Subject: Re: G*!Da@! Junk emailers/spammers/parasites etc

From: [email-masked] (Marty Escarcega)
Date: 8 Feb 1997 06:16:01 -0700

Sure, write a programm that sends a multitude of reply mail!
Marty
In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Stev) 
wrote:
>
>All of us guys using asterisks, 'remove this to replys' etc are
>getting nowhere. Got an offer today from a guy who admitted to
>pulling my address off this group. I was vainly hoping that these
>scum sucking gutter-snipes had some program or something that would
>pull off addresses in batches. But now I see that these guys read 
>thru articles and take the time to get our addresses correct.
>Its getting worse. Im getting an average of 4-5 unwanted offers
>a day whereas just a few months ago I averaged 1-2 a day.
>Anyone know of a way to stop this or lessen this problem short
>of going totally anonmymous(sp?)? Grrrrrrrrrrr.
>
>stev
>
>[email-masked]
>
>
>
>
>

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From: [email-masked] (SRI00)
Date: 8 Feb 1997 20:03:25 GMT

Hey Steve I bet you got a great offer for tweezers, at least that's the
one I got sent today from this newsgroup. I use AOL so most of the
spammers are stopped, but the one's that get through I report back to the
postmaster of their service. You can attach this little ditty to it. I
don't know if it helps or not but it only takes a second to paste in.

Offence under US code Title 47, Sec 227(b) (1) (C)
I have recently received UNSOLICITED and UNWANTED junk e-mail from an
individual who appears to be using your site.  A copy of that mail is
attached herewith.  Junk Mail is now regarded as the same as unwanted
and unsolicited junk faxes and telemarketing calls - all of which are
now ILLEGAL under US federal law:

     By US Code Title 47, Sec.227(a)(2)(B), a computer/modem/printer
     meets the definition of a telephone fax machine. By Sec.227(b)
     (1)(C), it is unlawful to send any unsolicited advertisement to
     such equipment, punishable by action to recover actual monetary
     loss, or $500, whichever is greater, for EACH violation.

Please ensure this is stopped NOW.  You have been put on notice.  If you
confirm to me promptly that effective action has been taken against those
persons responsible, I will not take the matter further on this occasion.

If you do not provide me with such confirmation in a timely manner, or if
ANY further UNSOLICITED or UNWANTED junk mail should be received from your
site, I will instruct my attorney to issue a writ WITHOUT FURTHER NOTICE,
and the matter will then be pursued under federal law.  I will separately
notify your upstream providers as they may also be liable for violations
originating from your site.

---

From: [email-masked] (Michael John Hide)
Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 22:41:16 GMT

[email-masked] (Stev) wrote:

;All of us guys using asterisks, 'remove this to replys' etc are
;getting nowhere. Got an offer today from a guy who admitted to
;pulling my address off this group. I was vainly hoping that these
;scum sucking gutter-snipes had some program or something that would
;pull off addresses in batches. But now I see that these guys read 
;thru articles and take the time to get our addresses correct.
;Its getting worse. Im getting an average of 4-5 unwanted offers
;a day whereas just a few months ago I averaged 1-2 a day.
;Anyone know of a way to stop this or lessen this problem short
;of going totally anonmymous(sp?)? Grrrrrrrrrrr.

;stev

;[email-masked]

I am experiencing the same ,and posted the following into Mindspring
95 users . Is there an Email program that has a simple return to
sender button ? 
I got a reply from http://www.compulink.co.uk/~net-services/spam it is
a free program and comes in different levels ,according to how much
discouragement you want to dish out.As far as I know the company
offers web security programsand is on the up and up . 
        mjh

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 8 Feb 1997 20:52:25 GMT

What's getting even more insidious is they're [posting to the NG!!

---

From: [email-masked] (Hammer9)
Date: 9 Feb 1997 01:41:17 GMT

Stev wrote:

>  I was vainly hoping that these scum sucking gutter-snipes had some
> program or something that would pull off addresses in batches. But now I
> see that these guys read thru articles and take the time to get our
> addresses correct. Its getting worse. Im getting an average of 4-5
> unwanted offers a day whereas just a few months ago I averaged 1-2 a
day.
> Anyone know of a way to stop this or lessen this problem short of going
> totally anonmymous(sp?)? Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Well, one of the few positives I can say about AOL is that they are
actively blocking spam and seem to be getting better at it. I recently
discovered that I can do domain blocking via my mail controls and that
seems to have taken care of the last of the spammers that were managing to
get through to my account. AOL recently prevailed in litigation against
cyberpromo and can continue to offer a mail control service to members.
They give one the choice of using the mail blocking or not - as if anyone
would be desperate enough for email that they would take it from spammers.
It's been blissfully quiet for a while.  OTOH I haven't been able to get
online as easily as I used to ;-)

***************
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (LEE WARD)
Date: Sat, 08 Feb 97 16:04:00 -0600

Gettin irritated over Junkmail may mean you have deep rooted
pshchological problems,Learn to play in the schoolyard an dont worry be
happy.........................
                                        Dr Lee Ward

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From: [email-masked](David Heatherly)
Date: 9 Feb 1997 16:39:06 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Stev)
>of going totally anonmymous(sp?)? Grrrrrrrrrrr.

