Spammers must die : a cyber punk vision and a little practical advice
Jul 15 '01
The Bottom Line you can get really enthusiastic and crazy about the evils of spam or you can relax about it and just be a touch more careful in your web surfing.
" Auto-responders constantly shot signals to the tiny spambots which became snared on endless loops, others baited by the lure of a multitude of email addresses would devour poisoned scripts planted on web pages, locked into tighter and ever decreasing circles the malicious mechanical scavengers would begin to overheat and little zephyrs of smoke would leak from their mindless spider forms, suddenly one would burst into flames and mad geek laughter would erupt across the battlefield followed by a booming voice "All SPAMMERS MUST DIE"
This vision of cyber warfare is possibly exaggerated but expresses a little of the sometimes irrational hatred that spamming is viewed with.
Until very recentley my pop3 home email was spam free and I did not know what all the fuss was about , suddenly whenever I checked my mail it was loaded with unsolicited messages( I have put things in place to prevent this ) . I thought it may be useful to detail how spammers operate as a means to avoiding becoming a spamming target and some measures to take if you become a victim
How spammers operate : know the enemy
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Email harvesting is big business and software is readily available, news groups are an obvious target, imagine little robot spiders travelling around the web devouring thousands of emails and always looking for fresh meat. They love newsgroups , web pages, chat logs and guestbooks, below is described some popular harvesting and spam mailing software, with the logic that if you understand how spammers operate you can better protect yourself :
Popular harvesting and spamming programs :
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Atomic Harvester works by the user typing in a search term and then letting the spider loose , it is claimed that this software will "vacuum’’ thousands of email addresses from News groups, Web pages, On line providers and phone books. The idea being to harvest targeted emails by searching for the most useful web pages news groups etc.
Desktop 2000 Very popular bulk email server can be run from any home (or business computer ) works with Atomic Harvester once emails are collected spams them out by the thousand , main claim to fame is cloaking of senders address
Text bomber Strips and mines downloaded web sites of any email addresses designed for chat logs and guest books
EMAIL_ID(several versions of this) Perhaps the most sneaky software , will capture your email address(and name) by you merely visiting a site, attempts to trick the browser into revealing name and email address by asking it to submit a form relies on the site visitor not running browser in at least default security mode (internet explorer) , if you are running in secure mode, a pop-up will warn you and you can cancel the action. (I believe this is how I got my email address pinched)
These are a few popular programs there are many others all working on a similar methodology.
Spamming sites reveal the creators to be novice small business operators , people with a lot of time on their hands and unscrupulous marketers who think spam gets results, it is also clear they don’t want to be traced and do take note of "complainers". Some of the software will remove "complainers" and opt-outs from lists ( fearing getting kicked off servers and law suites )
Information for website owners: If you check your log records you may find odd spider visits (not search engines ) these may be harvesters sweeping your pages and any linked pages. Spam hating web masters may do several things to deter spam position: robot warning text, poisoned scripts which lead to endless looping fake email addresses and one cookie I found on my computer was from SNARK.com (an anti-spam activist) which will send any spammer an account for $500 and a load of hilarious insulting text if a robot picks up the bait, any web master can put this script on their site.
How to Protect yourself :
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1~ Never use leave primary email addresses anywhere on the web. Have several aliases on web based email servers .
2 ~ Always use at least default security on browsers.
3 ~ Never fill out forms and use your primary email .
If You become A Target
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It may come as a shock to suddenly receive tons of spam and it is worth taking a look at who is generating it .
1- Some emails are from bulk emailers and they often have opt out urls , try and opt out of their list
2 ~ Start immediately using the blocking software on your email client, I am using outlook express and it has easy to use blocking software which will stop the same sender from sending more unsolicited emails to you.
3 ~ If you are getting a ridiculous amount of spam, try spam blocking software some of which has a block list of over 15000 known spam addresser’s and also has spam characteristic detecting software
4~ There are also some software programs by using which you can check the headers and first few lines on your server before you download the mail, try Cnet downloads.
5~ Complain, send whining emails to return address’s, spammers hate complainers and if you are really keen send your spam to Spamcop or Spam Recyclers who will do the same automatically.
6~ Failing all else change email address .
I have just covered a few simple methods that are currently working for me you can get really enthusiastic and crazy about the evils of spam and loose sleep over it or you can relax about it and just be a touch more careful in your web surfing.
Copyright m.j goulding 2001
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