The witch hunters

[Terra]

This is an email complaint that I received in the abuse@ box, with threats of reporting this to our Upstream Provider if we did not ensure their demands are met...

Hello. The message below appears to have been sent to
spamreporter@oi.co.za because some small-minded idiot submitted a bogus
Web site to several FFA sites using this address. Judging by the
contents of some of the automatic responses, which contained submission
information, the bogus requests came from:

Name:[nbsp][nbsp][nbsp][nbsp]126-MADR-X2.red.retevision.es
Address:[nbsp][nbsp]62.174.161.126

.. an address in Spain which has absolutely nothing to do with
spamreporter@oi.co.za, based in South Africa. We can only assume that a
spammer in Spain received a spam complaint from spamreporter@oi.co.za
and responded by attempting to flood this address with more unsolicited
mail.

Please REMOVE the email address spamreporter@oi.co.za from all your
mailing lists and/or databases. Any further unsolicited mail received by
us will result in the submission of abuse reports to the sender's domain
and, where appropriate, upstream service providers.

FutureQuest has done nothing wrong, but once again the threats of retaliatory action are evident...[nbsp][nbsp]This more often the norm than not...

It's a witch hunt - with many innocent victims getting caught in the cross-fire...

As I have mentioned before - I at times just cannot grasp the reality of who is worse - the spammers or the complainers...[nbsp][nbsp]Both are detrimental and can inflict the same amount of damage albeit via different avenues...

--
Terra
--How would you like your No-Win situation today?--
FutureQuest

[This message has been edited by ccTech (edited 04-02-01@3:55 pm)]

[Monty]

Terra and all,

I must admit, I have been following the spam/email discussions closely, ears and eyes open, mouth and keyboard shut.[nbsp][nbsp]After reading all that I have, I doubt I will be sending anymore reports to spamcop.net It seems easier to just delete the junk that my personal filters and black hole mailbox doesn't catch.[nbsp][nbsp]

My company uses a great deal of directly targeted snail mail advertising, and with that, I can at least argue that I am keeping postage rates down, and it is recyclable.[nbsp][nbsp]

Email spam seems different in that regard, and is costly for all involved.

A simple stroke of the delete key just seems friendlier to all involved.

Mont

[sheila]

Although the letter Terra cites, includes threats of notification to upstream providers, that is only in the case that one does not take their request seriously.

I've been dealing with people trying to relay through my (secure) mail server this weekend, and I can't TELL you how many abuse notices I sent out. And so far, excepting for DellHost, who gave me a personal reply, it seems to have done no good at all. I was finally on the phone with HostPro.com this afternoon, leaving a voicemail for their security/abuse guy.

The point is, there are SOOO many places that apparently take no heed over spam complaints. UUnet is horrible. They almost never do anything.[nbsp][nbsp]I've also received no response from Interland. :(

So, these people from South Africa are taking a strong position to begin with. Maybe their message is a little *TO* strong. But I can understand their frustration. I would just take their complaint seriously.

And I fully intend to continue using spamcop or any other reporting means necessary. I don't know, but I can tell, with what arrives in my mailbox, whether it was spam or not. (Look, I don't need viagra, I'm female.) And I've seen enough ads for the TV Cable descrambler by now, that I clearly have decided not to get one, nor do I want the Internet Spy so I can be nosy and find out all the things about the people around me, that they'd rather I didn't know.

A little common sense in this situation would go a long way. But not reporting spam...that will certainly not improve the situation.

[Deb]

UUnet is horrible. They almost never do anything I have to disagree... we, as the host, have had MANY dealings with UUnet.[nbsp][nbsp]They may not respond to the complaint personally but they certainly do get on the owners of the server the mail came from (or is accused of coming from).[nbsp][nbsp]We almost lost a DS-3 long ago over it.

Deb
[nbsp]- Spam of the month for me:
[nbsp][nbsp][nbsp][nbsp][nbsp][nbsp] Rates DROPPED! Low Interest Loans From Competing Banks!

