Spamfighting Since the Death of MakeLoveNotSpam? 352
vacuum_tuber asks: "The now-defunct Lycos anti-spamsite screen saver, MakeLoveNotSpam, was extremely well received despite the whines and hand wringing from the no-one-should-ever-actively-defend-themselves crowd. There was speculation after its demise that Open Source spam-punishing tools would emerge. Other tools such as SpamVampire, LadVampire (punishes fake bank sites), Spam Research Tool and others were mentioned with increasing frequency, but there has been no coherent followup to gauge what people are doing since the death of the Lycos screen saver. What are you doing that you think is effective in punishing spammers or their spam-site sponsors?"
Unsolicited Commando (Score:3, Informative)
Turn images off (Score:3, Informative)
Don't "unsubscribe"... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Spamvampire works (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Spamvampire works (Score:1, Informative)
Request: image.jpg?1
Request: image.jpg?2
etc.
Forward the spam, but not just to the BSA (Score:5, Informative)
You can tell where the spam comes from; or at least identify the web sites they are spamvertizing. Yes, it is sometimes a BPITA - hence why I use spamcop to help auto LART the headers/email for me. I know with squirrel mail any spam you can auto forward to your spamcop account to be LARTed.
Normally I LART anything that gets past the spam filters, thinking that anything that does get caught is by the big spamhouses. I also report my spam to the Feds for action:
"FTC" uce@ftc.gov,
"US Postal Inspectors service" fraud@uspis.gov
These folks ask for spam, to either tweak their anti-spam tools or for internal investigation:
"junk_brightmail.com" junk@brightmail.com,
"SendUsSpam" spam@sendusspam.com,
"Spamarchive" submit@spamarchive.org,
"Spamrecycle" spamrecycle@chooseyourmail.com,
Specific countries have anti-spam efforts:
"Spam from China" spam@ccert.edu.cn,
"Spam from Korea" spamcop@kisa.or.kr,
As already mentioned - any spam offering grey market (aka cheap) software?
"BSA" software@bsa.org,
"SBA" piracy@spa.org
Any 419 scams?
"419@nigeriapolice.org" 419@nigeriapolice.org,
"Central Bank of Nigeria" info@cenbank.org,
"thoselads_scamorama.com" thoselads@scamorama.com,
"Treasury Nigeraian scam reporting" 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov
Child pr0n?
"FBI" iitf.tampa@fbi.gov,
"FBI_Child_porn" complaints.detroit@fbi.gov
Any stock or securities spam?
"cyberfraud@nasaa.org" cyberfraud@nasaa.org,
"nasd Penny stock fraud submittal" ombuds@nasd.com,
"Securities fraud SEC" enforcement@sec.gov
Any food or drug spam?
"FDA_Complaint" webcomplaints@ora.fda.gov,
"FDA_Complaint2" webmail@oc.fda.gov
FYI: there are some anti spam groups I am a member of, where a little bit of research dug up these agencies. It is easy enough to set up an auto forward on your spam folder to report & LART the spammer scum.
HTH!
Re:Respond to them (Score:2, Informative)
BTW, remember that they called you. When they won't take no for an answer, hang up. Yes it is rude, but it the telemarketers who is being truly rude, forcing you to take drastic action. So, they called you. Take to them. Find out the pitch. Find out what they are wearing, if they had a good night sleep. How many kids they have. Get references. Have fun.
Re:Kill their mailing lists (Score:2, Informative)
You are indeed. The 0wned zombie machine is the spammer's friend. By emailing trojans to millions of Outlook users I can 1) Get a massive list of valid email addresses and 2) Recruit loads of PCs to spam others.
I don't use my regular email address for anything on the web. Yet I still get spam. Why? Because someone that had my email address in their contact list got 0wned. I get LOTS of spam that's customised with information gathered this way.
The VAST MAJORITY of spam (everything I've recieved in the last few weeks certainly) comes with forged headers. You can do some research if you want. Send all your spam from all your boxes back to the 'sender' for a couple of weeks and see what happens. Answer? NOTHING. Spammers don't maintain mailing lists. They just supplement them. You can kill your email address for months, and when you create it again I guarantee you'l get spam again immediately.
And about your 'if the address is bogus don't read it' comment. Are you saying that I should send a 'Are you real' reply to every email I get from a new address? That would sure piss off my clients. I know some companies that does that, and it's irritating as hell.
Leave the thinking to the professionals kid.
Re:You forgot some lines (Score:3, Informative)
Be aware, it may have to go through several errors before resuming operation.
Re:Make it illegal. (Score:2, Informative)
(Second hand knowledge of this as my cousin in Bristol did time for defending his house from career criminals with a knife).