On Sun, 6 Aug 2000 03:42:23 -0400 (EDT), Thomas Mueller wrote:
> Spammers probably know much more than me how to hide their
> tracks, but spam figures to become less profitable as Internet
> users see something that looks like spam and don't consider
> the offer no matter how attractive it might look.
Being a listowner, I probably received more spams daily than
most of you (except Michael off course). Some of them were
sent by using remailer, these usually untrackable, because
the original "Receive:" headers were stripped in the jurney.
Most of the spammer ain't that sophisticated, though. They
just open a free email account and use it as return address
to send out their spams. For this type of spams, you could
use the forms at the following site to automatically create
abuse reports:
http://www.spamcop.net/
For their spams to be effective, most of them eventually
ended in a a promotional website. At the extreme end,
probably you want to bring this site down as well, by
complaining to the hosting service. This will render the
initial spam useless. However, newer spams tends to end
at an US 1-800 phone number. Apparently there's nothing
you can do about this one, instead of passive boycott:
*Never* call these numbers!
It's a good chance that they harvest your phone's caller-
ID as well...
Among the spams, there were some that actually promoting
spamming itself:
* Get rich quick scams using chain-email methods
(tell-your-friend/refferal pyramid scheme types)
* Bulk email promotional service offerings (some
boast zero complains to your address)
* Huge amounts of harvested email addresses on CDs
* Bulk emailer software offerings
* Email harvester (spambot) software offerings
* And so on... :(
The most annoying part is that some of that spams including
an US law cited as legalize spamming. Guess these idiots
mistakenly assuming that the whole planet Earth is under US
colonization <g>. Ironically, these "legal" footnotes stated
that spamming is allowed as long as a removal address is
provided, but they provide an US 1-800 phone number instead
of internet address. Hey, calling US's 1-800 is *not* free
from the rest of the world!
> Or maybe companies that use telemarketing figure it profitable
> even with 1 favorable response out of 100?
Sadly, if the 100 is 1 million or so, then even 1% out of it is
still commercially reasonable. That's why bulk email promoters
boasted their miserable service as "it's work". It really work.
We can't guarantee that all of the victims ain't a peeping tom!
BTW, I heard that spammers also using postal mail in the US?
Is this true?
--Eko
http://survpc.virtualave.net/
