R�ponse suit --- chris a �crit de l'adresse <mailto: "chris" [EMAIL PROTECTED]> le 24/9/04 16:07 (+0200):
>>Is it possible for someone to retaliate a spammer by writing a program >>that would send back hundreds of messages upon receipt of a spam. In >>other words make them suffer at their own game. > >No, because spammers don't use real email addresses. So you would be >flooding either someone innocent, or an ignored address (like a Hotmail >address setup specifically to to send spam), or you mind find yourself >faced with a flood of bounces coming back telling you the address doesn't >exist at all. > >Basically there is one thing and one thing only that will stop spammers. >Smashing them in the head with baseball bats. Since that isn't legal >(moral is questionable once you have wasted enough time combatting them), >there isn't much to be done except hope that the companies with really >deep pockets like MS and AOL and Earthlink can start to scare enough of >them to lighten their numbers. But that is doubtful as laws never stop >criminals and scumbags. > >As long as their is money to be made from spamming, they won't go away. >If you can figure out some way to prevent them from making money, there >are MANY MANY MANY MANY people that would love to know. Spammers need email addresses to send spam, however Someone has gone through the circle of email address collection methods of spammers (objective is either to protect your address or to trick the spammer). You may want to look there <http://www.private.org.il/harvest.html> Luckily we are not using windows systems, where the windows messaging system is now target for spammers and defensive devices may be needed <http://grc.com/stm/ShootTheMessenger.htm> With regards to harvesters, which visit websites and harvest from there scores of innocent email addresses, you may want to send back hundreds of fake email addresses upon visit of a spammer's harvester This retaliation system, called "WebPoison" is intended to flood the spammer's harvester with scores of randomly generated fake email addresses for him to eat and use. Of course, it does not do any damage to genuine web robots which respect the signposts "visiting permitted" / "do not visit" I wonder if someone on the list has got any feedback on this <http://www.monkeys.com/wpoison/> -- Jean-Pierre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
