> How does it work that I don't see a return address, and >when I hit reply, it shows a blank "to" field. But, the revealed header >shows an address to reply to.
It might not be that they are being sneaky... rather that they screwed something up in their mass email spam software. If you look at the From address in the header, you will notice a missing trailing ">". This could be causeing Emailer confusion in parsing the address, and so it is dropping it out. But when it comes to spam, any thought spent figuring out their logic is wasted thought entirely. I have found that in some cases, a repeat spam list that has a web site URL for unsubscribing, and has clearly definable from headers... usually honors the remove requests (they all seem to claim that you signed up for the list in the first place, which is a crock usually, but at least they usually honor the removal). However, any that give the reply to this email address are usually either pointing to a non existant address, or using that to clean their lists for known good addresses (whoever replies, is a live person, and has shown that they open spam). Forwarding to any of the spam patrol orgs, or sending to an ISP, tends to do nothing (and in many cases, such as the spam patrol groups, usually does more harm than good). Any complaint emails you send back to the source are falling on deaf ears. If they cared about spamming, they wouldn't have done it in the first place. And most ISPs don't give a crap either. Too much effort to track down and stop these people. No, I have found the most effective method of dealing with spam... learn to live with it, and learn careful spam avoidence tactics. (such as, get multiple free email addresses, and use different addresses for different purposes. Such as, get one that is a "spam" address. Use it for things where you need to give an address, but you are certain they will later spam you, or sell it to others. That way, you can route everything in that address to trash EXCEPT when you are waiting for a particular email. Same idea applies to online purchases, lists, and other stuff.) I have dozens of addresses, I use them all for their own reason, and I have almost no spam that bothers me. Not because I am not on lists, I am on TONS of lists, but because I give out addresses to places likely to spam me, and then route those addys to the trash (or mark them in certain ways that I can do quick scans for wanted stuff). I also NEVER follow links people send me for "take a look at this joke, or come see my kids pics". The only time I follow the links is when the link is clearly readable, and clearly has no info that can be used to track who I am. And of course, I threaten with death any of my friends if they dare put my address into one of those types of web sites in the first place (the last anti-spam tactic only works if your friends actually fear you just might kill them and feed their body parts to the neighbors dog) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net> ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
