posted on October 22, 2003 06:46:53 AM new
Do spammers delete emails form their list when they bounce back? Does it get removed from lists they sell or rent to other people.
I ask because I have a dial up ISP I have had for 5 years that I keep (their $5 low ussage version) in case my cable modem has network issues or outages lasting more than a few hours.
This dial up ISP email account is on every damned spam list ever created. I used to log in every other month and delete everything in it.
I was thinking of emailing it some large files to max out the account so that everything ELSE going to it will bounce off. I don't use it for any other purpose than back up or when I travel.
Will it work?
Also I get dozens of spam daily addressed to [email protected] an email I have never created or used yet by default it get sent to other addresses I actually use. If I go and create webmaster@ and do the same thing and never downloading the messages leaving the account full will it work?
posted on October 22, 2003 06:51:33 AM new
Oh yeah
Before folks come in to mention spam filters etc etc.
I don't want to do that.
Filtering spam still lets it get through. Spam filters just set it aside and away from your inbox.
I want it to stop PERIOD.
I don't want happy spammers using my bandwidth regardless of where it ends up on my system. I want them to get the headaches of bounces messages and their email boxes to fill up so they leave me alone.
posted on October 22, 2003 08:10:36 AM new
I doubt that the emails bounce back anywhere. The spammers get an account on a free service or sign up on a paid ISP with a stolen credit card and mail bomb the spam and then they get kicked off. If you use hotmail you'll sometimes get a slow mail sequence followed by a "servers too busy" message. That is usually the result of a spammer sending out millions of spam emails at once. It only last for a minute or so as it doesn't take long to mail out several million emails.
I best defense against spam is to create an email address with many mixed letters and numbers. There will be zero spam unless you sign up for stuff on the web.
-------------- sig file ----------- *There is no conclusive evidence that life is serious*
posted on October 22, 2003 08:12:40 AM new
Spam is generated by computer programs. Sending the spam back does nothing except show the program that it has made a successful hit and adds that email to its "good" list while adding a cookie to your computer so it will be easy to find you again. Your addy has two of the porn industries favorite words. A ligitmate business will usually honor requests for removal the rest don't.
posted on October 22, 2003 08:30:53 AM new
My ISP back up email has nothing to do with my "Brand" yet it has recieved 1,037 pieces of crap in the last month.
I know people are abusing the whois database for domain names and that's how I get all of the webmaster@ emails. I wish web hosting companies instead of concentrating on stupid filters they should have the option to ban TO addresses and not just FROM that you can block. I don't want anything sent to webmaster@ or info@ my domain.
I'm a california resident. Maybe I should excercise my new RIGHT TO SUE SPAMMERS and track them all down. Become a famous vigilante and make a new career out of it.
I can recruit of sleezy ambulance chaser lawyers and show them the new light of the internet age. I'm sure they'd jump on it.
I can just see their new commercials.
Got Spam? Call me and I'll fight for your right to collect $100 for each invasion of your email inbox! No upfront costs to you!
posted on October 22, 2003 08:48:50 AM newI was thinking of emailing it some large files to max out the account so that everything ELSE going to it will bounce off.
If you have shell access to that account, simply log in and change the permissions on /var/spool/mail/[youremail].
chmod 400 youremail
That makes your mail file read-only.
That's nicer to your ISP than lodging a big chunk of crap there.
Re: your non-existent webmaster address, is that the one that's registered with the NIC in your domain record? There's an RFC (I fergit which one) that requires the domain contact to have a valid email address.
--
Making the world a more decorative place, one eBay bidder at a time.
posted on October 22, 2003 09:11:34 AM new
I HATE SPAM! Every morning I log on to find over 100 spams in my Junk folder and about 5 or 6 emails in my inbox. After I identify and mark the spam for the education of my junk filter there may be one or two that are real mail.
If you have a domain as I assume you do from your comment about a "webmaster" address then you may get them addressed to "postmaster, sales, info, etc". There must be a program that generates email addresses for any domain. I believe Fluffy is correct that you need a valid email address to keep a domain.
