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

Thu Jan 23 18:30:01 2003

Thanks for taking the time, I shall have a good look through these ideas 
most of which seem to make sense on a quick wizz through.  The emails I 
have got  recently have been from Yahoo or other similar email 
providers. They only have a small storage capacity which should not be 
hard to fill up, blocking any unsuspecting punters from being caught and 
annoying the spammer. I take your point about using bandwidth, but 
perhaps the overall effect will be to lower spam if these people get a 
quick and strong response. If everyone emailed straight back and blocked 
them there would be no point in them doing it and so this problem will 
go away.
As for other types of email I am sure your suggestions are the better 
solution, but maybe for this type of  thing this method may work. I 
don't have much time and also suffer from carpel tunnel syndrom so can 
do limited typing.

Thanks again, and I shall have a good look through.

Cheers
Tony

Jak Carr wrote:

>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
>>
>>
>>
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>
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