Is is OK to spam the spammers?

[motorwatchercounter]

Hi all,

A bit of a moral (or should that be morale) question.

Is it OK to spam spammers? I don't recommend emailing direct or emailing the "unsubscribe" link as this proves you exist.

Using anonymous bulk email senders and email harvesters what are your thoughts on spamming back? I know that most spams look as though they are from somewhere they are not but most have a link to a site where the real culprits can be found. Using an email harvester it is easy to get emails which can be validated which are from the guilty. Using anonymous bulk email senders it is easy to send them "several" :wink: emails back.

BTW - I am not fussed about the legal standings on it.

Maybe I have too much time on my hands but what are your thoughts please?

:lol:

[webado]

I have felt murderous at times against this scum. I have felt almost invincible in my crusades. I have entertained visions of mass destruction of all spammers, crooks and creeps.

I don't need any one of my organs, private or public, enlarged, though their imbecilic campaigns ensure that at least my blood pressure shoots up, probably due to constrictions in various blood vessels, therefore almost calling for enlargement procedures for same.

I don't need fool-proof, legal, moral and ethical get-rich quick schemes. If there had been any that worked, like diets, I'd have found them before, they aren't any smarter than MOI!

Speaking of diets, they don't work either :cry:

I don't get my jollies form the Hilton gals antics, nor their male counterparts. Maybe if they put them all together in one video ... Nah... Gross! Perish the thought! Ugh!

So yeah, spam them back. Better, hack their damn sites and hidey-holes, pour kerosene on them and set them ablaze in one great ball of inferno.

Phew! I feel better already! :lol:

[motorwatchercounter]

.....I don't need any one of my organs, private or public, enlarged....

Thats where we differ :wink:

Reading that made me scared. Wow I love a dominant woman (sorry China). You didn't vote but errrr, thats Ok, no really.

Can I take it that you agree :wink:

The numbers add up as well. If they have sent out 10,000 emails today and we all send 10,000 back we could cure unemployment forever as they would have to employ people to clean up the server. Also as you can normally respond to several people in the company they can come in to a nice, full inbox every day.

:lol:

[China Tea]

What motorwatcher? You don't think I am dominant? I, despite my name, AM DOMINANT!. I was born to conquer foreign lands and foreign males!!! :roll:

And YES, SPAM THE SPAMMERS :x I am always cleaning up the mess they leave everyday in my mailbox. I received like 40 - 85 mails a
day but fortunately, Yahoo pre-categorizes them and bulk them for the trash so I do not get to see all their "causes" like, errrrr. . . the enlargement of parts, private and exposed. . .

YES, SPAM THE SPAMMERS!!!! :evil:

And motorwatcher, I still like you :P even if if you don't think I am dominant! :roll:

China Tea

[Peg-as-is]

You forgot a choice. *g* I don't like spammers, but I'll be darned if I'll stoop to their level of intelligence. Spamming the spammers, as was recently discovered, doesn't work. There was something about a screensaver that sent messages to a known spammer every time it was activated. I'm not sure how that worked, but .exe files don't work on OSX, so I couldn't find out for sure.

Is it okay to spam spammers? Only if you want to be considered no better than they are.

Peg

[China Tea]

And Christina,


That was such a catharsis, eh!

I felt every word you said... I applauded too and my cats were so annoyed at me for being so loud!

And Motorwatcher likes you . . . because . . . you speak YOUR MIND!!!!

And I like you too. . . I wil be your campaign manager or water girl
:roll: when you run for office!!

[motorwatchercounter]

What motorwatcher? You don't think I am dominant? I, despite my name, AM DOMINANT!. I was born to conquer foreign lands and foreign males!!! :roll:

I am not foreign, I am English :wink:

I have never had a ****ra email. Strange but true. Maybe they know about me.

What started this was an email for contact lens' with a spoof return address. I was p***d off that the subject said "Visit here" I only take orders from my mother (possibly Christina and China). I don't wear them so don't invade me. I have harvested their email's but, as Peg-as-is says, Will it make me as bad as them. Or worse, will I get some sadistic, almost sexual pleasure out of it? Will I need to order some of those pills. At my age a cup of hot milk would do.

[webado]

LOL! Contact lenses? Why don't I get that kind of spam?
You want some ****ra spam? Cialis? I'll make sure to forward some then :lol:

[motorwatchercounter]

...I don't get my jollies form the Hilton gals antics.....

Errrrrrrr. Have you got the URL for this please :wink:






Just kidding. I like class not brass. :lol:

[webado]

No, got that permanently blocked with a filter on Hilton anything. So too bad if I miss a great vacation package somewehre ......

If I had but known, I'd have saved some for you :lol:

[Peg-as-is]

While I don't get the ****ra ones any more, or not as many, I can't say as I've gotten so low, so to speak, as to get a Hilton girls one. But I'm getting there.

The ones I get a giggle from are the ones that have "Your wife is sleeping around on you" for a subject. I know Canada permits same-sex marriages, but I can't say as that's something I'd consider doing myself. And that's about the only way I could have a 'wife'.

Come to think of it, I get the most spam with my web-based email address. The account I have with my ISP nets me maybe 2 in as many years. If that. *lol* We'll see what happens when I switch the email addy on my site to my website address, though. I suspect the first thing I'll have to do is figure out how to set the filters for it. *g*

Peg

[webado]

I'm not posting my web site addy on my site or anywhere visible, even if not machine-readable. I use email forms with an anti-spam script. I'm not getting spam to my website addy, though I do use it a lot. But never on forums and such places.

