Re: [tlug] Using autoresponse

[Godwin Stewart <godwin.stewart@??>]

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:48:28 +0100, Sigurd Urdahl <sigurdur@??>
wrote:

> Why would you assume that people/spammers/bots would send emails with
> forged headers to an address like this?

Your naïveté is touching.

If spammers know of an e-mail address, they will spam it. They neither
know nor care whether the e-mail address in question is read by a human
or a robot, or even if it is at all valid. They just spam it.

> If the system accepts any emails, but drops the incoming email body
> and just sends a response back I don't see how it can be used to spam
> for anyone else than the system owner.

That's the whole point. The system in question is going to be sending
out piles of "you've won a prize and are subscribed to our mailing
list" messages in response to spam. Such notifications are unsolicited,
they're definitely bulk and they're e-mail. They're unsolicited bulk
e-mail. Do the math.

> If there is no affiliate program connected to this I can't see any
> sensible incentive for forging addresses onto the list at all, except
> for pure vandalism.

What do you think spammers are? Angels who abide by rules? They *are*
vandals.

> This seems like twist on a quite normal way of building a list of
> email addresses,

The *ONLY* acceptable way of building a list of e-mail addresses is
closed-loop opt-in. People have to say that they want on the list and
then they must *confirm* that they asked, otherwise anyone can
force-subscribe anyone else.

Please wake up and smell the coffee. This is 2007. The climate has
changed radically since that first spam run for DEC went out back in
1979.

> but the technology used to collect the addresses can not be blamed
> for that.

It can today, in a climate where 95% of e-mails floating around the
'Net are fraudulent.

--
G. Stewart - godwin.stewart@??

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
                -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

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