[X-Newbies] Dealing with Spam

[Steven Rogers]

On Jul 3, 2005, at 12:04 PM, Tony Johansen wrote:

> Is there such a thing as software or a script that can return  
> suspicious
> e-mails to their point of origin that would make them look like  
> they were
> undelivered? I get the impression that much Spam is sent on spec  
> and that
> both opening or deleting them merely confirms an address to be valid.

That's the common wisdom, but I'm not so sure how much that plays  
into actual practice. I think the list developers and list users are  
often two separate groups, so that once you're on one of these lists,  
you're going to stay on it for a while whether you bounce a message  
or not. The list developers have a wide variety of ways to get your  
email address - speculative mail is just one of them, so even if you  
could bounce every spam message, I think it wouldn't make that much  
difference. And it would really annoy the people who received the  
bounces but weren't the real sender.

> Some of these people are very evil. I had one recently that tried  
> to get my
> credit card details. The return address appeared to be  
> accounting at PayPal.com
> but PayPal claimed it was a 'spoof'. Definitely people that I don't  
> want to
> have my address.

Primarily, you don't want them to have your financial information.

> Are there other ways of making my Mac and my addresses more invisible?

I think the zen of spam is more along the lines of: how can delete  
spam more quickly and spend less time thinking about it, rather than  
asking "how can I get less spam". The whole problem with spam is that  
it wastes time, so spending lots of time on schemes to avoid getting  
it is really self-defeating (but a *lot* of people do it anyway). You  
cannot control whether these people have your email address, or  
physical address, or telephone number. But you can control whether  
you give them your financial information - and that's the important  
part. Door-to-door sales used to be big when people were afraid to  
say "no" and would buy stuff from them. You seldom see it now, except  
for the magazine selling student play. When people quit responding to  
spam, it will die off too.

SR