Porn Via Email

[Shaun]

I personally use my Yahoo.co.uk (pop) account as my main account and I get absolutely no spam from them, its all caught by Yahoo. So far I've not had one single real mail get caught.

The only problem is that you cant use it here as you need a non yahoo/hotmail account, so I use a Tiscali one for that, but I get spam on it. I guess its going to find you one way or another

[cichlid]

I'm all for fighting back. Check the headers of the email and send it back where it came from (if you can). You'll find their ISPs have an acceptable use policy similar to NTLs which, if you read it, says they're not allowed to do that.
I realise this isn't possible for all of them but I think the attitude of just using spam filters ensures that problem continues to linger. If you think about it, they are actually stealing our bandwidth. Any ISP that receives a message regarding 'theft' isn't going to ignore it.
Hey if NTL can consider uncapping your modem as bandwidth theft then I can regard spam the same.

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by cichlid

I'm all for fighting back. Check the headers of the email and send it back where it came from (if you can). You'll find their ISPs have an acceptable use policy similar to NTLs which, if you read it, says they're not allowed to do that.
I realise this isn't possible for all of them but I think the attitude of just using spam filters ensures that problem continues to linger. If you think about it, they are actually stealing our bandwidth. Any ISP that receives a message regarding 'theft' isn't going to ignore it.
Hey if NTL can consider uncapping your modem as bandwidth theft then I can regard spam the same.

but then by bouncing the message / sending an abuse report you are using more bandwidth yourself...

[cichlid]

That's true but it is my bandwidth. Spam is forced on you. I choose to do this.

[cookie_365]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

Setup your email client to only read messages as plain text, then the images won't appear. It will mess up things like newsletters that are formatted but at least it will stop the porn

MB

And it could include html code that points back to an image on the spammer's server, so if you open, or even preview, an html message in html as opposed to plain text, the spammer can see that the message has been successfully sent - and send you some more.

I don't really understand how it works myself, but I'm assured it does.

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by cookie_365

And it could include html code that points back to an image on the spammer's server, so if you open, or even preview, an html message in html as opposed to plain text, the spammer can see that the message has been successfully sent - and send you some more.

I don't really understand how it works myself, but I'm assured it does.

If you view the image in the email (normal a 1 x1 pixel clear image) then you effectively visiting the spammers site; if i sent you an email with an image for example www.mydomain.com/image.jpg and you viewed it, the html would cause your email client to access www.mydomain.com/image.jpg to download the image. The spammer can then view the logs on their server to see the ip addresses that have accessed the site. I am sure they have programs that can automatically log this and so the spamming continues...

hth
MB

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

If you view the image in the email (normal a 1 x1 pixel clear image) then you effectively visiting the spammers site; if i sent you an email with an image for example www.mydomain.com/image.jpg and you viewed it, the html would cause your email client to access www.mydomain.com/image.jpg to download the image. The spammer can then view the logs on their server to see the ip addresses that have accessed the site. I am sure they have programs that can automatically log this and so the spamming continues...

hth
MB

what a good explanation - thanks

Originally Posted by cichlid

I'm all for fighting back. Check the headers of the email and send it back where it came from (if you can). You'll find their ISPs have an acceptable use policy similar to NTLs which, if you read it, says they're not allowed to do that.
I realise this isn't possible for all of them but I think the attitude of just using spam filters ensures that problem continues to linger. If you think about it, they are actually stealing our bandwidth. Any ISP that receives a message regarding 'theft' isn't going to ignore it.
Hey if NTL can consider uncapping your modem as bandwidth theft then I can regard spam the same.

- how do you know you are sending it back to where it 'really' came from?
This seems more trouble than -

- using mailwasher etc, to preview email & delete spam before downloading.
- having e-mail client set to display text not html
- disabling the preview pane in OE

If everyone did that the spammers would get no feedback & it would die out

I'm using Netscape 7.2 and in the Privacy settings you can tell it not to download images from remote websites which means that I don't waste time or risk attracting more spam if someone links a picture into an e-mail.

