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How One Spam Leads to Another
wired ^ | 3 jul 02 | Michelle Delio

Posted on 07/03/2002 7:44:06 AM PDT by white trash redneck

Edited on 06/29/2004 7:09:18 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

If you want to be your own boss and make money working from home while increasing the size of your penis and shopping for cut-rate electronic products from China -- you're in luck.

The quantity of e-mailed advertising pitches for these and other fabulous opportunities is about to increase dramatically, according to research by Bob West, an anti-spam activist.


(Excerpt) Read more at wired.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: spam
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Check out this map of the relationships among spammers.
1 posted on 07/03/2002 7:44:06 AM PDT by white trash redneck
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To: white trash redneck
Mr. Bun: Morning.

Waitress: Morning.

Mr. Bun: Well, what you got?

Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam, sausage, spam, spam, spam, bacon, spam, tomato and spam; spam, spam, spam, egg and spam; (Vikings start singing in background) spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam.


2 posted on 07/03/2002 7:47:08 AM PDT by Wolfie
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To: white trash redneck
I used to get only about a 10 e-mails per day back in '96. Now I get over 100 e-mails per day, almost all of it Spam. Why do the Spammers even bother? I routinely delete all the Spam without once looking at it. I think the only folks who make money are the companies who sell Spam programs.
3 posted on 07/03/2002 7:48:04 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
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To: white trash redneck
I get WAY too much spam. My filter list is twice as long as my address list.

Maybe if the spammers were required to PAY for each piece of spam sent (like "postage") they wouldn't waste their money sending so much.
4 posted on 07/03/2002 7:50:56 AM PDT by EggsAckley
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To: PJ-Comix
I routinely delete all the Spam without once looking at it.

-----------------

It builds up in your sequential files, even after you delete it.

5 posted on 07/03/2002 7:55:39 AM PDT by RLK
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To: PJ-Comix
Why do the Spammers even bother? I routinely delete all the Spam without once looking at it.

They bother because out of every hundred people they spam, only 90 of them delete the message without reading it. Out of every hundred who actually read it, they may make one or two sales. That adds up if you're sending thousands or millions of emails, right?
6 posted on 07/03/2002 7:56:49 AM PDT by WindMinstrel
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To: white trash redneck
I avoid spam altogeather by using an alias instead of my regular email account. If I start getting too much spam I delete the alias and start a new one. Of course every time I do this I have to email all on my list and inform them of my new address but it usually takes several months to a year before that becomes necessary.
7 posted on 07/03/2002 8:01:31 AM PDT by Gaston
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To: WindMinstrel
That is why strong anti-spamming incentives are necessary. I am thinking that an appropriate punishment would be for the spammer to be flayed alive, then salt poured onto their skinless, living bodies. They would then be impaled and left in a designated field as a warning to others.

Of course, that would just be for the mid-range spammers.
8 posted on 07/03/2002 8:02:20 AM PDT by Dimensio
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To: RLK
What are sequential files?
9 posted on 07/03/2002 8:02:48 AM PDT by ru4liberty
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To: RLK
It builds up in your sequential files, even after you delete it.

For the technologically challenged, what is a sequential file, what is its significance, and how does one clean it up?

10 posted on 07/03/2002 8:04:06 AM PDT by white trash redneck
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To: white trash redneck
I use Spamcop and everything. Nothing stops them. I guess I could go through my entire address book and only let those people send email to me, but even that isn't a good answer. Something has to be done. I get over 100 a day, and 99% of that is Spam.
11 posted on 07/03/2002 8:05:04 AM PDT by Snowy
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To: PJ-Comix; EggsAckley
I also get dozens of spam messages a day and delete them without reading them - not just because I'm not interested in debt relief or penis enlargement, but because I fear viruses. My "block sender" list is at full capacity. I dread going out of town for any length of time, because I know when I get back not only my "junk mail" box but my regular inbox will be full to overflowing with this crap. Aughhh. Time to change addresses, I guess.
12 posted on 07/03/2002 8:05:37 AM PDT by mountaineer
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To: mountaineer
Try going to www.mail2web.com. Most ISP email can be received there and you can delete the spam from that site without it ever going into your Inbox. I use it ALL the time nowadays. Plus I can access my e-mail from anywhere using that site.
13 posted on 07/03/2002 8:09:13 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
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To: All
On a similar topic: are all of you folks using Ad-Aware? If not, there's a good chance that your computer is infested/infected with "Spyware", software that reports your web surfing habits to a central database. Ad-aware is a free program that seeks out and removes those programs. I highly recommend it.

