Oddest spam ever?

[Stereodude]

How's this one?

Hello,
If you are a Time Traveler from Dimension D1263GT10, year 2008 or
Dimension D2044GT5, year 2432 AND OR in possession of the Dimensional Warp
Generator wrist watch, the Carbon Copy Replica model #52 4350 series or
similar technology I need your help. I need a RELIABLE SOURCE. I would
prefer someone with access to teleportation as well as a variety
different types of time travel. I will also need temporal displacement.
Please send a (SEPARATE) email to me at: MindTransference@aol.com if this
applies to you.
KSnZijo3KRn55WkJ+Q==

Stereodude

 

[time]

:lol: Classic!

 

[timwhit]

Interesting, I really don't see the point of that message at all. What is the author going to gain other than possibly being banned from his ISP?

 

[CougTek]

Nevermind, it's just the Doc Brown looking for McFly. You aren't concerned.

 

[Tea]

Hey! That wasn't spam! I didn't send it to everyone, you know.

 

[Explorer]

I probably have received this spam but didn't bother reading it. If I did receive it one day, it was trashed along with the 200 ~ 300 spam messages I receive EVERY DAY -- and this is with a spam filter running on the SMTP mail server.

About a month ago, I set the spam filter on the mail server to allow "all" E-mail messages through. The number of spam messages suddenly jumped to more than 500! So, I know the filter works to an extent, but the spam-bastards keep changing their originating addresses so often that the people who create these spam filter lists for E-mail servers (via their spam magnets) can't possibly keep up with the spammers. Spam volume AND content is only getting worse. I probably get a dozen rape / incest / etc spam messages a day now, which I didn't get 8 months ago.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Yeah, that was odd.

PS. Is Explorer iGary's newest persona? :-?

 

[Explorer]

Yeah, that was odd.

PS. Is Explorer iGary's newest persona? :-?

Who the hell is iGary? :-? Wasn't that someone over at Storage Review aeons ago?

 

[jtr1962]

About a month ago, I set the spam filter on the mail server to allow "all" E-mail messages through. The number of spam messages suddenly jumped to more than 500! So, I know the filter works to an extent, but the spam-bastards keep changing their originating addresses so often that the people who create these spam filter lists for E-mail servers (via their spam magnets) can't possibly keep up with the spammers. Spam volume AND content is only getting worse. I probably get a dozen rape / incest / etc spam messages a day now, which I didn't get 8 months ago.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't preventing people from sending multiple messages at the same time prevent or at least limit SPAM? If a spammer had to individually send the SPAM to every addressee, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to reach any significant number of people, and the economics of SPAM would change.

These SPAM blocking filters should automatically block any e-mail that doesn't have the addressee in the TO: header. Most SPAMs have something like "TO:undisclosed recipients".

Maybe it's just my ignorance, but it should be a great deal easier to stop this problem at the ISP level than people claim. Besides, perhaps better identification verification when you register with an ISP would help, as well as a black list of known spammers who would not be able to get services with any ISP. From what I've read, 99% of the spamming worldwide is caused by a few thousand individuals. It shouldn't be terribly difficult eventually track them down, fine them, perhaps put them in prison.

Another possibility I've thought of is sending a return mail to the spammer which contains a virus that destroys hardware. One of my mother's friends got such a virus once, and he said it made his system unusable. I normally wouldn't believe such a tale, but he is very knowledge about computers, and was a systems programmer for most of his working life. If a spammer's machines are destroyed as fast as he/she spams, that sort of solves the problem, doesn't it? :lol:

The US should follow the lead of the EU and ban SPAM. Enforcement may be difficult at first, but a few high profile prosecutions and multi-million dollar lawsuits, and the word will get out that spamming is unacceptable. It's a shame every new technology has to be abused by fu*king advertisers. Given the kind of garbage spammers sell, it's amazing anyone at all responds, and it is those who do who are largely to blame for the rise of this blight on the Internet. Maybe it should be illegal to respond to SPAM as well.

 

[Fushigi]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't preventing people from sending multiple messages at the same time prevent or at least limit SPAM? If a spammer had to individually send the SPAM to every addressee, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to reach any significant number of people, and the economics of SPAM would change.

These SPAM blocking filters should automatically block any e-mail that doesn't have the addressee in the TO: header. Most SPAMs have something like "TO:undisclosed recipients".

One problem to overcome is that there are thousands of legitimate email-based newsletters sent every day. To keep their subscriber lists private (obviously desireable), the addressees are typically in the bcc: field instead of the to: field.

I would also say that sending spam to individual accounts wouldn't slow the spammers that much. Get a bank of cheap Linux boxes & a fast connection, write a script or two, and you're off. This would even be worse because the SPAMmers would personalize the messages. People will be more tempted to read them when the subject line starts with their first name: "Fred, you've got to read this!". SPAMmers aren't stupid .. just morally corrupt.

