24/01/04 chris : >>I'm just curious what the point is. Can anyone tell me what the spammers >>are trying to accomplish? I get several like this every day, with just a >>bunch of unrelated words and no invitation to buy anything. > >I've always assumed it was to test for valid email addresses. People >would reply with a WTF? response, and prove to the spammer that the >address is good and the people read all their junk.
If the original spam had a return-path (maybe those "benign" ones do?), no user answer would be necessary to confirm the address: every address that doesn't trigger a "bad address" reply from a server that does issue such replies is valid (ie if I send something to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and it barks, then I know that [EMAIL PROTECTED] is valid if it doesn't bark). >Of course, I'm not sure of the logic of that compared to just sending the >spam ad directly... It may be spammers refining their listing to reduce the cost and time of sending to bad addresses, or meta-spammers collecting addresses to sell to spammers. Just thinking: the many businesses that use them aren't the problem (they would't have the skills), and there doesn't seem to be a lot of really massive spammers (those technically skilled), most of them would probably fit in Guantanamo Bay. ---- VRic ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
