OT: Spam
 

Hey all, I just received a spam email from wjopcpatrocities@rima***** It is bad enough that these low life SOB's, and they are SOB's, need to spam us about the crap they are trying sell, promote, or otherwise dump onto the public, but now they have to "STEAL" a persons name to do it?

What to do now to stop or otherwise limit these SOB's? Oh no, responding to them is not an option.

I think I will report them to MSN, see what they will do about it. Probably nothing.

[ February 21, 2003, 01:56: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Re: OT: Spam
 

Maybe they would like to hear about it.
Microsoft Fights Spam With Subpoenas

Update: Suit against Hotmail address harvesters is the first of several.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109445,00.asp
:: Caution ::
There might be pop ups ::

Re: OT: Spam
 

Thanks. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: Spam
 

Honestly with a whois lookup and other tools, you can find out who owns the address, and then report them to their ISP, and if the ISP is smart, they will yank them.

Re: OT: Spam
 

The problem is, "They are" the ISP. Its easy, they open a bajillion email accounts, using hijacked email address, and then bulk email them from there own ISP, or Webserver. The name thing is a direct issue related to something that happened to MSN hotmail. It was hacked, and the email addresses were taken, according to the link that gryphin posted. Tis sicking, but that is life on the internet.

Re: OT: Spam
 

ya, there's a lot of low-life out there spamming. I have all sorts of filters and they still get through. Every time I open my email I have to delete half a dozen or more spams. i bet I get about 20 a day at least. It's a huge pain.

the ones I hate worst are the stealth type that pretend to be a friend or a business order confirmation. Like subjects:

Tenryu! Hey old friend, how ya been?!

or

Your order confirmation.

Then you open the crap and it's some BS-scum-bag-rat-turd toilet licking slime mold trying to sell you crap. {Sincere apologies to everyday slime molds which are several evolutionary levels above the spammers}

Re: OT: Spam
 

Personally I think the only real solution is to have e-mail programs have a feature called "Keep-filter" the exact opposite of a "kill-filter". you add the e-mails you accept to it. Any and everything else gets automatically deleted! Voila no more spam, unless it's from someone you know! Basically a "IF not someone I know THEN delete!" feature.

It's not a perfect solution, but it would certainly help in my case. I too get tons of spam, and I have close to 1000 kill filters and I make it a habbit to kill the host not the sender. ie anysender: @xyz.com as opposed to anysender: itsmethecat@xyz.com. and I still get 10-20 spam/day. about 4-6 get through my filters and get thrown into my kill file! increasing the number of kill-filters I have.

Oh, and reporting to msn yahoo, hotmail etc might get the sending address canned but the user just creates a new account. dungheap0002@msn 0003, 0004, etc! it never ends!

just MHO! Cheers!

P.S. another thing, it's very easy to send e-mail and change the name of the sender to anything you like. I could send an e-mail and mark the return address as thisisafakename@nowherenearhere.com and it would get sent without so much as a error message to say it's an invalid 'sender' address! This is another possible avenue to 'correct' in order to avoid spam! But I digress, sorry!

[ February 21, 2003, 14:28: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

Re: OT: Spam
 

I went after bell nexxia and won... As I informed Bell canada that I would be charging 7.95 per email from nexxia ( owned by bell ) because of Caps placed on by sympatico ( owned by bell ).
Now no spam from them.

Re: OT: Spam
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">so i found out. imagine my surprise when i started getting spam from myself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: Spam
 

Different artical
ISPs Escalate War on Spam

AOL joins Microsoft in new, tougher efforts to squash spam.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...022003X,00.asp

:: Caution, Pop ups ::

Re: OT: Spam
 

Some spam filter software from a recent issue of "Maximum PC" magazine:

Spam Gourmet weblink
POPfile weblink

And there's an open-source tool called "Tagged Message Delivery Agent" that can be installed on mail servers and acts as a blacklist/whitelist. One of the functions it can do is hold the first message from a given e-ddress, send a message back to that e-ddress requesting a reply to confirm identity. If/when such a reply is received, that e-ddress is added to the "whitelist". URL for TMDA is:

Tagged Message Delivery Agent weblink

Re: OT: Spam
 

I got a great book that addresses spam, computer security, etc. Its called "Steal This Computer Book" 2nd Ed. Its great, it has a CD with a lot of neato tools, and a guide to fight back against spammers (how to lookup the ISP, get the spammer's address, etc). Id reccomend it for anyone slightly interested in computer security stuff (It is not very technical, it assumes that you know how to use the basic tools on a computer, and thats it)

Re: OT: Spam
 

An artical about students "renting" their pcs to be used as spam.
http://www.techinformer.com/go.cgi?id=787939
Caution, there could be pop ups.

