The Hypocricy of Spam E-mail

[Supernatural Pie]

Ok, so for that past two days, I have received five identical spam messages (somehow elude Yahoo's spam filter) that have subject: "Re: hey :)". The message inside reads:

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If you're having debt problems, or would like to simplify things to help pay off your debt you may benefit from what we have to offer.

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Debt Consolidation is the solution.


Then I saw that the sender was "hortensia1902@activatormail.com".
Out of plain curiosity, I wanted to know what "activator mail" was.

I found out here

Well, what do you know? It's an ANTI SPAM FILTERING SERVICE!

So then, out of frustration, I replied to the sender with a nasty email. I won't reprint it for you, but you get the idea. All in all, I asked them to take me off their #@*&!$# sending list.

After feeling a bit better about myself, and getting everything I had wanted to say off my chest, I decided to do some other things I had to do, so I opened a new window in Safari, which brought me to my Yahoo homepage, and there I saw... "New Mail"

Unsure of how to proceed, I cautiously clicked on the link, expected the worst...

But it wasn't another "Re: Hey :)" !!!

I was astonished! Me? Getting email from someone besides this lone spammer?! I DON'T BELIEVE IT!!!

So what was it, you ask? It was the Yahoo Mailer Daemon telling me that my well thought out "FUCK YOU SPAMMERS" letter could not be delivered.


And here I am now, ranting.


So my question to you all is, have you had any interesting moments regarding outbursts towards spam email?

[smoke.aHa!]

SPAM = stupid pointless anoying messages

[5 1 5 0]

Make a national do not e-mail list!

[Jeb]

a while ago there was a story posted on slashdot that was an interview of a major spammer.
so the kind people of slashdot found out his personal information and signed him up for every single type of junk-mail imaginable. A follow up article was about how he was crying to the postal service about the 20+lbs of mail he was getting a day.
Cruel irony

[|MP|Buccaneer]

1) Just looking at spam in your mailbox tells most spammers that it is an active mail.  They use HTML graphics in the mail, and embedded in the HTML is also a notification of your e-mail, ensuring that you stay on their list.  You have to not open (or at least not load HTML) to avoid this trap.

2) That address was probably faked.  You need to check out the headers to see where it actually came from (and even then you may not find out).  They may have found it funny to use the address of an anti-spam company in their mail, or, it may be a way to get around that companies filters.

3) The second best thing to do is not view mail as HTML, and to use the nice "bounce" feature in the mail.app.  This way, they assume it's another dead address, and take you off the lists eventually.  The best thing to do is use some sort of authentication on e-mail.  Like pgp.  If everyone you know sends e-mail using pgp, you can tell your app to automatically delete the rest, getting rid of spam.  

This stuff works, just doing the first 2, the only spam I get is from the places I actually buy from (eddiebaur.com, apple.com, godaddy.com, etc) are places that I've signed up with and accept.  I haven't gone to the digital certificate yet, just because until this becomes a popular idea, I'd miss too much mail from friends.

[Supernatural Pie]

See, it's things like that that make me feel good. I know I can rest at night when notorious spammers are getting a taste of their own medicine.

[Supernatural Pie]

DAMN IT. I GOT YET ANOTHER "Re: Hey :)" EMAIL

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK. It's just reallllllly starting to bother me now.

[BFG]

hmm if your using mail.app it should have learn't by now that that shit is spam... have you been training it?

Bounce is a fantastic feature... I normally keep clean of all spam (fingers crossed) but a few months back i had a dribble of about 8 spam emails suddenly... repetative bouncing back using mail.app ... and no more spam!

ive been clean ever since... lol this is gonna start sounding like AA

[Supernatural Pie]

I use yahoo. That way I can check my email wherever I am.

Just got another "Hey :)" email... Damn.