I naturally get spam to my uahoo and hotmail addy (thats' what they are there) though it gets filtered to the junk folder geenrally.

More disturbing is that we get a lot of spam to our ISP's email addresses, sicne there is no adequate filtering in palce. It can only filter by domain, but that's no good. So for the wors account we have I use mail Washer.

WHat gets me is serious companies like the telephone and others on whose mailing list I have to be because of billing and such, who end up losing, giving or selling their mailing list to spammers. They don't allow the use of a hotmail or yahoo account in the first place, so I'm forced to accept to be on all sorts of spammers lists. That's about the only way I figure how I got there.

Of course there are spammers who generate random sequences of email addresses at the same ISP and are bound to hit somebody.

[Peg-as-is]

I've got a javascript code that I use for my email address on my website. So far, it seems to have worked. I'm trying to learn the backend stuff of web design, too, so adding a filter, or creating one, is only part of my 'learning'. I haven't tried an email form yet, but that might be a thought, too. I'll keep it in mind for future incarnations of the site.

It's odd that your ISP doesn't have an email filter in place. Most of them do these days. Maybe that's something you could take up with the ISP? If they get enough email/phone calls/whatever about getting a filter, maybe they'll install one. Can't hurt to ask.

I've been lucky so far. None of the people I do business with on-line sell their mailing lists to others. Oh, one might, but there was an opt-out clause/check box and I clicked on that. I don't normally include my email address for other companies. *g* Cuts down on the junk a bit.

Peg

[webado]

My ISP is none other than Sympatico. Their filters are by full email or by domain from what I've seen.

[Peg-as-is]

Ah! That explains it. I used to be with Sympatico through SaskTel. They switched a few years ago, got their own ISP stuff going and I haven't had any problems since.

Hmmm... if you're interested, I think SaskTel does offer Internet service in other provinces. I know they have a... I'm not sure if it's a switcher or what, but sometimes my server address changes to one out of Ottawa, as part of the SaskTel Network.

I could check it out for you, if you like. Or you could visit http://www.sasktel.com/outsourcing/

Peg

[webado]

Oh, thanks, but I'll stick with them. The internet service is generally good, email is wonky a bit. I also have a one-year contract with them at a reduced rate and I can't break it. Got a heavy discount because of problems I had with my line a little while ago and numerous complaints I'd lodged. They lowered my price a lot as a sweetener. :lol:

I doubt however we should have any other providers in my area. We just have Sympatico (phone ADSL) and Videotron (cable). I remember looking at others that seemed to be cheaper and there was always this footnote: Excluding Quebec or Excluding Montreal Metropolitan area.... We must be special :?

[geekgirl]

You might like to read this http://www.419eater.com/html/letters.htm it is pretty funny. Read 'the tale of the painted breast' I found that one highly amusing. I wouldn't get into doing this myself but I found it damn funny to read about.

So people are out there doing it for us.

Cheers Alison.

[motorwatchercounter]

I read the first two. Made me laugh out loud.

:lol:

[crusty]

I was getting some spam e-mail and I kept adding them to my blocked sender's list. The problem was that they were spoofing the sender's e-mail address. It was like 1324joe@xxx.com (fictitious address - appologies if it's real!), each time using a different random number. I got really annoyed and did a google search on some of the details in the message. I was able to track down a real e-mail address and sent the guy a nasty e-mail. I played his game and I spoofed the return e-mail address: f***@you.a**hole - just to show him he could get back what he dished out. I recieved no more spam from him, so I guessed it worked.

[Proteus]

You might like to read this http://www.419eater.com/html/letters.htm it is pretty funny. Read 'the tale of the painted breast' I found that one highly amusing. I wouldn't get into doing this myself but I found it damn funny to read about.

So people are out there doing it for us.

Cheers Alison.

I became addicted to that site!...

Look what those guys are doing to scammers:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6736004558


:wink: Applause!, Applause!

[motorwatchercounter]

I sent www.419eater.com an idea last night. They have a section where you can send in tips. I also read a few more. Excellent site.

Christina,
At least one of yoiur emails comes up if you harvest this site.

Just to explain I was testing the software and seeing if I showed. I DID NOT save any search. Once it grabbed a few emails I turned it off. Let me say that it DOES NOT grab emails stored in the Statcounter database only those that see to have been entered in questions or replys. Your personal data is safe here.

[webado]

There's one of my emails where?

[sb1234]

I am not trying to spam here but this guy I think has done some of those Nigerian Email scammers some "spam" back, and is winning (while having fun).

http://www.419eater.com/

I think there should be more like it. Maybe it would do some good to stop emails.

[Annied]

http://www.419eater.com/

That guy certainly has some patience! (And a lot of time on his hands!) I'll definitely be going back to read some more too.

I gave up on spam and ended up re-routing all the domain email addies that appear on my website to Yahoo. Let them take the strain of disposing of the spam. I now have another email addie strictly for friends and family, which appears nowhere and doesn't attract any spam.

I did retaliate a couple of years ago however, when I started getting spammers contacting my two Siamese cats who have their own email address. It was fun coming up with the replies (www.catsup.co.uk/junkemail.htm)

[webado]

LOL! That's so cute! :lol:

[hdtvtechno]

i use http://www.spamcop.net/anonsignup.shtml and it works great, i am getting less and less emails now, and i also send the spam email to the goverment which the email is my website at http://hdtvtechno.netfirms.com/antispam.html