[Terra]

So, these people from South Africa are taking a strong position to begin with. Maybe their message is a little *TO* strong. But I can understand their frustration. I would just take their complaint seriously. This was an obvious "Joe-Job", but now a account hosted by FutureQuest is in jeopardy over this issue (I gave him leniency on time) and our connectivity is at risk...

This complaint is a very mild case, but is a prevalent attitude...[nbsp][nbsp]Many range from polite and courteous "Heads-Up" to downright hostile and terroristic in nature...

Which ones can I take seriously, and which ones do I dismiss...[nbsp][nbsp]One thing my mother taught me is that the quiet ones are the ones to fear...[nbsp][nbsp]They may not be able to physically beat you up, but they sure can rip your mind(s) to shreds with ease...

A little common sense in this situation would go a long way. But not reporting spam...that will certainly not improve the situation. I agree 100% here![nbsp][nbsp]Do not stop the Spam Reports as those are sometimes the only way that administrators know that an infraction is taking place on the servers we control...

HOWEVER, do your reporting responsibly using a fair amount of intelligence when the complaint is being made...

Don't be an idiot (?can I say that?), take a moment to research the spam - and research what spam really is...[nbsp][nbsp]

Learn how to interpret the 'paper-trail' that full headers give, as you'll learn that only so much can be forged and obfuscated...

--
Terra
--The dark side of human nature can always be found in the spam box--
FutureQuest

[dank]

I at times just cannot grasp the reality of who is worse - the spammers or the complainers... I'm glad someone said it...

Dan
[nbsp]- I agree 100% ... with both sides.

[PaulKroll]

The spammers are worse, of course, since if they weren't spamming, the complainers wouldn't be complaining. Which does more damage to hosts and hosting companies, THAT'S debatable, but even if it's the complainers, that doesn't mean they're "worse," it means they're lashing out at something they feel they have no control over. It's the same as the nice guy in the car screaming at the top of his lungs when he's cut off by some goober... who obviously just did it ON PURPOSE. It's Net Rage.

[Deb]

It's Net Rage. Paul you really should consider trademarking that name... :P

Deb
[nbsp]- Sorry I just couldn't resist.

[PaulKroll]

NetRage.com is taken, but doesn't lead anywhere. Darn them. They did THAT ON PURPOSE! (foams at mouth, stomps about)

Hmmm...

Nope. DomainRage.com: taken. :)

WAIT!
RageRage.com is available! Mind, ATI will probably eventually go after you when their next Rage chipset comes out, but HEY...

[Monty]

I guess it boils down to a personal call, but I can't find seem to find any winners by reporting spam or any winners by not reporting it.[nbsp][nbsp]I try to find a win-win in situations or avoid them.[nbsp][nbsp]

Sure, I can look over the headers, and maybe or maybe not, know any more than I did when I started, but something I do know, is that deletion of 30 spammers emails takes about that many seconds, and system administrators have enough problems, without any I might add. So do site owners.[nbsp][nbsp]I am a paying member of spamcop, btw, so that isn't an issue for me.

Mont

[Monty]

Is this spam or a list I opted into by mistake/omission?



Received: from vmf-ext.prodigy.net ([127.0.0.1]) by vmf-wfldad with ESMTP; Mon,[nbsp][nbsp]2 Apr 2001 18:32:35 -0400
Received: from joomong.kjuken.co.kr (kjuken.co.kr [210.91.115.142])
[nbsp][nbsp][nbsp][nbsp] by vmf-ext.prodigy.net (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id f32MPdF170608;
[nbsp][nbsp][nbsp][nbsp] Mon, 2 Apr 2001 18:25:39 -0400
Message-Id: <200104022225.f32MPdF170608@vmf-ext.prodigy.net>
Received: from machine (slip-32-102-202-79.fl.us.prserv.net [32.102.202.79]) by joomong.kjuken.co.kr with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2448.0)
[nbsp][nbsp][nbsp][nbsp] id 21VJJTS1; Tue, 3 Apr 2001 07:25:16 +0900
From: &quot;List Source&quot; <billions@myrgv.com>
Reply-To: billions@myrgv.com
Subject: New 4/2/01 - 350,000 Targeted Biz Opportunity Seekers #52F5
To: hyperinfo12@lycos.com
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 16:10:31 0000
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=&quot;iso-8859-1&quot;
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