I am lucky in that I don't recieve more than 5 or so spams a day. They are easy to dispose of and I never even open/preview them. I couldn't even tell you what the contents are beyond the subject field. That said, I have been careful to use multiple email accounts and set up dummy accounts whenever I've registered at places I wasn't sure I could trust.

- Fushigi

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Spam is the scourge of the Internet. Imagine how faster it would be without all this unnecessary traffic...

 

[Tea]

Fine? Jail? Ha! Tsar Tannin would have them knouted.

 

[Buck]

Fine? Jail? Ha! Tsar Tannin would have them knouted.

Ah, nothing like being flogged with a knout. TT sounds like a ruthless man.

 

[jtr1962]

One problem to overcome is that there are thousands of legitimate email-based newsletters sent every day. To keep their subscriber lists private (obviously desireable), the addressees are typically in the bcc: field instead of the to: field.

Yes, I'm aware that there are legitimate uses to send e-mail that way, but perhaps ISPs should restrict that ability only to clients who have provided proof that they are a legitimate business/newsletter. There is no reason to allow that ability across the board. Regular ISP accounts should only allow sending an e-mail to perhaps ten people at a time, and only one message every, say 10 minutes. This wouldn't impact the usability of e-mail for the average person, but would stop spammers cold(60 messages per hour will hardly reach a large audience). It would also make your other idea(using a bank of Linux boxes) unworkable without going through the expense of having multiple ISP accounts.

I am lucky in that I don't recieve more than 5 or so spams a day

I don't receive much, either. Perhaps a few a month with my Yahoo account(they have very good SPAM filters). I had a big problem with a WebTV address where somehow my name got on a list, and I was getting 5 or more a day, so I blocked e-mail to that account and made a new one. Still, I feel violated even getting one SPAM.

 

[jtr1962]

Fine? Jail? Ha! Tsar Tannin would have them knouted.

That sounds like an even better punishment to me. Maybe have repeat offenders caned and knouted. :mrgrn:

 

[Onomatopoeic]

...Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't preventing people from sending multiple messages at the same time prevent or at least limit SPAM? If a spammer had to individually send the SPAM to every addressee, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to reach any significant number of people, and the economics of SPAM would change.

These SPAM blocking filters should automatically block any e-mail that doesn't have the addressee in the TO: header. Most SPAMs have something like "TO:undisclosed recipients"...

Lists of recipients don't show up in Spam messages, at least in the ones that are done correctly. I've received a couple of Spam messages a while back, where the Spam-idiot (based in Denmark) screwed up and put *everyone's* friggin' E-mail address into the TO: field. The message was a whopping 10+ MB in size because of the several thousand E-mail addresses.

Maybe it's just my ignorance, but it should be a great deal easier to stop this problem at the ISP level than people claim. Besides, perhaps better identification verification when you register with an ISP would help, as well as a black list of known spammers who would not be able to get services with any ISP. From what I've read, 99% of the spamming worldwide is caused by a few thousand individuals. It shouldn't be terribly difficult eventually track them down, fine them, perhaps put them in prison.

What about Spammers in other countries? They aren't going to go to jail or be fined so easy.

A large portion of the mounds of spam that I receive daily are definitely coming from China, Korea, Middle East, Russia, or some other countries that use "non-Roman" character sets (Bulgaria, Greece, Japan, etc). One would think that these Spam messages would be easily recognisable by a Spam filter on a mail server because of the double-byte text used in the SUBJECT: titles, but apparently not.

Another possibility I've thought of is sending a return mail to the spammer which contains a virus that destroys hardware. One of my mother's friends got such a virus once, and he said it made his system unusable. I normally wouldn't believe such a tale, but he is very knowledge about computers, and was a systems programmer for most of his working life. If a spammer's machines are destroyed as fast as he/she spams, that sort of solves the problem, doesn't it? :lol:

The problem here is that if you actually do a REPLY: to the recipient, they will never receive your message because:

1.) They have a forged header in the original message, or...

2.) They used a compromised E-mail server to *relay* their message to you (or even several compromised E-mail servers) via a well-known hole in SendMail. So, you may never know where the message originally came from as the header of the original message will get re-processed by the relay mail server in the chain.

The Spammers aren't relying on someone responding to their message by use of the REPLY: command, they rely on you responding via an E-mail address or website address mentioned in the text of the message.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Jeez, so much unnecessary traffic...

 

[Sol]

perhaps the only way to truly wipe out spam is to create a new mail protocol and system... SMPT is far to easy to fake/forge or otherwise falsify.
During my university studies our introduction to e-mail on linux basically prepared us to fake mail messages from anywhere with a telnet client... doesn't get much easier...
A protocol with some sort of security or authentication system such as the senders ip being included in the message or some other cleaver feature which somone more knowlegeable about network systems comes up with might be the answer. This is a pretty ancient system we're talking about afterall, perhaps an overhaul is finally in order.