Americans the true freedom we were all
raised to believe? We are all economic slaves to the banks and the
illegal federal Reserve. This is why our currency is worth nothing
because of Hidden Inflation Tax and the IRS taking everything
you make!

** RON PAUL WILL STOP THE IRAQ WAR IMMEDIATELY! **

He has NEVER voted:
* to raise taxes
* for an unbalanced budget
* to raise congressional pay
* for a federal restriction on gun ownership
* to increase the power of the executive branch

He HAS voted:
* against the Iraq war
* against the inappropriately named USA PATRIOT act
* against regulating the internet
* against the Military Commissions Act

He will eliminate the IRS, Wasteful Government Spending &
Stop The Iraq War Immediately!

Most importantly, he voted NO on anything in Congress that
is not allowed by the Constitution. And he Despises any
politican that does not do their job for the people and lives
up to the constitution!

Google.com & Youtube.com Search: "Ron Paul"
Join The Revolution!

***************************************
We Need A Real President That Will Restore And Protect
Americans! Stop The War! Protect Our Borders!
*********VOTE RON PAUL 2008************
RqWjdM

Editors note: I work at a company that produces anti-spam solutions.

Now from the purely technical point of view, this is a rather obvious spam-- there are definite telltales in the received lines (which is why I didn't get this message at my work account-- we screen for false headers). This came in on my "canary in the coal mine" account, which isn't listed anywhere, and I never use, except to receive spam.

Dr. Paul's supporters are well known at this point for being very active on digg and the like (to the point that many have accused them of spamming), but this is really a new low.

I hope that these political spams get a little more sophisticated (since we all know they will continue, now that they've started), starting with: please don't send mail with 500 words in one paragraph.
Read more...

Non-business email messages are not public records in Florida

At least for the State of Florida.

Follow the jump for an interesting opinion on the question of whether non-business email constitutes a public record.

The opinion Makes the following assertions:

..."official business communicated by e-mail transmissions is a matter of public record." In re: Amendments to Rule of Judicial Administration 2.051 -- Public Access to Judicial Records, 651 So. 2d 1185 (Fla. 1995). However, the court has also recognized that e-mail messages may include transmissions that are not official business and which, consequently, are not public records." id. at 1187. Thus, the Supreme Court has already given us some guidance in this area. Non-business e-mail messages are not public records and need not be retained.

...

Experience in our office indicates that many e-mail messages consist of one or two lines dashed off electronically because, at any given time, it may be the most expedient means of communicating a simple message: "your meeting is at 2:00, don't be late"; "remember to order a new copier cartridge this afternoon"; "please let me know when you will have the project finished." These communications are the electronic equivalent of communications that under different circumstances would take place verbally -- either by telephone or directly.

It seems that there is a prevailing legal mantra, "save everything". Including every joke of the day, every email from social networking sites, every chain letter, every everything.

I'd like to suggest that it is possible to manage your archive with a little less extreme-ness. There are definitely items that can be safely removed: do you really need the 65,000 low toner notices?

I think it is time to really discuss what constitutes a business email. What are your thoughts?
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Email statistics

Chances are that you have some decidedly unexpected behaviors happening on your email network. You probably expect that there are jokes and video files being emailed around. But did you know about that user on you network that only forwards mail?

That's right. In an enterprise of any substantial size (over 500 users), there is virtually a 100% chance that there is at least one user that for every 10 mails sent, 9 are forwards (and it isn't uncommon to see 100%). No, I don't know what they do all day.

Have you ever measured which account sends the most emails in a given unit time? I'll take odds on it being a printer (or copier, or database, or application). This certainly points to enterprises using email as a generic messaging platform, and that enterprises consider it acceptable to use email as a method for applications and devices communicating their state.

Of course, the law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head when you realize that the printer sent 65,000 emails last month lamenting the loss of toner. To a distribution group. With dozens of users. And all of it gets archived.

Of course there's the 25-40% of your email (by volume) that is entirely Office documents, and the 20-40% that is non-business email (non-business images, video files, jokes, chain letters).

Here's an idea for blocking chain letters: just block any email with more than one exclamation point in the subject line. While this is meant to be tongue in cheek, it is pretty accurate. Read more...

Three (more) things you can do today to get email under control

My friend Robert posted an article entitled three things you can do today to get your email under control. I'd like to propose my own list of three items after the jump.

1. Implement an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)and educate your users.

   This is the starting place for all email governance efforts. You must offer your users guidance on what constitutes acceptable uses of the email system. Have you actually educated your users about policies regarding non-business email?
   