1159
********* NEW LIST JUST RELEASED 04/02/2001 *********
<CHOPPED - SLICED - DICED>

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
If you do not wish to receive any further messages from the List
Source please press reply and type REMOVE in the SUBJECT area=2E
You will be removed from ALL List Source future emailings=2E If you
have additional e-mail address, other[nbsp][nbsp]than the e-mail address
the letter was sent to, that you want removed, please include
those addresses in the body of the remove e-mail=2E[nbsp][nbsp]



I am hoping that the email above doesn't involve FQ in any way, as to make this a fair post.[nbsp][nbsp]The time to pull the headers up, and post this message is now about 5 minutes.[nbsp][nbsp]Delete time would have been a couple of seconds.[nbsp][nbsp]Both of which would be the same had I reported it to spamcop.net

Mont

who's time is more important, mine, yours, or someone elses?...

<EDIT: chopped for brevity - it was a gazillion lines of pure junk>
[This message has been edited by ccTech (edited 04-02-01@10:39 pm)]

[sheila]

Monty,
Without knowing your personal habits, I cannot be sure whether you &quot;accidentally&quot; subscribed to such a list, or it is spam. I know, that when I receive stuff like that, I KNOW it is spam, because I don't subscribe to any lists about growing my business, or sending out targeted e-mails or anything like that.

If you are really in doubt, then I suggest you NOT report it as spam.

However, I ran that mail through spamcop, and based on the number of checked reporting boxes, I'd say it is spam.

YMMV.

I understand that it is a time issue, too. That's why I've written some automated scripts to streamline reporting spam for me. I retrieve my e-mail as usual. Spam (or likely spam) gets filtered off into a special &quot;spam&quot; folder. Then I scan the messages briefly. Select all the ones that appear to be spam. Save them to a text file (this takes a few clicks of the mouse), and then click on my &quot;spamparser&quot; script. This automatically e-mails all the spams off to spamcop for me. Then, spamcop mails back a &quot;ready to process&quot; receipt for each spam. I then have to apply one mouse click for each spam, to bring up the reporting page, and one more click to submit.

So, if I get, say, six spams in the evening, that's taking me ... about 15 mouse clicks to report those six spams. If I didn't have this process somewhat automated, I don't know how dedicated to it I could be. I don't want to spend half an hour per day reporting spam. Life is too short.

[dank]

if I get, say, six spams in the evening, that's taking me ... about 15 mouse clicks to report those six spams It would take you roughly 6 mouse clicks to delete them, less if you highlight a range and delete them all at once.[nbsp][nbsp];)

Dan

[sheila]

Dan,
I am aware that deleting takes less time. Thanks. I, personally believe, that reporting them is part of the key to the solution.

YMMV.

[dank]

Without turning this into a heated debate, might I inquire as to how reporting spam will lead to its demise?[nbsp][nbsp]I honestly don't see how that fills in any significant pieces of the puzzle.[nbsp][nbsp]I doubt it makes it any (much?) tougher for the spammer to send repeat spam, and I'm not aware of how it would impact filtering of spam or legislation for or against it.[nbsp][nbsp]It seems about as effective as venting your frustration on someone who pretends to be listening while really watching the person walk by outside the window...

Dan

[sheila]

How will ignoring it improve the situation?

I don't see that ignoring it can lead to anything except further damage of the Internet, through crashed servers, theft of service, DOS, etc...

