[ale]getting waaayyy OT It begins...

[Pete Hardie]

Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> I don't think that's necessarily true.  Just as there are those who are
> duped by spam and fall for it, there are those who, given spam is an
> unprofitable flop, can be made to believe that it's a way to get rich.
> Eventually, it may die out if it's not profitable, but it's not an
> immediate feedback loop if it is.  Haven't you gotten spam about the
> "banned CD" of e-mail addresses?

Do spammers still use that?  I've gotten more dictionary attack spam that others 
lately.

> 
> I feel that we're merely seeing the beginning of an arms race.  If there
> is a way to collect large quantities of known working e-mail addresses,
> then those collections will be used to spam as long as the process is
> even slightly profitable (see above).  Is it unthinkable that spammers
> would go so far as to have people de-munge e-mail addresses?  No; it
> depends on how profitable the process is.  It occurred to me that a Web
> archive of a mailing list might go so far as to convert e-mail addresses
> into messages to an inline image - but, sure as shootin' some spam
> outfit will pull images and try to OCR them.  So the Web archive will
> use bizarre fonts.  And the spammers will devise better OCR that will
> read it. 
> 
> No, it seems as though e-mail as we know it now is going to turn into
> the Internet's biggest failure.  It's just too damn easy to send
> messages in large quantities, obfuscate the actual source, and use the
> contents to mislead, deceive, and coerce.  

I've suggested that ISPs and home users start replying to every spam that 
crosses their system - including the aaa at aol.com dictionary attempts.  If we 
poison the well of good addresses, we might get some respite.  There's also the 
suggestion that every spam with a URL get crawled by a spider - slam their 
webservers down with a single response from every single message they send!

-- 
Pete Hardie                   |   Goalie, DVSG Dart Team
     posting from, but not     |
     speaking for:             |
Scientific Atlanta, Digital Video Services Group



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