Make Spammers Work for You

by Chatreaux

If you've been online for a while, it's most likely that you've received spam.

Usually, unsolicited emails come from people (if they're to call themselves that) who think not only that they're smarter than the rest of us, but also assume that others aren't but puny idiots.

In most physical confrontations, when someone pushes us, we naturally tend to push back, leaving the outcome of the fight in the hands of the strongest or heaviest contender.  If instead of pushing, we pull, we end up taking advantage of both our own and our enemy's strengths.  Guess who's in control now.

The same principle can be applied to spam: if you respond to it by emailing flames and insults (or even a request to be removed from their mailing list), you're likely to get nowhere and on top of that confirm to the spammer that your email address is indeed valid and active.  Furthermore, if you go the violent route, you risk getting a lot of (even more) abuse in response, with absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Tracing the origin of the rogue email is also futile at best, as the majority of spammers ensure that their emails per se can't be traced back to their real personas.  In most cases, spam comes from unsecured SMTP servers whose addresses I'm sure are provided by the authors of bulk email software themselves.  This is worth exploring, but as I'm writing ad honorem, I won't be able to invest some serious cash into buying a bunch of these programs and establishing relationships with the "artists" behind them.

My approach to spam is a bit simpler (technically speaking).  I welcome all spam, and then, depending on the category it falls in, I act.  Here's how it works:

Before you start up, get yourself a free email address (Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, etc.).

Once you receive a spam, reply to it from this address.  Use the subject line to ask for more information or to mention that you're very interested.  You're probably thinking now that this will get you nowhere as nine out of ten spams have bogus return addresses.  This is true, but if you give the spam a quick scan, you are likely to find a few other addresses; send CCs to these as well.

In most cases you will receive a reply from a legitimate address within a few days (or hours, depending on the idiocy level of the spammer).  What you do with this email address is up to you - use your imagination!  When I have time on my hands and am bored enough, I send a few short messages always asking for more information or directly questioning their honesty.

By the few answers I've gotten so far, I'm fairly sure I've made them waste a good half hour of their "very valuable" time.

If instead of an email address, the spam has a toll free number, by all means call them and give them your new email address.  As a touch of courtesy, you could call from a speakerphone and after you've left your message, simply crank up the stereo and watch their answering machine fill up with music and their 800 bill gain a few grams.  One word of caution though: 800 numbers are equipped with ANI (the grandfather of Caller ID), so the person you're calling will have a log entry with your phone number.  This means basically that regardless of how annoyed you are, you should always be courteous when leaving your message.

Other kinds of spams carry a URL to invite you to check a web site.  These sites will always have forms for you to add your information.  I suggest you fill them out and also look at the HTML code of the page with the form.  You are likely to find a legit email address there.

Finally, some spams will only give a toll phone number or a mailing address (pyramid schemes will only bear mailing addresses).  In these cases, it's up to you to spend a dime on a quick call or 33 cents on a stamp.

I don't think spam will ever stop.  It could probably be curbed with the right kind and amount of government intervention, but this kind of "help" is usually like bad chemotherapy... you end up losing your hair, your strength, your immune system, and your appetite in the process.  Judging by what happens when government tries to get involved in people's lives, I would advise against calling political attention to an issue that could very well be handled by the community.

If enough people start responding to spam as described above, we will slowly but surely eat into spammers' (apparently) only resource: time.  It would be like giving them the "Human Ping of Death."