Spam response

[Doug Yanega]

Mark Walker wrote:

>My guess is that this is just a way of determining who is actually out there
>(recall that the SPAM list, like any bulk mailing list, consists of many
>invalid addresses).  By your replying, you may simply be providing the
>marketing info the senders are really after - the percentage of warm bodies
>their list represents.  Also, you provide statistics regarding the number of
>addressee's that actually read the entire SPAM message.

This is correct, for some spamming outfits (such as cyberpromo) but not
others. No way to know in advance. As I've said before (extensively) only
complaints to a spammer's *providers* can guarantee you will not receive
anything else from a given spammer. I provide a concrete example from the
next-to-last spam received by leps-l, on CD-ROM stuff: it came from
inreach.net, and the postmaster there responded to me saying they would
track down the offender and eliminate their account. THIS is what I've been
trying to explain. The way to fight spam is to deny spammers access to the
internet, not to close our eyes and let other people worry about it.

Peace,

Doug Yanega    Depto. de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas,
Univ. Fed. de Minas Gerais, Cx.P. 486, 30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG   BRAZIL
phone: 031-448-1223, fax: 031-441-5481  (from U.S., prefix 011-55)
                  http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82