Attacking the Spammer Business Model

Stephen Samuel asks: "Spammers spam because it's an 'easy way to make money'. They send out millions of spams knowing that 99.995% of them will be ignored, but the other 0.005% of responses are pure gold (Andrew Leung at Telus has an excellent report on the economics of spam). Responses to mortage spams are reportedly worth $50.00 each. What would happen if, instead of technical and legal approaches, we simply started attacking their business model? If people started responding to just 1% of the spam we received, spammers would drown in the responses, and the mortage spam responses wouldn't be worth an email, much less $50. The Nigerian Sweet Revenge is an example of this. The nice thing about this sort of statistical approach is that it would start to reward spammers for sending out -fewer- emails. (fewer emails -> fewer bogus responses). What other ways can people think of to attack the spammer business models, and what are the expected downsides of such approaches?" Of course, the one major drawback to this is the likelihood of more spam, since you'll be giving them a valid email address. However, many of you may be receiving increasing amount of spam as it is (even through your filters) so might an organized spam-the-spammers movement work?

This is actually a GOOD thing.

[Mirk]

This is actually a good thing.

Why? Sheesh, I don't know, but whatever story gets posted here, someone always claims it's a good thing, so I figured it might just as well be me this time.

Capital punishment...

[fanatic]

...for anyone who buys anything as the result of receiving spam. Anyone that fucking stupid doesn't deserve to live.

Re:Ironic, don't you think?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good idea! We can flood them with crap. Everyone, start saving your feces in a jar, and send them to me. On the 17th of December, we'll deliver the poopy to their front doors!

Re:Filters that fight back...

[spacefrog]

automatically crawls any links listed...bring their web servers to their knees

Oh, the Slashdot business model!

Re:For spam that wants you to call a 1-800 number

[pjack76]

How about setting up a website that lists all the 1-800/866/etc. numbers from spam E-mails. Then everyone who wanted to could call and drag them along as long as possible to run the bill up. Probably wouldn't take too long before their phone costs ate up all their profits and more.

Please, think evil. I know you can do better than that. At least try.

What we do is, every time we get a spam with an 800 number, we use our modems to FAX that number...

Legs no, fingers yes

[phorm]

What other ways can people think of to attack the spammer business models

A spammer can still spam with broken legs, and possibly get out of an arrest. Typing with broken fingers, well... at least they'll be off spamming for awhile until they can toe-type.

Re:Richest spammers could afford to handle replies

[ron_ivi]

"Now what about sending them bogus email addresses and phony information?"

Reply with the the email addreses of other spammers :-)

No, This is actually a BAD thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually a good thing.

Why? Sheesh, I don't know, but whatever story gets posted here, someone always claims it's a good thing, so I figured it might just as well be me this time.

This is a bad thing. Why? Well, I don't know either, but whatever comments get posted here, someone always claims you're wrong, so I figured it might just as well be me this time.

Re:Capital punishment...

[fdiskne1]

I was talking with a salesperson of an anti-spam package last week. She said that I could tweak the rules so the spam I WANT to receive makes it through. I asked her why in the world I would want any through, and she said, "Sometimes you can find some good deals in spam." She then told me about something she had recently purchased from spam. I can't remember just what it was. I was too busy trying to get my brain around the fact that she actually purchased something from spam. 8-/

Re:Richest spammers could afford to handle replies

[BrokenHalo]

Well, I guess a few spammers found dead with "THOU SHALT NOT SPAM" carved into their skin might start getting the message across :-)

Money talks

[whatch durrin]

Whatever the solution, it has to have monetary consequences for the spammer. A little hassle here and there just won't cut it.

Case in point: for every credit card application I get via snail mail, I seal the return envelope (empty or with trash) and mail it back at their expense. The idea is the company loses money by having to pay for the reply postage and for the labor to open my bogus reply.

But I've noticed lately that companies are designing it so you have to include the application form to mail the return envelope (the city/state are printed on the app, which is viewable through a window on the envelope). Apparently, credit card companies weren't taking enough of a hit to say "fuck it, these people don't want our mailings." Instead, they seemed to have paid some poor schmuck more money to come up with a way to outsmart the scheme many of us have been using.

Doesn't matter, though. I'll tape the city/state info to the envelope if I have to. And soak the envelope in cat piss. Take that.

Re:in the short run...

[orthogonal]

Plus, the real person they call will likely bitch them out (because it is a cold call). Hey, they might even be on the Do Not Call list.

And, unless you're the one who is answering the phone, you're morally no different than the spammer.

Slightly more moral: give the phone number of a telephone solicitor. Then everyone is happy: the telephone solicitor gets to try to sell long distance service (or whatever) to the mortgage broker, and the mortgage broker gets to inquire whether the telephone solicitor wants a second mortgage.

Or maybe it's more like putting two scorpians in a shoe box.

Eh, whatever.

Re:Richest spammers could afford to handle replies

[Grishnakh]

Maybe we should just invade countries that send us too much spam...

Hey, it's a better excuse than WMD.

Re:Ironic, don't you think?

[Kynde]

That's not ironic. Why? Hell if I know. But whenever someone says ironic here, there's always a reply moaning about missuse of the word ironic, links to webster et al and raving how Alanis is to blame for all this confusion. I figured it might as well be me this time.