The early days of spam were dominated by sophisticated computer users or at least people who could write a Perl script. Now that “email marketing” services are available to anyone with a product to hawk, we’re faced with a new phenomenon, the computer illiterate spammer. You’d think that a spammer with no computer skills would be a less formidable opponent, but that’s not always true.
I was getting spammed by “The Jetstream Group” in Chino, California. Every week they would send an email asking “Do your clients need a Mustang type rating or Mentor Pilot?” After a dozen or so I finally wrote back to the sender, Anthony Digati, asking him to take me off the list. He replied “I have no way to do it manually. Sorry”, suggesting that I go through an apparent-too-complex-for-him removal process ostensibly available through some links at the bottom of his unsolicited emails.
If we assume that Mr. Digati is representative of a new breed of spammers, it would appear that the Internet faces a new wave of pestilence. There are commercial enterprises with enough energy to purchase spamming services and learn how to send out emails. But they don’t have enough technological sophistication or interest to learn how to remove anyone from their lists. Or perhaps Mr. Digati’s email was literally correct and the services themselves don’t allow the spammer any control over the list (these spams were coming from iContact, a Chapel Hill, North Carolina company). Either way it seems as though the average Internet user could spend half the day getting him or herself off spam lists.
I encountered an interesting, new to me, SPAM angle from the NRA. I joined unfortunately in a moment of weakness in order to avoid waiting in a very long line at a gun show–join the NRA, get free tickets and bypass the line.
I started receiving NRA SPAM and when the frequency approached annoying levels, I decided to unsubscribe from the mailing list with the link provided at the bottom of the page. The link took me to a web page which confirmed my removal. Several days later, another SPAM mail from the NRA. Had enough time passed for my un-subscription to propagate? Over a week later, another NRA email. After closer inspection, it appears that the NRA had placed me on several mailing lists, each requiring their own un-subscription. All told, I must have un-subscribed from 6 different NRA lists before the SPAM finally stopped.
I’m a little shocked that you responded in any way. The correct response to spam is to filter it. The quickest way to eliminate spam would be to shoot the spammers. You really can’t expect them to have any decency or sense.
Pablo, Charles: I want to thank you both for these comments. It is rare to have two in juxtaposition that fit perfectly, especially as I think they were posted such that Charles could not see Pablo’s yet. I think this is the most persuasive gun rights argument that I’ve heard yet. Americans need to be able to shoot spammers when we finally can’t take it anymore.
Years ago, I used to give out one-time addresses with plus signs in them, in order to track who gave my address to whom. This is a common Sendmail feature where you can use mailbox+text@domain, with any valid “text,” and have mail delivered to “mailbox.” So I might use weisen+macys for Macys.com, and have the mail delivered to “weisen”.
Care to guess how many legitimate businesses I did that with were able to subscribe an address with a plus sign in it, but not unsubscribe it? How many supposed web developers told me that plus signs were illegal, despite the definition in the appropriate RFCs (not to mention the obvious contradiction that they accepted it in the first place). How many customer service people couldn’t even understand the issue?
I simply gave up, gave my life over to GMail, and now hope for the best.
Hah hah hah hah hah! Mr. Greenspun, you are correct that I could not yet see Pablo’s post when I posted my response. Your published articles are often thought-provoking, but this comment made me laugh out loud.
@Neil – you’re in luck – Gmail has the exact same feature that allows you to give one-time addresses out. Just use youruserid+macys@gmail.com and it achieves the same functionality you’re used to.
@Phil – iContact is just the sending service. We happen to use them ourselves for doing legitimate mailings for our company, JumpBox. At the bottom of every message is a “manage your subscription” link that should allow you to instantly place yourself on a “Do not contact” list. That effect is immediate and cannot be undone by the sender.
It should be noted though that a nefarious tactic for spammers (if they’re not using a legitimate service like iContact) is to put a fake unsubscribe link in the email in hopes that the recipient will self-identify as being a real person. By trying to get off their list you’re actually telegraphing that you’re a living breathing lead for them. If it originates via a service other than one of the respected ones (Constant Contact, iContact, Vertical Response, etc) I’ll typically just mark as spam and ignore.
sean