[MLB-WIRELESS] Netticette and spam - was SalesScriptBook - Australia's Best Sales Tool

[Paul van den Bergen]

Hi all,
we have just had a discussion on another list I am a member of on the
topic of how to handle spam.
I'd just like to point out some of the conclusions of that discussion here.

firstly, spam is maliscious.
there is no guarentee that the from field is accurate and you may end up
flooding an innocent sysadmins system with irrate emails.
secondly, spam make money out of selling email lists to other spammers.
so replying to a spam only authenticates your email address as legitimate.

so the only defense is to carefully check the origin and request the
sysadmin of the offending account do something about it (although this
is pretty useless because odds on the account source will be bogus.)

ignore it and it won't get worse.

besides, deliberately engaging in a denial of service attack, even
against spammers (who surely deserve it) makes one as bad as the
spammers themselves and should be beneath us...

(and my home mail account now has spam outnumbering legit emails at 4 : 1)

the only positive thing I have seen recently is this...

NewScientist.com - NEWSFLASH
------------------------------------------------------------------------
New breed spam filter slashes junk email

Developers combine Napster-like networking with machine learning to
create a technology that cuts spam to ?near zero?

To read the full story please click on the following link:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992141

o'course this is only a temporary threat to spam. for every technology
there is an equal and opposite use of that same technology... just give
it time...


On 04/19/02 08:54 AM, Robbie Werner wrote:

 >I just got exactly the same spam on a Wollongong University (where I work)
 >mailing list!!!
 >
 >THESE BASTARDS ARE GOING DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 >
 >-Rob
 >
 >
 >To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at wireless.org.au
 >with "unsubscribe melbwireless" in the body of the message
 >
 >


-- 
Dr Paul van den Bergen
SERC
goofey:bulwynkl
paul at serc.rmit.edu.au
+613 9925 1624 (RMIT)
+613 9905 4654 (Monash-less often)





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