[Sderby] Junk mail, lets get our own back 8)

[Jak Carr]

All: Apologies for the length of this message - spam is something of an
obsession of mine... too many years of mail servers... or is that service?

Tony

Whilst I wholeheartedly support your stance on UCE/SPAM, I'm not really
sure that this is the best solution... Unfortunately, this has a
negative effect on YOUR isp's servers also - unless you're posting
through an open relay... which is really a bad thing... Either way -
you're effectively Mail-Bombing... which will be in breach of your ISP's
AUP - and is bad for the network. Although I totally understand your
frustration... Encouraging people to do the same will kill networks HERE
long before the messages get to the spammer... IMHO...

Additionally, replying to ANY spam confirms your email address as being
"valid" - ie worth selling and sharing with other spammers. In other words,
it'll most likely cause you to get MORE spam, not less.

If you want to do something useful about spam, may I respectfully
suggest checking out:

Sam Spade - Web based tools, plus an excellent piece of software - for
Windows admittedly, but an excellent utility if you're new to spammer
hunting. http://www.samspade.org - does anyone know of a similar prog
for linux? (I tend to use a mix of homemade perl scripts and CLI tools)

spam.abuse.net - general info, advice and background
or straight to http://spam.abuse.net/userhelp

http://www.cauce.org - Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email -
our "local" version is http://www.euro.cauce.org

Or just Google for "spam +mail +header +analysis"

With just about any mail client - Even Outlook corporate - you can get
to the headers and trace the spammer's ISP, or at the very least their
upstream provider. By complaining directly to the abuse@ address of the
spammer's ISP, you're more likely to have some success - the way you
suggest, Tony, is more likely to end up with YOUR account being blocked!
Plus, you can always cc your complaint to the federal or other group
monitoring spam - dependant upon location of spammer's ISP. For example
uce@ftc.gov - http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/04/spam.htm

Using automatic analysis tools with a template complaint letter means
that you can generate a complaint in a matter of seconds with practice.
(Suggest: Google for Spam +Complaint +"example email"). Although once
you get the hang of it, you can do it "manually" pretty damn fast too -
and is a more reliable way of doing it - some of the analysis tools do
get it wrong.

Admittedly, this approach takes a little more of YOUR time and requires
more effort on your part, but ultimately reduces your PC's load, server
load, network load, kills more spammer's accounts, reduces the
likelihood of your address being shared with other spammers, and is
generally a "Good Thing" (tm) and more friendly to the net.

The amount of satisfaction you get from an email from a SysAdmin saying
"Thanks, that account is now toast" is surprisingly high... The only
downside is that it can/does become something of an obsession... I have
an IN, OUT, PENDING, RESPONSE and all sorts of folders tracking the
results of complaints... ah well...

Seriously tho - don't reply to spammers... Even clicking those
"unsubscribe" links in HTML spam is iffy... even though "respectable"
(HAH!) marketeers honour such request, many groups merely use this to
confirm that your email is valid... and thus more valuable...

Fake response/bounces stating unknown address is one approach though...
BUT... Admittedly, opinions differ on the best way to handle spam - in
fact, the amount of network traffic caused by admins, users et al
arguing over the best way of handling spam is pretty immense in
itself... And some of the politiking between groups... sheeeesh...

The other advantage of getting into this, which harks back to Tony's
comments on the headers used by mailing list software, is that you get
to learn all about mail headers, whois, domain names and all sorts of
fun things... which is nice... ;-)

All of the above is, of course, just my 2p's worth... YMMV... etc

Again, sorry for the length of this message - at least I didn't start
going on about mail filters, spamassassin, procmail filters, RBL etc...

Cheers

Jak

[Spammers] are the mutant spawn of a bizarre reproductive act involving
a telemarketer, Larry Flynt, a tapeworm, and an executive of the Third
Class mail industry. -- Dave Barry -- from http://spam.abuse.net

PS

If anyone is curious about my credentials to rant about this, I've been
adminning Mail/Web/Radius/GodKnowsWhatElse/ISP servers for about 8 years
on and off now... 


On Thu, 2003-01-23 at 08:52, Tony Martin wrote:
> I keep getting junk mail such as, "Dear Sir I have loads of money in a 
> foreign country........"
> 
> I used to just delete them, but then I thought why not annoy them back 
> and clog up their email?
> 
> I now send them a copy of georgia font (which happens to be about the 
> right size to be as large as possible (140K), yet not too large as to be 
> blocked by their mail server. I also send them a couple of dozen copies.
> 
> If everyone does that as soon as they receive such an email, it will 
> block them off almost immediately and perhaps their ISP or email 
> providers will start to clamp down on them.
> 
> Please pass on and perhaps we can at least reduce this junk.
> 
> Tony
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Sderby mailing list
> Sderby@mailman.lug.org.uk
> http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/sderby
> Web site: http://sderby.lug.org.uk/
> wiki: http://www.sderby.lug.org.uk/cgi-bin/wiki.pl