   It surprises me how many organizations either do not have an AUP (or one that is hopelessly out-of-date), or do not properly educate their users on it. If, God forbid, an employee termination is necessary, proof that the user was educated on the policy is more than just nice to have. Every webmail service has an AUP that must be acknowledged before an account can be set up, why shouldn't all organizations implement this?
   



2. Block proprietary content from leaving your organization.

   This can be as simple as searching the email and attachments for terms like "proprietary and confidential" or "internal use only", or as complex as fingerprinting specific documents, and flagging emails containing subsections of the documents.
   
   Whatever you do, you need to look at the types of files that constitute your intellectual property. Some suggested starting places:

   
   
   1. Office Documents (including Adobe PDF)
   
   
   2. Source Code (VB, Java, C, C++, Perl, COBOL...)
   
   
   3. The files that support your business, e.g.: AutoCAD, Matlab, specific reports, etc.



3. Perform an audit of your traffic to see what is really going on.

   Okay, so admittedly I copied this from Robert's article. But it bears repeating, since the vast majority of organizations do not know what exactly is moving through their email network.
   
   If you are concerned about privacy, have the report anonymized. This is something that MessageGate does regularly. It provides a great value, and I can assure you that there will be unique and interesting information in the audit. It will help you understand the metrics of your network, and will, I dare say, offer insight into the character of the organization as a whole.
   
   Just like a financial audit, it is most helpful to do the email audit on a regular basis, allowing you to track to particular goals.

Implement these, and you'll have a much greater understanding of your email, a lower risk of information leakage, and better control over your email network.
Read more...

Email and Stress

There is an interesting (although not unexpected) study published by researchers from Glasgow and Paisley universities about email stress.

Interesting findings:

The participants in the study were checking mail up to 40 times per hour.
They thought that they were checking 4 times per hour.

Links to the articles after the jump.

The article is on the Ars Technica: link.

Another interesting study was conducted in 2003, with American workers: Overwhelmed by Email. Since this study is from 2003, keep in mind that email volume has been climbing 10-20% per year (which implies that time consumed by email may have as much as doubled since then).

Consider the costs of this "always on", "pressured to respond immediately" mindset:

It takes up to 15 minutes for an information worker to properly resume the task that was interrupted responding to email. Meanwhile, the average user receives 10-20 emails per day. Even accounting for the mail coming in pairs, that would account for 1 hour 15 minutes of lost productivity, per employee, per day (and going up by 10-20% per year).

In a 1000 employee organization:

1000 users * 1.25 hours * 250 days per year = 312500 hours per year in lost productivity.

Multiply that by an by a fully loaded cost of $35/hr, and you're at $11M per year in lost productivity.

Something to keep in mind when you are analyzing the costs of email governance.
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Help! My archive is out of control!

One of the great things about email archives is that they keep everything. One of the worst things about email archives is that they keep everything. When I say everything, I mean that you're literally paying (in storage, management, and software costs) for every spam, every picture of Johnny's 4th birthday party, every inappropriate email, every humorous "video du jour" that arrives at the mailbox.

Better yet, when push comes to shove, and an e-discovery event happens, you'll be paying a lawyer or paralegal to inspect these.

What should companies be doing about archives? I can certainly understand the "keep everything" mantra, but I'd like to suggest that there might be a method to keep everything that is necessary and important, while cleaning some of the non-business email from the archive.

First, try to get rid of as much spam as possible. Implement defense in depth: multiple spam solutions with different approaches (reputation services, content analysis, and something that analyzes fraudulent headers are all important) will help eliminate that extra several percent of spam that is currently getting to the mailbox. Five to ten percent of the email in most networks is spam (and that's after the spam filter).

Second, make decisions about what types of media are necessary to your business. Some examples: MP3 (music), Windows Media (video), and MPEG (video) aren't typically business critical files. If they aren't necessary, consider blocking them.

It is helpful if you have the ability to whitelist certain users or provide policies based on job description or department. We have implemented this with great success.

Third, if you allow users to take documents or files home for work purposes, consider encouraging the use of either flash drives or a remotely accessible content management system (e.g. Sharepoint). This has two benefits: it promotes better archive hygiene, and helps prevent information leakage.

Most of the information leakage we see is accidental-- mis-addressed email is probably the leading culprit for confidential information leaving most organizations.

Finally, educate your users. Establish an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for email, and specify the appropriate and inappropriate use of email. Establish etiquette guidelines-- many people have no idea what is appropriate in email, especially with Generation Y entering the workforce. They have had their formative years of electronic communication in an entirely personal context, whereas us "old folks" have, generally, had a more business-oriented introduction.

Following these suggestions could cut 20-30% off the size of your archive, without any impact with regards to actual day-to-day business email. Read more...