For one thing, much spam is sent through &quot;open relay&quot; servers. These are usually improperly configured mail servers that spammers exploit. Reporting spam often leads to the administrator of the open server being notified. Perhaps the administrator will fix the server. That gives one less open mail server for the spammer to exploit. If not, perhaps that server will go on a black list, and then others may choose to use that list and decide not to accept mail from that server. This does help to stem the tide some.

I also think that it is only through some outcry that the law makers, if ever, will get the idea that SPAM IS BAD. I think that most of them have little to no daily experience with the Internet. Probably they have staffers who handle their email for them, and deal with any spam that they get. If people do not protest...
http://www.cauce.org/pressreleases/pr-hr718.shtml

I am not venting frustration when I report spam any more than I am venting frustration when I trim my toenails. Does trimming my toenails solve my problem with their growth? No.

I see reporting spam as a proactive way to deal with the situation. Ignoring just lets the problem grow and fester. Actually, since adopting a spamcop address and beginning to use spamcop for reporting nearly all the spam I receive, I have personally had a big drop in the amount of spam I receive.

I do not expect others to do the same as I do. I know that it is time consuming and it is obviously easier and quicker to delete the spam. But I really don't appreciate it when people let me know, in such a way as to indicate I'm not being real smart about this, that in their opinion I'm wasting my time and accomplishing nothing.

[Maynard]

Monty, the post you asked about was sent from a dialup account through an open relay in Korea. Does that seem like a list to which you eagerly enrolled?

It is technically possible, and not too difficult as I understand it, for both the dialup provider and the open relay to prevent this kind of net abuse. Accordingly they are notified of this opinion by SpamCop, and certainly others who don't use SC.

The &quot;witch hunters&quot; who have been pestering our host here are probably responding to a From: address or other forged content, and are venting in the wrong direction.

If I were asked to manage the abuse desk at FQ, I'd create a polite autoack which educates the complainant about the problem of mis-directed complaints, and tell them that I only accept complaints which have been filtered by SpamCop, because we don't have time to filter their headers for them; and then arrange a secure communication channel with SpamCop (which Julian is prepared and eager to facilitate).

I'd do this with the confidence that SC filtered complaints have a higher than otherwise probability of meriting my investigation; I would swiftly trounce the obvious TOS violations; and within a couple months I'd be spending my time sailing because there would be no violations to address.

How's that for a rosy picture, eh.

[dank]

How will ignoring it improve the situation? Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but I doubt it will worsen the situation.[nbsp][nbsp]Like many things, ignoring it will give it reason to go away.[nbsp][nbsp]Without our attention, what good is spam?

Dan
[nbsp]- thus went banner advertising

[janderk]

Without turning this into a heated debate, might I inquire as to how reporting spam will lead to its demise?
I send complaints for every spam I receive through my payed www.spamcop.net (http://www.spamcop.net) account. And it works. Its the best way to get removed from a mailing list. Although do I agree that one should be very carefull when sending complaints to not become a witch hunter.

Imagine a spammer buying 1 million email addresses and receiving complaints from 10%. He will not be glad with the email list he bought, because everytime his account gets killed within the hour.

Spammers like you to beleive that you can better ignore them. However, they still use forged headers for a reason.
The good thing about spammers that in order to get your money, they need you to contact them. That's why they always can be traced. Spammers need to send email and have web sites. Complaining to the open relays and spam hosting ISP hurts them exactly at these points up to a point where it is no longer profitable to spam.

In an ideal world, the US Senate would pass a real anti-spam law and make it illegal.

Without the complaints we would all receive much more spam than we do already. Everyone able to decide what is spam and what is a witch hunt should join the fight and join www.spamcop.net (http://www.spamcop.net).

I am really positive that spam will reduce significantly in the future. However, its not gonna happen by ignoring spammers.