Re: OT: Spam
 

Another Artical about what the FTC is doing:
FTC to Hold Three Day Public Spam Workshop
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/02/spamforum.htm

Re: OT: Spam
 

Thanks you for posting the links. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: Spam
 

no spam e-mail reccomendation: www.graffiti.net
a friend of mine told me and i didnt believe. i've been there for a year now, not a SINGLE spam.

atrocities: i doubt its an actual e-mail address, i think it is a script that looks for e-mail address and makes the adress it "sends" it from similar to yours. i got a couple of these on Hotmal too. that was a while ago http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif when i began getting 100-200 spam A DAY i left Hotmail.

Re: OT: Spam
 

Antivirus Vendors Sink Their Teeth Into Spam

They may know how to protect your PC, but can they stop the onslaught of spam?

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...030503X,00.asp
Caution: Pop ups

Re: OT: Spam
 

I've just managed to get rid of a very annoying and invasive form of spam that uses the network messaging functions of winxp to popup Messages on my desktop.

Thanks Microsoft for leaving that door into my PC wide open in the first place... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: OT: Spam
 

"Why Are You Getting So Much Spam?

Find out where spammers get your address and how you can hide it."
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...031903X,00.asp
A Study on Spam and a few suggestions on how to avoid or reduce it.
Caution: Pop Ups.

[ March 20, 2003, 12:29: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

Re: OT: Spam
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Be warned - it's usually just a matter of time. I had an Erols account for awhile. After I began to get drowned in spam I switched to Juno. I didn't have any spam for almost 3 years. Now I'm starting to get 3-5 spams a day, with a slow increase in the number. Switching providers is a short-term solution at best, I've found.

Re: OT: Spam
 

You have to remove your self from the email service's "white pages" service. Then, spammers can not get your address just by sending emails to everyone in the member directory.

Re: OT: Spam
 

i just ignore them, and it never gets that bad.

Re: OT: Spam
 

AOL TAKES SPAMMERS TO COURT
Defendants sent about 1 billion spam Messages, report says.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...041503X,00.asp

There may be pop ups.

Re: OT: Spam
 

I get the ones with an address CLOSE to my address and some not even in the neighborhood http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

I hate POP-UPs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: OT: Spam
 

AOL TAKES SPAMMERS TO COURT
Defendants sent about 1 billion spam Messages, report says.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...041503X,00.asp

There may be pop ups.

Gryphin

THe Irony is just killing me....

And good one on the popups... Another bit of Irony...

Re: OT: Spam
 

Tesco
The real Irony is when the various editors tout the various anti popup software.
I don't consider popups that stay at a site spam. it is the ones that invade my system when I'm not even at the sending site.

Re: OT: Spam
 

At work, several of our Users will call me and say that they clicked the 'UnSubscribe' link about a gazillion times. But the spam has only INCREASED instead of decreasing. LOL. Sorry, gentle user. That link really means: We got one! We got one! This is a valid email address, and not only that, they actually read the entire message. Let's send this person lots more spam!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: Spam
 

"Click" Close
.
.
"Click" Delete
.
.
Take that!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: OT: Spam
 

FTC moves to shut down porn spam operation
http://www.techinformer.com/go.cgi?id=798436
There may be popups.

I have shown several of my Users how to use the filter in Outlook. Unfortunately one person sucessfuly sent everything in her Inbox to the trash.

Ok, yes barbara, we can restore your email but anything from today will not be there. No Barbara I ...

Re: OT: Spam
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Been there done ALMOST that drive died http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: OT: Spam
 

Here is some software I use to get rid of/minimize spam - and I get about 20 spam mails every day.

First the pop-up’s. They get rather annoying especially the ones that, when you close them, open about 10000000 more pop-up’s. I use Pop-up Stopper from Lavasoft. This is not commercial for them because they have a free working Version you can D/L from their site. I use aggressive pop-up control that blocks ALL new Explorer windows from opening. You can turn it on/off just by double clicking on icon in taskbar and open desired link in a new window by holding space. Once you get used to it you can't live without it, trust me. You can find it on www.panicware.com .

