John Levine

Ithaca, New York

Famous expert

Areas of Expertise:

  • compilers
  • e-mail
  • email
  • spam
  • security
  • consulting
  • speaking
  • writing
John Levine, founder of Taughannock Networks, writes, speaks, and consults on e-mail, the Internet, and other computer topics. He has written over 20 technical books, and is the co-author of O'Reilly's lex & yacc, 2nd Edition and qmail. He's also deeply involved in Internet e-mail in general and spam issues in particular as co-chair of the Internet Research Task Force's Anti-Spam Research Group (http://asrg.sp.am ) and a board member of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (http://www.cauce.org.)

He lives and works in the tiny village of Trumansburg NY (http://www.trumansburg.ny.us) where he reports that being the municipal sewer commissioner was a much cleaner job than dealing with spammers.

flex & bison flex & bison
by John Levine
August 2009
Print: $29.99
Ebook: $23.99

qmail qmail
by John Levine
March 2004
Print: $34.95
Ebook: $27.99

lex & yacc lex & yacc
by John Levine , Tony Mason , Doug Brown
Second Edition October 1992
Ebook: $23.99

John blogs at:

Magazine agent list theft spam

June 18 2013

Scientific American is a well known respectable magazine that's been around forever. So this is a normal renewal notice, right? Wrong. It's spam from a crooked subscription agent. To: "JOHN LEVINE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN" <my e-mail address> Subject: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:43:01 +0000 From: "CUSTOMER SERVICE" <customerservice@publisherspayment.com> JOHN LEVINE, Please renew/order your… read more

Buying coffee via a series of tubes

June 18 2013

When I was a small boy and needed clothes, my mother would take me to the Best's department store, where we'd pick something out, and then go to pay for it. The clerk would take the money and the slips, put them in a cylindrical container, and send them off with a whoosh through… read more

More on Liberty Reserve and Bitcoin

June 10 2013

Bill Cole had some interesting comments on my Liberty Reserve post which are worth following up. He noted that although all of the bitcoin transactions are in the public log, the wallets aren't, so if you sell someone your wallet, that's an anonymous transaction. While that's quite true, it also breaks one of the fundamental… read more

CAN SPAM issues in Zoobuh v. Better Broadcasting

June 10 2013

Last week a Utah court issued a default judgement under CAN SPAM in Zoobuh vs. Better Broadcasting et al. I think the court's opinion is pretty good, even though some observers such as very perceptive Prof. Goldman have reservations. The main issues were whether Zoobuh had standing to sue, whether the defendants domain names were obtained… read more

I don't think I'll be unblocking mail from .PW any time soon

June 10 2013

One of the managers at .PW sent me a note saying that (paraphrased) now that the world knows their customers are gushing spam, they're finally starting to set up some of the anti-abuse measures that they should have done in the first place. But then I got my first response to an abuse… read more

Liberty Reserve now, Bitcoin next?

May 29 2013

The papers have been abuzz with the shutdown of Liberty Reserve, an online payments system, due to accusations of large scale money laundering via anonymous transactions. Many people have noted similarities between LR and Bitcoin and wonder whether Bitcoin is next. I doubt it, because with Bitcoin, nothing is anonymous. Liberty Reserve was designed… read more

Why I don't like LinkedIn, part XLXXVIII

May 29 2013

LinkedIn is probably the most successful social network other than Facebook. They've carefully positioned themselves as the network for professionals. I've been a LinkedIn member for a long time, and have 735 connections (all people I actually know at least a little.) Nonetheless, I am ever closer to closing my account and dumping… read more