Jan Derk
- You have to think like a spammer to understand why www.spamcop.net (http://www.spamcop.net) works -

[Monty]

Well, for starters, I am certainly not the brightest bulb in the bunch, so when I say I got on a list by accident, I mean just that.[nbsp][nbsp]

How many forms are on the internet, with the box already checked that says &quot;notify me of blah blah blah...&quot;?[nbsp][nbsp]Miss one of those boxes and you officially subscribed to a list.[nbsp][nbsp]Then, go to spam cop, report the email you got off it, and all of a sudden, you are worse than the spammer hisself (a TX term, lol).[nbsp][nbsp]I personally think it is unethical for forms to be built like that, but hey, I ain't the internet police and don't care to be (are you listening Network Solutions).[nbsp][nbsp]Even my ISP, Prodigy, &quot;spams&quot; me once a week, with &quot;news&quot; with absolutely no way to get off the list.[nbsp][nbsp]I am sure, way down in my TOS somewhere, there is a clause I agreed to allowing them to send that email as a part of my paying for service.

Take a look at this from Terra's view and all of it becomes clear to me.[nbsp][nbsp]System admininstrators are worth, bare minimum, $75 per hour, and probably more like $275 per hour.[nbsp][nbsp]Take an hour of that person's life, dealing with either spam, or spam complaint's and you are taking food off his table.[nbsp][nbsp]

I know of exactly one list I subscribe to, intentionally, and it is a email joke list.[nbsp][nbsp]Other than that, all my email is either my fault, for not unchecking a box, or simple spam.[nbsp][nbsp]Either way, it's all gonna get a simple delete, because my time, and others time is too valuable to waste dealing with it.

Thanks to Dank, I now can get my delete clicks down to just one ;)[nbsp][nbsp]

Mont

[sheila]

Monty: more power to you. I think that each of us has to do what works for us and what we believe is best.

Dan: I guess we will just disagree. The attention that I am giving spam is not the type that causes it to continue. Perhaps if EVERYONE ignored spam, it would go away from neglect, as you suggest. However, everyone does not ignore it. Some people do actually respond to that stuff, otherwise the spammers would stop. (Their costs are so low, that even a .1% response out of the millions of pieces of mail they send out is a profit already. And some people are just that dumb.)

Monty: I agree that someone of Terra's value should not be spending his time on spam duties. Someone with a much lower salary rate should be handling it. And in most companies, I'm sure that the sysadmin doesn't handle it. They have other employees that do. I think that it is just because Terra is the owner of FQ (along with Deb) and sees this as important to the success of his business, that he devotes (too) much of his time to it.

[Maynard]

Monty in particular: another way you get onto spammers lists is through for instance your daily joke list, which can easily get sold, or stolen, and subsequently sold to some underinformed marketing minion who sends his message to millions of unsuspecting victims and closes with a comment such as:

This is not spam; I bought this list; and you opted into it; and you can even buy a copy from me if you want.

Not to ruin your day ;)[nbsp]

[Monty]

The idea that if no one responds to spam, has merit.[nbsp][nbsp]I like letting market forces dictate what goes on instead of legislators trying to make more laws.[nbsp][nbsp]

When I use direct (snail) mail, 2% is a good response rate.[nbsp][nbsp]I guess with no/low cost spam, you don't need anywhere near that much. Maybe we need postage for email to raise the bar a bit. :)[nbsp][nbsp]You haven't lived until you have bought $10,000 worth of stamps in a slow business month to kick things off again.[nbsp][nbsp]

As for my joke list, I set that up for a good friend of mine, when someone on the cc's in the emails that were orginally going out, hit reply to all, and flamed me personally to 58 other folks. Talk about spam, geeze, it was that and more.
Plus, when I am on the road, and paying $6.00 per hour to access the internet through an 800 number, I usually unsubscribe for the trip.[nbsp][nbsp]It's nice to be able to get off a list, when you need to.[nbsp][nbsp]

I learned a lesson a long time ago, about how to get *really* spammed, when I posted a list of employee emails on my business's site.[nbsp][nbsp]That was a major mistake, and even bot on the planet must have indexed that list.[nbsp][nbsp]Never again.

