Talking of spam ....

[1eyedjack]

There is another thread going on in these forums about the bane of spam, which reminded me of an idea I had a while back. I expect that it has occurred to others but I am not aware that the major ISPs have adopted it. I am no IT techie, and maybe it has technnical flaws, but here goes.

 

When spam appears in my inbox the advice given to me is to flag it (and more importantly the sender) as spam. On no account click on the unsubscribe button as that just proves that the spam was successfully delivered and encourages more of the same (or onward sale of a proven valid email address to some other spammer).

 

The effect of this policy is

(1) I get no more spam from that source - hooray!

(2) The sender continues to send, at no cost to him, further spam to me which is not delivered to me.

(3) The sender continues to retain on his database my email address and may well sell it on (despite my decision not to validate it by clicking on unsubscribe).

 

Now it may just be me, but while I applaud effect (1), I find the prospect of effects (2) and (3) irritating. It may be irrational, but there it is. Sorry, and all that.

 

So ....

 

When *I* send an email to an invalid email address, I get an email back, delivered by "The Internet" to the effect that the email was undeliverable. I very much doubt that when I flag a sender as spam the sender gets the same response to subsequent emails that he sends to me. I suspect that he simply gets no response at all. The absence of an "undeliverable" message is almost as effective at validating the email as an unsubscribe message. So, what *I* would like to do is not just to dump incoming spam emails to the ether (sure, do that as well), but also to simulate an invalid email address and send back that response. To my mind that approach has the prospect of being more effective in getting my email address physically deleted from the database of the sender.

 

Perhaps I am living in cloud cuckoo land, but this option is not provided to me by my ISP.

 

I suspect that the effect would be marginal, and the only real solution would be to impose a nominal charge for bulk emails.

[BunnyGo]

It is always possible to simulate a "bounce." Using Mac's Mail program the "command-shift-B" combination does it (also found under the "message" menu, the option "bounce.") One can google "fake a bounce with gmail" or whatever else you may use for instructions how to do it. However, some people recommend not faking a bounce with spammers, because they generally fake the "from" address and wouldn't ever receive the bounce anyways.

 

I personally use this feature because there is someone of the same name as me at my school who seems incapable of giving his correct e-mail to his friends and coworkers. I have increased the list of people who my filters treat as spam (so that they go straight to the trash) and send them a fake bounce or sometimes a curt e-mail explaining that they should check to whom they are sending e-mails. This situation is different than normal spammers in that these people are usually good intentioned and will remove my address from their mass e-mails when they see it doesn't work.

[hotShot]

If you mark a mail as span, future spam from this source will still be delivered to you, and than automatically removed/deleted from your inbox.

If you ISP offers a spam filter service they will filter the mail on the way from your ISP to you.

 

The original sender / the faked mail account put into the sender field won't get a bounce message.

[barmar]

The problem with simulating a bounce message is that spammers don't usually send from their real address, they use someone else's address. So all the bounce messages go to that innocent bystander, not the spammer (the term for this is "blowback").

 

Spammers are really not interested in whether the addresses in their list are good; sending email is so cheap that it's not a problem if there are thousands of invalid addresses in the list. When spammers sell lists to each other and claim "100% verified", these claims are as valid as the Rolex watches they advertise in their spam. I'm pretty sure that it's a myth that clicking on the unsubscribe link helps them validate addresses. I'm certainly not claiming that it will get you taken off; I think it does nothing (unless it downloads malware).

[1eyedjack]

OK, here's another suggestion:

 

Instead of charging a small fee for each email, which I know has been suggested and rejected by the Internet community (perhaps it will yet arrive some day), how about a proposal to charge a small fee for each email that goes to an invalid email address? The administration would be dealt with by the ISP who already has a D/D mandate anyway. Should be trivial to implement.

 

It will not stop all instances of spam, but it would have a noticeable effect in reducing it, I think, and more to the point it would have no effect whatsoever on those of us who engage in normal every-day emails except on the rare occasion that we simply miss-spell an address.

[hotShot]

Most spam is sent from computers that are hijacked without the knowledge of the owner.

 

Make the people understand that firewalls, virus- and malware scanners are essential and that anyone needs to have a current version of a good one running on his computer.

Teach them how to set their mail program in a way that messages don't load content into the email (spammers put invisible, 1 pixel sized pictures in mails that are loaded via the net, to veryfy that someone looked at the mail).

Educate them, not to click on links in emails of an unknown origin.

Make then use encryption tools for real mails so that you can be suspicious if a known sender sends you an unencrypted mail.

 

Tell then never to buy any products advertised in spam mail.

 

If you are really annoyed by spam, get your self a small hosting package with a lot of email addresses, whenever you need to enter an email address, create one of the type "companyName@myDomain.com".

This way you can verify what companies sold your email address to spammers or were not clever enough to protect their data.

[helene_t]

Nah, the reason why charging a small fee for emails has not been adopted is because of difficulties with implementing it. If there was a universally recognized way of letting sender pay (say) one cent per message to receiver (unless receiver had somehow waived it, which one would do for friends as well as for mailing lists subscribed to) then everyone (except for the spammers) would be happy to use it.

[hotShot]

Nah, the reason why charging a small fee for emails has not been adopted is because of difficulties with implementing it. If there was a universally recognized way of letting sender pay (say) one cent per message to receiver (unless receiver had somehow waived it, which one would do for friends as well as for mailing lists subscribed to) then everyone (except for the spammers) would be happy to use it.

 

If someone hacked you mail account to send a 1 million spam mails, you would be happy to pay 10.000 $/€ for that? Not to mention the legal fees that may come up....

 

OK, I know that you are capable to use a save password, but do you think you are a typical email user?

I bet that there are lots of people here in the forum, using their wife's, children's or pet's name or birthday as a password.

Some of them will even have a facebook page with photos annotated with their wife's, children's or pet's name and of cause they will put their status to "celebrating birthday" on the right day.

 

Do you know this service to tell robbers where to go ?

[helene_t]

If someone hacked you mail account to send a 1 million spam mails, you would be happy to pay 10.000 $/€ for that? Not to mention the legal fees that may come up....

Yeah, that is one of the difficulties I am referring to. Obviously a password protection would not be enough.