Another great tool is for e-mails. I use Mailwasher, which is completely freeware, and I warmly recommend this to anyone. It enables you to get list of all mail you have on your mail server without actually downloading any of the stuff. You can see even the preview of the message (no images) from there to check if it’s a spam mail. Of course it has blacklist and friends list. It also checks e-mail addresses of all senders on Spam Cop black lists and similar sites to decide if its possible spam. The usage is very simple - you simply select the check box delete for all Messages you want to delete from server and *this is good* you can BOUNCE those Messages back (also checkbox). Bouncing means that sender receives authentic e-mail that says that your mail address is not valid (you can try this by sending e-mail to yourself and then bouncing it). Program will automatically select all Messages that were sent from blacklisted Messages (Spam Cop’s or yours blacklist) and all you need to do is press process. Once you have pressed process, the program will delete and bounce all the mail you have selected and open Outlook Express so you can get rest of the e-mails from server (note. he wont open OE if there is no more mail). All this reading, bouncing and deleting is done directly from the pop3 server. There are more features but I can't remember it now (ah yes, one of them is checking your mail every xx minutes).

This baby is so easy and useful to use that I find it hard to believe its FREEWARE. Also, there are some other benefits that this program introduces:
- Since you don’t actually download any of the mail with this program, you can check if this mail is possible worm/virus and safely delete it.
- You can see the size of mail/attachments and delete it from server without having to download some large not needed/useless e-mail file attachments.

The link to Mailwasher is www.mailwasher.net.

I hope you guys will find some of this info useful.

[ April 19, 2003, 00:57: Message edited by: Daynarr ]

Re: OT: Spam
 

I never have pop-ups and I don't use any kind of pop up stopper. This is due to my browser. When I used IE, I got them every 5 minutes or so. But then I switched to Mozilla. This browser has a pop-up manage and I just turn it on and it will close all pop-ups before they even open. It will however allow pop-ups to come up if I want them to. For example, I click on a link that opens a new window, it will allow that. It is able to determine if I wanted the pop-up or not. This makes everything absolutly hassle free and no need to shut off a pop up stopper if I want to open a link in a new browser.

Only thing I don't like about Mozilla is that it is netscape based. I'm not a big fan of netscape but I will put up with it for this. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

As far as span goes; I get alot of that but I just deal with it. I use Graffiti.net right now and don't have any problems. But other accounts with yahoo or hotmail I do. Even if I don't have my addy listed in white pages or use that addy to sign up for anything. I still get them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

[ April 19, 2003, 01:06: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]

Re: OT: Spam
 

Rags thanks for the info,
Where does one get mozzila?

Re: OT: Spam
 

You can get it by going to this site. Yeah, this one. And I forgot to mention, it's open source. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I use Version 1.2 right now. 1.4a is out but I am going to wait until it is a bit more debugged before downloading that. I am getting 1.3 right now. It has some new span gaurd filter so I'm going to try it out for that.

[ April 19, 2003, 02:08: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]

Re: OT: Spam
 

* dope slap to my head *
If someone had asked me of course that is what I would have suggested.
Thanks, I'll try it.

Re: OT: Spam
 

Spam Wars

Antispam Registry Proposed
E-mail services suggest system to identify spammers.

http://www.techinformer.com/go.cgi?id=799333

E-Mail Marketers Sue Antispammers

Florida suit could reveal e-marketing tactics, defendant says.
http://www.techinformer.com/go.cgi?id=799334

The popus at this site advertise PCWorld.

Re: OT: Spam
 

Did I mention I love Yahoo? In the time it took me to empty my junk account, I already had new Messages. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Glad that's not my only account. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: OT: Spam
 

"Did I mention I love Yahoo? In the time it took me to empty my junk account, I already had new Messages. Glad that's not my only account"

I checked my account once and had over 200 Messages..I had checked the day before. All "but" 25 of those were identical, purportedly from different people (I checked- the spammer did a lousy job of spoofing his email address..)

Phoenix-D

Re: OT: Spam
 

Nothing new really but did you know?

News Flash: Spammers Lie
FTC, SurfControl surveys bolster antispam efforts.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...043003X,00.asp

Re: OT: Spam
 

Thats One!

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...050803X,00.asp

EarthLink Wins $16 Million in Spam Case

Judge rules against absent defendant, who sent e-mail by millions.

Caution: Popups.