Mont[nbsp][nbsp]

[Terra]

The Spamhaus Project's success comes as anti-spam groups increasingly bypass spammers themselves and instead target those who facilitate the dissemination of unsolicited commercial email. Those groups--mostly ISPs and server administrators--are relatively few and are easier to hold accountable than spammers. I can assure you they do... :P

--
Terra
--My mail server has been offline for days, please fix port 25!--
FutureQuest

[Marbledog]

I really should come here more often.[nbsp][nbsp]For the past few monthI have been diligently reporting all spam to spamcop and feeling like I was doing the right thing, even though the little voice in the back of my mind kept saying &quot;it'd be a lot quicker to just delete&quot; and it's really hard to grasp whether I'm doing any good or not.[nbsp][nbsp]I think I'll try Monty's approach for a while and just delete delete delete.[nbsp][nbsp]

MAYbe the best thing to do is to just try to enjoy the spam.[nbsp][nbsp]I mean, I kind of like being addressed as &quot;Dear Future Millionaire&quot; and being notified that I have qualified for the Who's Who list and finding out how I can have a longer, harder - uh - this is a family forum isn't it.[nbsp][nbsp]Anyway.[nbsp][nbsp]if I could just grow to enjoy the mortgages and the credit fixers.

Actually, I do try to be fair with some of these things.[nbsp][nbsp]If it looks like it might be a legitimate targeted email thing or a list I've accidentally subscribed to (yes, I do that to), I will try the &quot;remove&quot; instructions before reporting it as spam.[nbsp][nbsp]99 times out of 100, though, those instructions don't work.

Just my rambling thoughts.
------------------
--Laurie

[sheila]

I will try the[nbsp][nbsp]&quot;remove&quot; instructions before reporting it as spam.[nbsp][nbsp]99 times out of 100, though, those[nbsp][nbsp]instructions don't work. 99 times out of 100, that just confirms to the spammers, that your email address is valid, with a real-live person reading the mail on the other end. Probably the amount of spam you receive just increases every time you reply to one of those &quot;remove&quot; addresses.

[dank]

99 times out of 100, that just confirms to the spammers, that your email address is valid I have read such statements quite frequently, but does anyone actually know if it's true?[nbsp][nbsp]I mean, considering that most spam you receive you receive on a very regular basis, it doesn't quite seem that they are holding their breath waiting for you to confirm that your email address is valid...[nbsp][nbsp]I would think that the lack of a bounced email is all they care about.

Dan

[sheila]

Does one know if it is true? Well, the following article was posted this past week on one of the spamcop newsgroups:


From: Grass <x>
Newsgroups: spamcop
Subject: 20 out of 20 spammers
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 02:31:05 +0100
Organization: SpamCop
Message-ID: <MPG.15372cb1d753efc5989695@news.spamcop.net>

I have just tried an experiment to see if there are any genuine spammers
who honor remove requests or indeed don't use remove request to confirm
addresses.

From my most spammed account I took the remove addresses and followed
their instructions but I used another &quot;disposable&quot; account instead of the
spammed one (using 20 different aliases so I could track where the spam
was coming from).

I sent the remove requests on the 1st of April and have since received
more than 10 spams a day on the said account, every single one of the
aliases has been spammed.[nbsp][nbsp]There is no way they could get theses
addresses otherwise so they all were definately a result of the remove
requests.

This is maybe a little surprising to myself (I thought that maybe a
couple would honor it) and shows the slime we are dealing with.[nbsp][nbsp]I was
also suprised at how quick they were as a couple of the aliases recieved
crap less than hour after the remove request was sent.

