Welcome to the Anti-Spam Zone, dedicated to stamping out unsolicited
commercial email, newsgroup spamming, and other forms of net-abuse..
Rockwell-Collins
AN/URA267B
Mil-spec Spam Analyser.
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S.P.U.T.U.M.
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SpamSpotting
Once upon a time, the Internet was a place where you could undertake your
activities in peace and tranquility, without
the intrusion of crass commercialism and lamers trying to sell you things you don't
want, or idiots trying to get you to participate in their latest pathetic
attempt at 'marketing'
a "home business opportunity", "make money fast" pyramid scheme, or some sad
multi-loser-marketing program whose only hope of success is to recruit the population
of the entire galaxy as part of your "downline" within the next 20 seconds....
It's interesting to note that the majority of things advertised by spams
are in some way suspicious - credit-cards for those with stacks of bankruptcy
judgements against them, bootleg copies of software,
pornographic websites, offshore banks with no reputation,
quack medical treatments or similar products which can only be
described as "snake oil" seem particularly popular.
Likewise the various "get rich quick" schemes, and "Multi-level marketing" stuff.
Think about it: if these schemes are
really so great, why are the guys pushing them so desperate for participants that they'll
invite complete strangers to join their business? Could it be that they *know* the
schemes are scams and so they won't involve their friends or family?
Or is it more likely
that they duped their friends into joining some time back, and their friends are
now ex-friends and they're being shunned by their families...
No reputable companies or businesses *need* to lower themselves to spamming in order
to remain in business - so if someone spams you and their 'offer' sounds
'too good to be true', then beware - it almost certainly *is* too good to be
true... and let's face it, do *you* want to do business with anyone who
has to falsify their business address and fraudulently
piggy-back on someone else's system in order to get you to read their
advertisements?
The links accessible from here will help you understand the issues and ethics associated with
commercial use of the Internet, and provide you with resources to defend yourselves against
the grosser abuses.
Note that I am in no way against the
RESPONSIBLE
use of the Internet for commerce, in fact i believe that such usage can be positively
beneficial for its' long-term survival.
What I AM against is the use of the internet by ripoff-merchants, scammers,
con-artists, sleazeballs and those who would see it as a "no-cost" advertising medium.
And for those who would try to claim spammers have a constitutional right to freedom of
speech, or who begin to scream "censorship", well, just remember that nobody's right to
free speech extends to expecting others to buy and run printing-presses for them, or give
them unlimited free access to telephones with which to peddle their dross.
Spam costs the recipients money, whether directly (some of us pay long
distance or cellular phone charges to download our mail) or
indirectly, through our ISPs needing to increase their disk
capacity and line bandwidth to handle the junk-mail, and hence
increasing their
charges to end-users.
Of course I have a right to control what third-parties use *my* mailbox for;
after all, I pay for it!
And here in the UK there is no constitutional right to free speech anyway. So there -
go swivel on that!
Spammers' free speech ends where my Internet account begins!
Spam me and you'll hear about it. So will your Internet service-provider. And so will
the rest of the Internet community.
If you're planning to indulge in interstate fraud, you're unwise if you publish your address
to the world at the same time...
Anti-Spam Newsgroups
There are Usenet newsgroups
news.admin.net-abuse.misc ,
news.admin.net-abuse.email and
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
officially dedicated to discussion of a wide range of Internet-abuse issues; I would
suggest you make them part of your regular reading, to find
out what is happening out there...
And if you are a service-provider, you might consider reading the
news.admin.net-abuse.policy
newsgroup to learn about acceptable-use policies, and
the thresholds beyond which usage becomes abusage.
If you are an Internet Service Provider, you may also wish to subscribe to the SPAM-L
discussion-list, where a number of representatives of major international backbone
operators, ISPs and other dedicated spam-fighters discuss the issues, report problems,
and take action against the grosser forms of net-abuse. You might like to read the
SPAM-L Frequently Asked Questions List
before joining.
Forewarned is forearmed, as they say: if it seems too good to be true
it probably is!
Don't get suckered! Join the guys with the white hats....
"Remove"-lists
Many spams these days have a message on the end that says something like
"if you do not wish to receive further mailings from us, send an email saying
"remove" to [email protected] and we will take you off our list".
Of course, this is farcical. You never wanted to be on their list
in the first place, so why should you have to do anything to get off it?
How many different spammers are there? How many
"remove" requests do you need to send to get off *all* the spammers' lists?
There is considerable evidence, obtained by "seeding" remove-lists
with virgin email addresses,
that where the "remove" address is actually valid (and many of them
are indeed bogus, forged or undeliverable), the
spammers are simply harvesting the addresses of people who have tried to
"remove" themselves and using them as *new*, *freshly qualified* email addresses
for further spamming, or to sell on to some other spammer.
Ever wondered why
so many of the spams are peddling bulk-emailing software and
"47 million email addresses for $19.95"? Well, chances are that having found
out that spamming doesn't pay, they sell on their address-lists and spamware
to other gullible schmucks, who repeat the process... and given spammer-
ethics, they *will* sell on addresses gathered by "remove"-lists. Remember,
spamming is a "numbers game": if they did remove your address, then they'd
have one less address to boast about when they sell their "X million for $10"...
So my advice is, if a spam has one of these "to remove yourself mail
this address" things on the bottom, DON'T DO IT!...
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SpamSpotting
[to the theme of Trainspotting:]
Choose Netcom, Choose UUNet dialups,
Choose Poverty, Choose knuckledragging; Choose MLM
Choose MegaNet$, Choose to be booted off 10 ISPs in 5 days,
Choose living the rest of your life in a trailer-park,
Choose to be the Internet's laughing stock,
Choose to buy into every get-rich scheme you see,
Choose ugliness, CHOOSE TO TYPE ALL YOUR MESSAGES IN UPPER CASE,
Choose a real bogus domain-name and then claim it never happened,
Choose wifebeating,
Choose a 'home business' stuffing envelopes for 16 hours a day,
Choose a fat lingerie-wearing alcoholic sex-pest as a business-partner,
Choose not to be liked by anyone and pretend not to care,
Choose a visit from the USPS inspector, Choose cracking,
Choose cheating, Choose fraudulent business practises,
Choose to be ass-licked by the media then accuse them of
anti-spammer bias,
Choose to disgrace yourselves across the network in full view
of the world,
Choose TCPS, Choose John Hufnal Smith. Choose Joe Mastrianni.
Choose self-deception and delusions of adequacy,
Choose "99 million addresses on CD for $19.99",
Choose opt-out, Choose Stealth-mailer and Extractor-pro,
Choose Satan, Choose Laundry-CDs, porn and free pagers,
Choose to believe Walt Rines's PR stunts then pretend they
never happened,
Choose 800-number messages of mind-numbing, spirit-crushing dross,
Choose to think NOIC or IEMMC will stand up for you,
Choose a no-hope TLD from an offshore island,
Choose hate-mail and threatening phone-calls at 3AM,
Choose injunctions, subpoenas, and a meeting with the Judge;
Choose $17,000 fines and having your PC seized by the Feds,
Choose Embarrassment,
Choose Odium,
Choose
SPAM!
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