There is another problem with keeping a full mail box to bounce mail back to the sender. Many of these slime balls are not even using their own return address. They are "spoofing" someone with no knowledge of what is going on. On a regular basis my domain gets hundreds of failure notices for "full mail boxes", "unknown address", and "you sent a virus you bad person" messages. Not only did I not send the spam but my Mac is not capable of sending the virus mentioned that uses Microsoft Outlook to spread.
Unless your ISP has an aggressive filter that will stop the spam before you get it, I recommend a good email filter on your machine. My mac mail sends 95% of the spam to a junk folder where I scan it once a day for mistakes and then delete it all. It misses only 1 real email every few weeks. I am about ready to trust it and delete without even checking.
If you do get your "Got Spam" business going let me know when you open a branch in Maryland! -----o----o----o----o----o----o----o----o
“The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.”
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
Most spam emails come from automated spider programs that search the web for IDs. There are lots of tricks to fool the spiders.
If you own your own domain name, anything sent to that domain name will go to you. If someone emails [email protected], you will get it. This is because a "catchall" ID sends anything not expressly defined to the main ID you use. There are still some things you can do.
Don't directly post your email ID on your site. Use any of the free methods available to "code" your email so that visitors can see it but the spam spiders can't. I posted one on my site
http://ccs-digital.com/encemail.asp
Don't use obvious names like webmaster. Spammers always try these. When you see lots of spam coming in for webmaster, go into your email control panel and have webmaster forward to some hotmail ID you never use. When you post on a forum or enter your email on a web site while placing an order, etc, create an ID just for that site. Use ebay2003 for ebay, officemax2003 for officemax and so on. If you start getting spam on that ID, you will have some idea of which site isnt very secure. Then you can change the ID to ebay2004 and have ebay2003 forward to a dead hotmail account.
I get hundreds of spam emails a day. By using a few tricks, I was able to get rid of 90%. The spam that comes from people who manually create their lists is harder to stop.
posted on October 22, 2003 11:05:33 AM new
By the way, I have an idea that (if done by a few thousand people) would greatly eliminate spam. Why do people spam? Because 1) it costs them nothing and 2) when they send out a million spams, a few thousand idiots respond. Now we can't do much about the idiots, but we can do something about the cost.
If thousands of people respond to every spam by going to the site advertised and placing an order but using the wrong name and address and a fake credit card number (or better yet, a valid but cancelled credit card number which the site would actually attempt to process), it would cost the spammers and their patrons too much to keep doing it. It costs about 30 cents to process a credit card, even if the charge is declined. Now I read that a typical spamming of a million people brings in about 6,000 orders. Imagine if some site sent out a million spams about viagra and ten thousand people placed orders using fake credit card numbers. Not only would it cost the company thousands of dollars to attempt to process these, it would take a lot of time to go through 16,000 orders looking for the legitimate ones.
Spammers can spoof email IDs, so bouncing or replying isn't going to help. But they can't hide the product they are trying to sell.
posted on October 22, 2003 11:09:28 AM newI HATE SPAM
Well, I don't know anyone who loves it. Or who enjoys getting telemarketing calls. Or who really looks forward to that knock on the door from the signature gatherer, security system salesman or cable TV rep.
Americans are under siege in their own homes. What astonishes me is that no one in government seems to grasp the big picture: that the vast majority of us want to be left alone and protected from marketers for the quiet enjoyment of our homes. I admit to having a low boiling point, but even the most patient of persons must be getting pretty fed up by now.
Someone said they get over 1,000 pieces of spam a month. Ha. I get that many every day.
If I answer any of our phone lines (we have 4) it is inevitably a telemarketer, usually AT&T or SBC...both of whom continue to phone even though we have requested to be put on their Do Not Call lists.
A knock on the door? It's some scumbag trying to sell me something or get me to sign a petition to let his green activist buddies dictate more to Californians than they already do.
I come home and there are flyers under my doormat and hangers from the door handle for the horrible local pizza chain. More garbage to clean up.