As an aside, you'd be surprised what killing those apps does to improve performance and stability of your system. Each of those little apps eats memory and CPU cycles, you know?
14 posted on 07/03/2002 8:18:43 AM PDT by WindMinstrel
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To: white trash redneck
For the technologically challenged, what is a sequential file, what is its significance, and how does one clean it up?

Most email programs don't actually delete a message: they just move it to another folder.

All you have to do is empty your Trash folder, or the Deleted Items folder, or whatever your email client calls it.

15 posted on 07/03/2002 8:19:25 AM PDT by justlurking
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To: justlurking
It's easier just to go to www.mail2web.com. You can delete the Spam there without it ever going into your Inbox in the first place. Try it. I use it all the time.
16 posted on 07/03/2002 8:22:47 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
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To: PJ-Comix; All
Has anyone tried email.com? According to their site, they offer free email accounts and this: Mail.com has a strict policy against junk and unsolicited E-mail messages - often referred to as Spam. Because we block Spam, you will be protected from any unwanted E-mail.

As I am contemplating finding a new free email provider, I'd be interested in what others have found to be the best. Hotmail doesn't seem to screen out the spammers I have specified to be blocked, so I'm flummoxed.

17 posted on 07/03/2002 8:29:10 AM PDT by mountaineer
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To: mountaineer
What's not as well known is the fact that merely clicking on an email message just to delete it can let the spammer scum know that your address is valid.

Some of these dirtbags use what are known as "web bugs". It's an invisible graphic embedded in the email message which points to a CGI directory on their server. The URL of the graphic can have your email address in it or some code that represents your email address. When you open the email, the graphic tries to load, and your email program connects to their server, and quietly notifies them that you've read it.

If you can disable HTML in your email program, that's a good option. I use Netscape for my mail, and you can't disable HTML. Instead, I've gotten into the habit of temporarily disconnecting from the internet (by clicking the little "plug" icon in the lower left-hand corner of Netscape) while I go through new messages in my inbox. Once I've deleted any spam, I reconnect.

I don't know if it's because of this or something else, but my spam has slowly declined from an average of 25 per day to 2 or 3.

Here's some more info on web bugs: Web Bug FAQ Check out the section about web bugs in email messages.
18 posted on 07/03/2002 8:36:54 AM PDT by jenny65
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To: Dimensio
I am thinking that an appropriate punishment would be for the spammer to be flayed alive, then salt poured onto their skinless, living bodies. They would then be impaled and left in a designated field as a warning to others.

I'd expand that punishment to all of the morons who DO respond to spam. They're the ones that make it a lucrative business.

A couple more points:
Most ISPs give you extra email accounts. Use them. I have all five in use, and I assign each one a "security level". The lowest level I use for registering with throw-away sites that I may not care about later. Right below my personal email address is the one I use for more important stuff like online purchases where I need confirmation receipts and such. My low-level address gets spam pretty quickly. Once it gets bad, I'll delete it and rename it.

I'm convinced that many of the "chain letters" are used by spammers to gather up addresses. Start one up , and it'll likely be returned to you eventually. Ever get one that's been forwarded fifty times, and each person that forwarded it didn't go to the trouble of reformatting it or removing previous address headers? There's a gold mine of addresses on it.
My friend now know NEVER to forward me a chain letter without removing old headers, and they are told to USE THE F***ING BCC FIELD when sending it. They know I'll come down on them like the Hammer of God if they send my address to others.

It may sound extreme, but I'm an absolute MILITANT when it comes to spam. Because I don't believe that we'll ever get effective laws to bar it, I will use everything else at my disposal.
19 posted on 07/03/2002 9:04:08 AM PDT by jenny65
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To: PJ-Comix
I downloaded a free program called Mail Washer. It allows you to designiate incoming emails as spam and delete them before they're downloaded onto your computer.

It also allows you to choose to bounce the messages back to the sender, as if your e-mail address doesn't exist. The theory is that in time your e-mail address will eventually be purged from lists as an invalid address.

20 posted on 07/03/2002 9:38:10 AM PDT by alnick
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