    That depends upon the nature of the "spam". I am sure that some of
what you are getting is of the types that the various services do not
allow.  Often you can shut them down by complaining to your service and
the service of the sender. For instance the address for netcom is:

        [email-masked]

    I personally have recieved several notices where the spammer has
been shut down at least on that service. Also reputable companies that
use a form of direct email will give you at the bottom of the message
the directions to remove yourself from the list. This is a method that
is hit and miss. My success rate is about 50%.  If we all start using
this tactic we should start to see a lessening of the spam.  I am down
to maybe 5 messages a week. If you can you may want to upgrade your
email program to something like eudora light where you can see the
headers and just delete them with out reading......David Heatherly

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 09 Feb 1997 19:39:56 GMT

>of going totally anonmymous(sp?)? Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Steve, I suspect that Spammers, in spite of being bottom feeders, have
some intelligence.  I noticed the proliferation of the asterisk scheme
and privately wondered when the Spammers would train their bots to
seek that out and strip it off.  When I went to the use of a
pseudonym, all my junk mail stopped.  Mind you, there could be the
enterprising Spammer that will indeed read messages to get my actual
email address, but I feel that it will be fairly uncommon.  These scum
like to deal en masse and don't have the time to repeatedly search out
individuals.  I suspect that if you were to put a more complex set as
your "lead" charcters, you will be safe for a while. Try something
like *&^% or somesuch.  That may not be as effective if they are
stripping non-alpha characters.  You can also try the pseudonym as I
have. works for me so far! ( Will probably get spam now as this IS a
bit of a challenge to some).

** JOE **
 BTW I have my SIG as an OPTION.  If I want to be fairly anonymous, I
just don't send it.

<<Due to scum skulking around the Internet and sending
unwanted email when you leave a message in a
newsgroup, I use a pseudonym. To email me directly
just send it to [email-masked].>>

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 10 Feb 1997 08:33:45 -0700

I don't seem to be bothered any of the problems mentioned in this
thread. (maybe due to the .edu address ) But I can tell you one 
thing if I cant reply to a (From) address I don't bother trying
to figure out how to get an answer to the questioner. Just trying
to reduce the excess trafic on this news group.   ...lew...

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From: [email-masked] (Tom Perigrin)
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 04:19:58 GMT

> happy.........................

Or it may mean that he values his time more than you apparently value
yours.  Or are YOU a junkmailer?

Personally, I'd love to see a few junkmailers nailed with huge fines.

Tom

------

Due to the increasing prevelance of bulk mail senders that automatically
extract names from newsgroup postings, I have had to "bugger" my e-mail
address.   To send email directly to me, please remove the "*" in my e-mail
address.

---

From: [email-masked] (Stev)
Date: 11 Feb 1997 06:40:41 GMT

>to reduce the excess trafic on this news group.   ...lew...

Thats interesting. Probably is the edu in your address. For those of 
us with regular isps tho, we do get a lot of junk and it is irritating.
I actually received some junk that included a threat that if I flamed
the poster in any way, he would email bomb me and see that my address
was given to all sorts of shady net dealers. These people are parasites
imo.
>From  all the response I received from the original post, I have made
a couple conclusions. A simple *asterisk wont cut it, better to use
letters as a falsifier in a email address. Better yet, just use a 
totally false address. Apparently these people have some pretty good
bulk address gathering/deriving software at their disposal. Some of
them do read thru articles.
Also, there are apparently federal restrictions on activities of this
nature, pertaining to US code, title47:
The Code goes on Title47,Sec.227(a)(2)(B),a  computer/modem/printer 
meet the definition of a telephone fax machine. By Sec.227(b)(1)(C),it 
is unlawful to send any unsolicited advertisement to such quipment,
punishable by action to recover actual monetary loss , or $500.,
whichever is greater,for each violation.
It is unfortunate that myself and others are bothered to the extent
that we alter our return address, but thats what we have to do. So,
I am not offended when I have to manually fix a return to get mail to
someone on a newsgroup.
It also makes good sense to alter your return address. The net is a 
public forum, and thru dejanews anyone with even a portion of your real
address anyone can see anything you have ever posted to any group. Just 
takes a little footwork is all.
Sorry to get long winded, but I thought Id share my thoughts, especially
seeing that more and more folks on the group are trying to avoid the
spamming that comes with posting here.

stev

-- 
Send any Email to [email-masked]
The auto reply address is a fake.
************************************
Spammers READ:
Dont waste your time sending unwanted solicitations
to my address. There is no way I will buy anything
you have to offer.

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From: [email-masked] (David N. Levy)
Date: 11 Feb 1997 15:58:45 GMT

> was given to all sorts of shady net dealers. These people are parasites

I went ahead and flamed one of these guys, reminding him of the
criminal nature of his threats: blackmail, libel and/or slander.  No
problem.

David N. Levy
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, AL 35294-0007

[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Chuck Rice)
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 22:13:09 -0800

> of going totally anonmymous(sp?)? Grrrrrrrrrrr.

If you want to get rid of them you have to take action every time
you get a message. I have a canned reply that I always use:

> 
> Postmaster, Please explain to this user that it is improper to send 
> unsolicited marketing email to others. If he persists, please cancel 
> his connection.
> 
> Spammer, I always boycott any company or group that does this sort of thing, 
> since I know that if they are not reputable enough to follow the internet 
> rules, then it is likely that their morals are lacking in other places.
> 

I create an email with the above message and a copy of the 
spam (with all headers turned on). I then search out every email 
id I can locate in the spam and put them into the To: field, 
next I duplicate the email ids in the To: field, replacing the
id  with postmaster. Then I send it off. 

It takes a little while, but most of the time the spammer will
get booted from the server he is spamming from, or he will remove 
me from his mailing list. 

For more information, visit:

   <http://www.mcs.com/~jcr/junkemail.html>

Which explains things in more detail. If you respond every time 
like this, the spam will taper off.-Chuck-