Recently, there has been some discussion abouut spam and specifically what is said at the bottom of the message (the 'bullfrog justification', as I call it). Also talks about freedom of speech and the 1st Amendment. The latest one I got has all of this. Please feel free to post the 'bullfrog justification' lines, if you feel so inclined. Note it is copyrighted so I might be in big trouble if I reproduce it here, but fruck 'em. Parts I like are blue...


Copyright 2000, 2001


Please NOTE: This advertisement is NOT sponsored by ANY Internet Service Provider. This is an advertisement that is produced and sponsored by Cyber FirePower! for Cyber FirePower! to reach potential customers.

ALSO TAKE NOTE: At the time of this mailing the return email address is a bonafide legitimate return email address that was signed up for with the express purpose of receiving all undeliverable emails as well as remove requests. On occasion the return email address provided may become disrupted by the efforts of, what we define as, Internet terrorists. If this is the case and you wish removal please call us. If you fax a copy of your phone bill where you called us for removal we will reimburse you via PayPal.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment I, The US Constitution


This is one of the better ones I've seen, and I really liked the Internet terrorists part. Then the offer for you to fax them your phone bill, that's a real good one. And finally, ending with the 1st Amendment that, of course, gives them the right to spam you.

Anyone else got any creative ones?

My fav is this one (copied and pasted exactly as it was recieved):

by recieving this email, you agree to sine up to the servises mentioned here in this email, by punishment of law. the punichment is defined as paying no more tahn $500 united staets dollars to the herinreferecend email persnality
vbeckhtka3111@beer.com (paypaal)
by readng the aboev mesage you agre to follow all instructins said above
this amil is'nt spam and shall'nt be processed as such undre penalty of $500 unietd states dolars (PAYMENT INFO ABOEV)

The rest of the email was written like that, too. Very appealing.

I never read that far down... I just delete it. From now on, you can bet I'll be reading all my SPAM. :D

Best Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

of using site promotion software (culprits remain nameless for slanderous reasons), what did I get (about 3000 emails the first time I used em)? The knowlege about how to promote sites better! I still get UCE I'm sure was down to this, but I would have to read it long enough to figure that out :D

Disturbingly recenly I've been getting feedback form reply's to a couple of email addresses (have some enemies - innocent man's story, probably being paranoid).

Originally posted by Site5-Matt
I never read that far down... I just delete it. From now on, you can bet I'll be reading all my SPAM. :D

Best Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

... and that's the purpose of spam - that you read it :D

[i]If you fax a copy of your phone bill where you called us for removal we will reimburse you via PayPal[/color]. [/B]

Thats even worse than clicking on "unsubscribe" (P.S. - yes I really do exist (want lots more please!!!!:D ))

Originally posted by Chicken

If you fax a copy of your phone bill where you called us for removal we will reimburse you via PayPal.



The phone bill part is there for a different reason. The people who collect email address very much want to be able to connect an email address with a phone number, as that will provide a cross-linking for the email and the telephone databases. The tying of those two databases is considered to be the holy grail of the people who maintain the email spam lists. The reimbursement may be a few cents, but that is a cheap price for the significance of the data that is collected. An email address tied with a phone number could be sold for USD$0.50 to dozens of customers.

Another tactic that the spammers use is to tell you to call a 800 number to be removed from the list. When you do that, they have your email address and your phone number (800 numbers log incoming phone numbers, even if you block caller-ID on your line).

Follow the money.

SPAM doesn't even get a chance to be read.... if the subject appears to be spam it gets tossed....

I've gotten rid of 95% of spam just with these simple rules:

* If it's not addressed only to qslack@com.aboutpcs (switched so the spambots don't pick it up), and it doesn't go in to one of my mailing list folders, put it in the Junk Mail folder
* If I've added the sender to my Junk Mail Sender list, then disallow all email from their domain
* Don't load images (so that small images in HTML email can't tell the sender that I'm a real person)
* If I'm BCCed or CCed, put it in the Junk Mail folder.

Those rules can be implemented pretty easily in just about any mail client. In the time since I've had those in place, two months, I've gotten nearly 1,000 spams (about 15 showed up in my real email box), 300 real emails, and 1200 mailing list emails. In fact, I hadn't even seen a piece of spam for this past week until I went digging to find some good "last few lines of spammer emails".

I use ORDB to block spam emails. Simply put in a few lines of extra configuration on your mailserver - and you have blocked a great deal of spam.

www.ordb.org

--
Jens Kristian Søgaard, Mermaid Consulting I/S,
jens@mermaidconsulting.dk,
http://www.mermaidconsulting.com/

Some guy from Calgary calls us 5-8 times per day trying to sell a water filtering system. :D

Originally posted by Chicken
ALSO TAKE NOTE: At the time of this mailing the return email address is a bonafide legitimate return email address that was signed up for with the express purpose of receiving all undeliverable emails as well as remove requests. On occasion the return email address provided may become disrupted by the efforts of, what we define as, Internet terrorists. If this is the case and you wish removal please call us. If you fax a copy of your phone bill where you called us for removal we will reimburse you via PayPal.

Don't you just love it? Their e-mail harvesting address might be shut down for spamming by anti-spammers reporting them, but they will let you send even more useful (to them) information by fax. They will spare no effort at aggravating you. Hah!

How about the ones that say" This is a one time mailing. To remove your name from our list...."

It gave me a laugh, and promted me to start this thread, heh. Another (I liked the very bottom) from:



Association International Gemology

Madam, Sir,

<SNIP>

Thank you for your listening,

Sincerely yours
A.I.G.
Jenny






PS : This message will be sent to you that once.
SPAM IS BAD. DO NOT SEND IT