On Thu, 6 May 2004, Jeff Chan wrote:
> On Thursday, May 6, 2004, 9:39:09 PM, Robert Menschel wrote:
> > I'm thinking that I should take that URI, cut and paste and modify it in
> > my browser, and go to something like:
> >> http://rmvs.com/r.asp?123456&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&H
> > Note that I modified the email address so it no longer points at the
> > original destination address, but instead to a honeypot (which actually
> > won't be named anything so obvious). The domain would be one from which I
> > can retrieve the honeypot.
[snip..]
> > Since [EMAIL PROTECTED] is an address never used for any other
> > purpose, and since the only time this address is placed into a website's
> > system is to *unsubscribe*, any emails sent to that address will by
> > definition be spam (with the possible exception of a first
> > "confirmation").
>
> This sounds ok to me except that a legitimate mailing list server
> would also usually respond with a confirmation, etc.
No, a truely legitimate mailing list server would know what its
membership is and would tell you "name not found on our list" when
you attempt to 'unsubscrbe' that made up honeypot address.
Even if the unsubscribe is a batch, they still should know the
honeypot address is not valid and not "confirm" its removal. Maybe
sent an error note but nothing more.
I do almost exactly the same thing as Bob Menschel, and once in a
blue moon do get a "name not found" when trying to 'unsubscrbe' the
tagged honeypot address.
The interesting thing is to see where those tagged addresses show up.
It's clearly the case that spammers sell address lists to each other.
So spammer 'A' may truely honor his unsubscribe requests and never
send you another spam, but they'll sell your name to others so it
will then start getting spam from 'B', 'C',...
My current record is 2 hours from unsubscribe to spam from others. ;)
--
Dave Funk University of Iowa
<dbfunk (at) engineering.uiowa.edu> College of Engineering
319/335-5751 FAX: 319/384-0549 1256 Seamans Center
Sys_admin/Postmaster/cell_admin Iowa City, IA 52242-1527
#include <std_disclaimer.h>
Better is not better, 'standard' is better. B{