[dank]

Very poor &quot;study&quot; for two reasons:

but I used another &quot;disposable&quot; account instead of the spammed one Of course they're going to add a new spammable address to their lists if you send them fresh meat...[nbsp][nbsp]If you're (&quot;you&quot; being used in the general term) testing the theory of removal, then it's silly to set up the test under totally different circumstances.[nbsp][nbsp]The issue is whether or not they'll remove you, not whether they'll add a new address.

There is no way they could get theses addresses otherwise so they all were definately a result of the remove requests. Not at all true, although a reasonable assumption.[nbsp][nbsp]As I've said before, I have a paid ISP email account that was heavily spammed before I ever logged on for the first time and I have *never* given that address to anyone.[nbsp][nbsp]To say &quot;there is no way they could get theses addresses otherwise&quot; is quite a leap of faith, and some very unscientific reasoning.[nbsp][nbsp]The math teacher in you let that slide?[nbsp][nbsp];)

Dan

[sheila]

I'll agree that it is not a scientific study (that was further discussed in the newsgroup). And it is true that you can get spam at accounts that are, seemingly, brand new and have never been used.

But, when you sign up for a hotmail, yahoo or aol account, it is quite likely that someone else had that userID before you, and that's why you are getting the spam. Also, they sometimes just try common names and popular email usernames. They use username dictionaries.

I don't think that they really care about bounces. It is too easy to just /dev/null all the bounce messages.

In this particular &quot;experiment&quot;, he made e-mail addresses of the following type:
(quoting from a follow-up post to the discussion in the same thread):
... as the aliases were never used before, infact the account had never ever been used to send mail.

The account was over a month old and had never recieved anything from anyone (spammers included).[nbsp][nbsp]

All the aliases were in the form of NAMEXXXYYY@mysubdomain.myisp where NAME was a random name, XXX a unique number and YYY was random letters.[nbsp][nbsp]This format was choosen as it doesnt fall victim to simple dictionary attacks by spammers.

The facts are I started recieving crap from spam monkeys less than 1 hour after the request were posted AND recieved mail ONLY to the aliases (I would receive all mail addressed to the subdomain regardless of alias used)[nbsp][nbsp]I used is PROOF the addresses they used came ONLY as a result of removal requests.


So, it seems likely to me that a large portion of the spam he started receiving, if not all, came as a result of replying to &quot;remove&quot; instructions.

As for this:

Of course they're going to add a new spammable address to their lists if you send them fresh meat...[nbsp][nbsp]If you're (&quot;you&quot; being used in the general term) testing the theory of removal, then it's silly to set up the test under totally different circumstances.[nbsp][nbsp]The issue is whether or not they'll remove you, not whether they'll add a new address.
It does not follow, that they will &quot;simply add a new address&quot; if you are sending a new address to their &quot;remove&quot; place. That clearly indicates an address that does not want to receive spam. If someone follows the remove instructions, even for an address the spammers didn't previously have, an[nbsp][nbsp]&quot;honorable&quot; spammer <???> would think, hey, they made an honest mistake. I don't have their address yet, but they clearly don't want spam (since they followed the remove instructions), so I shouldn't add them to my list. Maybe they have several different e-mail aliases, and used the wrong one. (Oftentimes in a spam, it is impossible to tell which of your aliases they sent the message to.)

The experiment would have been impossible to interpret, if he had done it with an address that already receives lots of spam. There would have been no way to determine, when a spam came in, if it was from one of those spammers who claimed they would remove you, but didn't honor the request. Nor, would there be any way to tell if the spam was a result of an address &quot;confirmed&quot; via a remove request.

Really, his &quot;experiment&quot; was about the best one can hope for.

By the way. I have an email account at gte.net (my ISP account) and I have never received a single spam (except from gte themselves) on that account in two years. I've never used the address either. It is a strange combination of letters, that doesn't spell any name or recognizable word.

[sheila]

Here's what one legitimate webmaster who runs their own business has done, after something like a joe-job:
http://www.art-cards.com/