Re: [OFFTOPIC] Spamcop

[Andrew Clausen <clausen@gnu.org>]

On Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 09:36:40PM -0300, Rik van Riel wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Sep 2002, Andrew Clausen wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 09:13:17PM -0300, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > > Not always.  Many spammers have started to harvest not just
> > > single email addresses, but from/to address PAIRS.
> >
> > Look on the bright side: it costs spammers a lot more this way.
> 
> This is one of the reasons why spammers are depending less on
> open relays and more on open proxies and cracked boxes nowadays.
> 
> Some spammers have even spread around worms to automatically open
> up root (well, Admini~r) holes on machines, or just installing
> programs to automagically spread their spam.

Ah, good idea.  But, doesn't that make it very illegal, and make
them easy targets for police?  (Presumebly, there's some way
of contacting them, since they want money, and the money/information
has to flow SOMEHOW to them... so the police flow the same way.  Unless
the information [credit card #s] just spreads to everyone)

> > Has anyone seen this in the wild?
> 
> Yes. I've already gotten spam "from":
> - myself, various addresses (ha, but I'm not going to blacklist me)
> - bill davidson
> - stephen tweedie
> - ben lahaise
> - various other lkml inhabitants

Have you had spam sent to you and say, ben, bill and sct, with all of
you in the To field?  Perhaps they use BCC?  (I've seen a bit of this)

Cheers,
Andrew