in reply to Re: Re: OT: Spam protection
in thread OT: Spam protection

Whilst it is true that you will block that one email address, and therefore never receive (or at least see) stuff from that source again, the fact that you have responded means that your email address in live.

So, not only will that spammer ensure that he spams you from the next 10 50 100 email addresses he creates for his spamming, the fact that he can list a response from that address along with the address, means that he can charge premium rates for it when he sells it as a "known live" address to other spammers.

Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -Richard Buckminster Fuller


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Re: Re: Re: Re: OT: Spam protection
by perrin (Chancellor) on Jun 10, 2003 at 15:35 UTC
    So what? The spammer will never respond to your challenge mail, so you will never see any of his spam. That's the purpose of this exercise.
[reply]

      So what?

      Fair point I suppose. You get one, you respond, it illicites 10 more, you respond, it illicites 100, you respond....

      You'll never see them granted, but you're sure wasting an aweful lot of cycles and bandwidth. Still, you'll probably never notice, so what the hey...

      Examine what is said, not who speaks.
      "Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
      "When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -Richard Buckminster Fuller


[reply]
        Almost none of the spam that I get has a valid return address. If I sent responses to all of them, I think at least 95% of it would bounce. Spammers check validity of e-mail addresses with HTML mail that loads web-bug images, not by checking for responses. That's why the "take me off this list" address that they include sometimes (which is to troll for live addresses) is always a different address from the return address.
[reply]

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