Ben, It makes sense when there is a legitimate product offered for sale in the spam email but what about the emails that just have a link with no text, or a bunch of nonsense, or I have even seen some with no link at all. Just seems like the intent is to piss people off but what is the financial gain?
Sam On 9/5/12 2:19 PM, Ben Okopnik wrote: > Hi, Sam - > > On Wed, Sep 05, 2012 at 01:45:51PM -0400, Sam Densler wrote: >> OK Ben, a question for you... >> >> Other than being a pain In the butt, what benefit do these type of spammers >> derive from such an activity. I understand some of the hoaxes that get >> folks to give up username and password for bank accounts and PayPal, but >> what was to be gained with an email like they sent from Norm or the >> continuous barrage of Viagra emails? Does anybody actually try to buy >> Viagra from an email? >> >> Doesn't make sense to me... > > The key is essentially a zero replication cost: it costs a spammer the > same amount to send 1,000,000 emails as it does to send one, and takes > about the same effort. From the seller's end, if it costs him (let's > say) $100 to advertise to 1,000,000 people, and one in a hundred > thousand is stupid/crazy/ignorant/whatever to buy, that's 10 customers. > Profit margin on Viagra (made license-free in India) is probably 75% on, > what, a $100 order? There's $650 profit - plenty to spread around. > > Lots of criminal organizations in Russia, Poland, etc. getting rich off > that very business these days. The actual technical side of spamming, > that is. > > > Ben > -- **************************** Sam Densler Songwriters Island Radio www.songwriters-island.com S/V Lady of the Lake PDQ 36, Hull #15 Punta Gorda, FL http://www.islandfx.com/lady **************************** "If you ever wonder why you ride the carousel, you do it for the stories you can tell." Jimmy Buffett "Stories We Could Tell" A1A _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
