matt's debates

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Fighting spam

I just got hit by some SPAM. Initially I was actually impressed because it didn’t lie to me. It was quite clearly there in the title “Marketing Mailshot from xxx”. I read it, half thinking it might have been a real email. But it was SPAM. I knew that for certain as it was sent to an email address that only ever receives SPAM. I was particularly intrigued though, because the “company” had telephone numbers with the same dialling code as my area. Wow, a spammer in Southampton… interesting.

After a little research, I found out where the guy lives, and, more importantly, a personal email address of his. By spoofing the headers, I sent an email back to him which was “from” the email address he had spammed me on. The email read:

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Hi {name},

Thought I’d fire off a quick email to find out your opinion’s on SPAM. Do you enjoy getting random nonsense you have no interest in? Getting BS emails which are clearly unsolicited? Like this one?

Yeh, I hate it to. You might want to think twice about advertising your company name using such shocking tactics as purchasing email addresses, most of which are so old, you must have been had by whoever flogged it to you.

By the way, how is {name of place where he lives} this time of the year? Scary, isn’t it.

So please leave me alone. And I’ll leave you alone.

Yours disrespectfully,

MT
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I gave my full name in the From: as Matt “I hate SPAM” Thornton. So if he had half a brain, he might be able to find me. I’ll wait and see if he does and maybe comments on this topic.

One Response to “Fighting spam”

  1. Matt said on January 17th, 2004 at 12:00 pm:

    Well that was a turnup… he actually did get back to me. So fair play to him..

    “Sorry Matt

    The list we purchased is in a bit of a mess.
    We will make sure you get removed from any future emails (do you have any other address to be removed)

    I think your comments are well deserved and basically your attitude is no different than my own when I get emails I don’t want.
    The only thing I don’t do is threaten people. Other than that, I agree
    My apologies are sincere and genuine

    Regards
    ***
    PS like your web and good luck with you PHD