Frankly I can take them or leave them, but I prefer to leave them!

The only time this causes problems is with the "Daily Dilbert" e-mail cartoon (I have to activate the picture download to see it and then switch it off again after, but that's a small price to pay) and any e-mail newsletters which have embedded graphics, in which case I e-mail the senders and suggest they change their policy or allow "text only" versions.

[greencreeper]

I use The Bat! as a mail client because it doesn't open HTML emails, hence it's more secure and you're not likely to be confronted with female bits first thing on a morning SpamPal flags all the dodgy emails, including porn. For example (pre-written rule):

# ~LINE: 50.0 {\b([manhoo]((<[^>]*>)|(-))?){6}d} [CD_NAUGHTY Hidden word manhood]

[Matth]

My firewall is set to ban everything other than POP/SMTP for my mail client - the "remote load" trick is VERY common, though it does mess up some newsletters (I'd make exceptions rules for them, if I really cared).

Spamcop reporting a couple every couple of days - pill site pest - sent through a proxy (typically Korean or US cable), hosted in chinese webspace - a server level block on direct from dialup/cable pool address space mail, would nuke 99.9% of the spam, with acceptable casualties.

Content evaluation is fraught - there was a thread a while back about an NTL newsletter getting a 2x threshold spam rating in the Spampal regex filter.


PS. It was your thread, if I recall

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by Matth

My firewall is set to ban everything other than POP/SMTP for my mail client - the "remote load" trick is VERY common, though it does mess up some newsletters (I'd make exceptions rules for them, if I really cared).

Same here.

Originally Posted by Matth

Content evaluation is fraught - there was a thread a while back about an NTL newsletter getting a 2x threshold spam rating in the Spampal regex filter.

PS. It was your thread, if I recall

Yup - I don't consider it an error, nor a tragedy

Most of my newsletters that end up as spam do so because the server has been blacklisted - muppet users for you. Content processing ("evaluation" implies AI) works for me - the regex filter is great. Won't find anything as highly configurable as regex's are.

[iadom]

Originally Posted by iadom

Don't blame Ntl. I have had a dial up account with Zen for over 8 years as well as NtlBB. I got very little spam on either until a few weeks ago, I now have to run mailwasher on my Zen account as I am getting this type of e-mail, 30 or more times a day. Allowing for the fact that, that e-mail address has been "out there" for over 8 years I guess I have been lucky up until now.

Someone must have clipped this spammers wings. They have stopped as suddenly as they started, none for the last 3 days.

[Matth]

Interesting... I've been noticing considerable gaps in my regular spammers, I wonder if measures such as COMCAST's clampdown on excessive SMTP traffic are clipping their proxies - and if their domain names are with a registrar who gives a damn, I make a point of reporting them - Korea and China (major providers of proxies and webspace) don't care about spam, but SOME domain registrars do - and may void the domain due to policy or contact details violations.

Going after their domains is about the only way to hurt them!

[danielf]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

If you view the image in the email (normal a 1 x1 pixel clear image) then you effectively visiting the spammers site; if i sent you an email with an image for example www.mydomain.com/image.jpg and you viewed it, the html would cause your email client to access www.mydomain.com/image.jpg to download the image. The spammer can then view the logs on their server to see the ip addresses that have accessed the site. I am sure they have programs that can automatically log this and so the spamming continues...

hth
MB

But that way they would have a list of ip addresses, not email addresses do they? So how do they determine the email address exists? (Or am I missing something obvious here?

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by Matth

Korea and China (major providers of proxies and webspace) don't care about spam

I've configured Spampal to flag emails from all countries except America as spam - you can pick the countries you want. The URL plugin also uses the same list when checking URLs within emails. Catches a fair bit of spam

Originally Posted by danielf

But that way they would have a list of ip addresses, not email addresses do they? So how do they determine the email address exists? (Or am I missing something obvious here?

Something like this as the image source: www.somespammer.com/scripts/dynamicallygeneratedimage.php?victim=fred.bloggs@n tl.com