Twice weekly, the local advertising-laden rag (which no one reads) is tossed onto my lawn by a speeding car. Early on I tried to get the newspaper to stop dumping this trash on my property. They took the angry letter I wrote them and published it in their paper...just their way of thumbing their noses. Once I was standing out in my driveway when the Mexican delivery droids tossed the paper onto my lawn and sped off. I grabbed the paper, got into my car, chased down the Mexicans and tossed it back into the open window of their truck. The look on their faces was priceless.
TV is just about the last refuge. I can watch movies on HBO, blessedly uninterrupted. Someday product placement will be as obnoxious, though, as current network commercials. You wait and see.
I also fully expect someday a brick to come flying through the front window. It'll be wrapped in an advertisement for the local dry cleaners.
--
Making the world a more decorative place, one eBay bidder at a time.
posted on October 22, 2003 02:34:20 PM new
I have my domain server forward all my emails to my ISP account. I have 558 kill filters set up as of today. Nothing is saved, if the email has one of my kill words in it I never see it. I'm down to 1 or 2 junk emails a day now.
I also put up a message board on one of my domains just incase someone's email gets killed by mistake, to date this has not happened.
I joined the DO NOT CALL LIST and have gone from 5 to 8 Spam calls a day to 2 since Oct 1st.
Now if only we could get a kill filter for TV ads.
posted on October 22, 2003 06:06:16 PM new
scruffy oh ummmm.....I mean FLUFFY!
When the telemarketer calls first you say: "may I speak with your supervisor?" and when they answer you get their name, address and phone number. THEN you state that you do not wish to be contacted by them anymore.
And then you could get the guy like I had the other night that said he didn't have a phone number...
I don't believe in creating a headache for the poor soul that's having to make the phone calls for a living but the supervisor is fair game!
Anyway, that's the official recommended way of getting on the do not call list...you MUST speak to the supervisor. Just telling the peon that calls won't do any good.
posted on October 22, 2003 08:15:41 PM new
We have a do not call list in Wisconsin. It is great. To date maybe 2 have called but I tell them we are on the list and they hang up immediately otherwise they are subjet to a fine.
My ISP has a spam filter on for us. I called one day to ask about how much spam I get a day and he said about 200 I never receive because of that filter but I do get about 5 - 10 that slip through. That I can handle. You can tell by the message and I just delete it. Some day they will have a no spam list and I can hardly wait...
posted on October 22, 2003 10:04:27 PM new
This for Fluffy,
I was being inundated by calls from AT&T despite the fact that every time they called I (and not very politely...) TOLD them to take me off their list and DON'T EVER, EVER, EVER CALL ME AGAIN!!!
(I'm generally fairly polite but they were calling several times a week.)
Finally I got fed up and dumped AT&T and, lo and behold, the calls stopped immediately!
Now, upon reading about the do-not-call list, I find they can call if you are or were a customer of theirs. Amazing... they called me so much they lost a customer of many years standing.
The moral of this long tale is - to stop AT&T - just dump them! LOL! As far as SBC, I do use them for my land line phone and I have a nickel-a-minute long distance deal. I've never been called by them.
posted on October 22, 2003 10:29:00 PM new
I like Izzy's idea. Go to the site and order 2 of everything they have to offer. Use a fake credit card number. For a name and address, use that of you favorite non paying bidder. Be sure to request that they update their files to reflect your new email address. Give them the NPB's addy.
The light at the end of the tunnel will turn out to be an oncoming train.
posted on October 23, 2003 06:49:08 AM new
What I use to do with the mortgage Spam is go to www.netsol.com and do a who is on the Domain name. I then take the owners info and put that information in the please contact me form and hit enter.
If they have a form field that allows comments I type something nasty in that field F@#$ You and hit ctrl V and paste it a few dozen times, then do a copy and paste all of what I just did over and over for a few minutes and then hit enter. Nothing like clogging up thier server with Spam.
One day I placed some weights on my keyboard keys and went to the restroom and then ate some lunch. when I came back and hit enter it uploaded for 45 minutes with a cable modem. Just think if a few hundred people did the same thing how much the spammer would have to pay in Bandwidth.
