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Email Spam, etc.

KY Chris

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Louisville, KY
This is more of a frustrated rant than anything, because I know that it happens to everyone. Spam is really pissing me off. I get probably 50 spam emails a day in my hotmail account. I have set all of my filters to catch the most obvious subjects, but it still doesn't seem to do anything. Is there anyway to block a message based on the actual content of the email, not just the subject or sender. Some of these practices have got to be illegal. I get mad spam from the same crappy companies over and over again from legitimate sounding email addresses with legit sounding subjects. Short of setting my email to receive only from people in my address book, I don't know what to do. Who feels my pain. I have tried the unsubscribe links, which of course don't work. Can you go after these companies specifically?
 
I feel your pain! Although most are filtered for me a few companies keep sending the same e-mails but just change the name who they're from so even though I designate that they're junk, I still receive them. Also odd is that they end up on the bottom of my inbox. Shifty practices if ya ask me.

Jes
 
<grin> and you've figured out one of the major reasons that I don't have a Hotmail account. </grin> I'm up to 10-20 per day, on a 7 year old email account.

More than a few of the good **ix tools use Bayesian filters to sniff content to see if it smells like spam. I'd suspect that there are some Windows implementations now.

The spammers are seriously taking advantage of the fact that 'net email was built assuming that we're all members of one big happy family. 'taint so, Verne. And because bulk email is so cheap compared to telemarketing or bulk mail, there's literally no downside. And the FCC and other agencies just can't keep up with the fraud, Ponzi schemes, etc. The news yesterday reported that 2/3 of unsolicitied commercial email contains fraudulent To:, Subject:, or other "illegal" stuff.

I demonstrated to the project manager here a year ago how easy it was to forge an email to him from [email protected] that would fool 99% of the people. With a little more work (forging additional headers) it'd be almost impossible to trace.

ChiXJeff
 
WI88XJ said:
I sure wish you'd teach me how to do that, Chxjeff. I've got a boss that I'd like to see quit his job......:laugh:

<grin> I *WON'T* tell you how to do it.... </grin>

Read Internet RFC for SMTP and learn to use Telnet.

BTW, the entire demonstration for forging the mail took about 20 seconds of moderately fast typing.

Edit: There's another technique that can be used to get spam through mail filters, it ends up looking like a message you sent bounced and gets returned to you.

ChiXJeff
 
ChiXJeff said:
<grin> I *WON'T* tell you how to do it.... </grin>

Read Internet RFC for SMTP and learn to use Telnet. (second edit: yes, I know, I picked the absolute earliest RFC, and it's been outdated.)

BTW, the entire demonstration for forging the mail took about 20 seconds of moderately fast typing.

Edit: There's another technique that can be used to get spam through mail filters, it ends up looking like a message you sent bounced and gets returned to you.

ChiXJeff
 
A great many people feel your pain. See link:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/04/30/fighting.spam.ap/index.html

Might be time to push your own state to enact a similar law, although Connecticut has had a law against junk fax for many years but no staff to enforce it, so I don't know how they could handle this.

Hotmail has an option to allow you to block not just a sender's address but the entire sender's ISP -- if you look at a bunch of spam, you'll see many "senders" are similar names followed by random numbers. Just blocking the sender doesn't do anything, but blocking the ISP helps.

Also, watch out for any e-mail that purports to come from "you." That's generally the phony "return to sender" ploy. And watch out for e-mails with your name in the address line -- spelled incorrectly. That's probably easier for me, because my name isn't a common spelling so they usually "correct" it -- a red flag every time.

If you use AT&T, you can add a sender to their spam filter by forwarding the e-mail to

[email protected]
 
ChiXJeff said:
Edit: There's another technique that can be used to get spam through mail filters, it ends up looking like a message you sent bounced and gets returned to you.

ChiXJeff

Hmmm, it wouldn't be this one would it??:
INVALID_ADDRESS@ .SYNTAX-ERROR.

Honestly, this is almost the only one that makes it through my Yahoo account on a regular basis. Once a week or so.
 
Ronbo said:
Hmmm, it wouldn't be this one would it??:
INVALID_ADDRESS@ .SYNTAX-ERROR.

Honestly, this is almost the only one that makes it through my Yahoo account on a regular basis. Once a week or so.

I haven't seen that particular address, but that really doesn't mean anything.

The spammer in this case relies on an unsecured mail gateway (also called a forwarder.) He puts the real destination address as the From: header, and a purposely bogus address in the To: header. The gateway tries to deliver it, and the message gets "bounced" back to the sender which is you.

ChiXJeff
 
They also get your address thru unscruplious admins that sell their uid's. My fist account is about 13 years old and I am up to about 20 spams per day, My isp uses spamgard the tags the subject line with *spamgrd* and I dump it into trash. Generally go thru that every couple of days for any bad calls but thats pretty low. I also wrote filters for my netscape client and all in all not bad. I also create new email accounts on my web server, then delete them when the noise gets too high.
 
Ya - I get all those ads, and I think I'd not mind actually losing some hair (I gotta get it cut every other damn week, and it gets HOT up there!)

The rest of the stuff I just don't need - my penis works just fine thank you very much...

I don't use the "unsub" links - that just calls attention to the fact that it's a live account. I have a "public" account and a "private" account - the public gets all the spam and is listed everywhere, and the private email addy has gone to about two dozen people. There is also a "really terribly private" that I've had for four years, is known as an addy to about eight people, and I only have traffic on it when something happens. The people that have the addy are under orders to NEVER EVER give it out - if I think someone needs it, I will give it to them. It's worked so far...

My favourite lately is getting spam on "Sick of Spam?" Of course, you damn fool - so why are you adding to the pile?

5-90
 
Beezil said:
How do they know that I suffer from hair loss, need a penis enlargement, and may be interested in a lower mortgage rate?

amazing.

You left out breast enhancement. :)
 
He also left out Viagra by mail.
 
I finally gave up one email acct because all it did was fill up on a daily vasis. I've also given up a couple of online "freinds" that felt like they needed to FWD me every little joke or email that says 'Forward this or..."
 
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