CDT Releases New Report on Origins of Spam

Carnth writes "CDT has released a new report based on a six month project entitled "Why Am I Getting All This Spam?" The results offer Internet users insights about what online behavior results in the most unsolicited commercial email and also debunk some of the myths about spam." A very good report - read it. There's also a story about yet another sleazy spammer in Ohio.

Comments

Spamburgers for Hotmail

[Kelz]

I'm still wondering why when I have my hotmail filter set to "exclusive" (only recieve from those in my address book, which contains 10 addresses), I continue to get loads of spam each day in my inbox, including some very embarassing things that would cause my mom to faint if she walked in.

Re:Spamburgers for Hotmail

[beerman2k]

That worked for me for a while, but then I maxed out the 256 address banning limit. Now I'm back up to about 30 spams a day on that account.
Oh well.

My spam research

[sigxcpu]

I just got a new domain.
Which means that every email to that domain goes to me.
Every time I give my Email online I give a diff name, for instance if I buy at yahoo I give "yahoo-shopping@mydomain.com".
If I get spam to this address I know who gave it to the spammers.
- only been doing this for a week, no spam so far but there is still hope ;-)

Note: I am not actively looking to be spamed, just doing my usual stuff.

Re:My spam research

[Fluid Truth]

That's a really common thing among my friends. Most of us use qmail, so we can receive mail to username-[anything]. Sign up for financial tracking with yahoo? Then it's username-yahoo@domain.tld Ask for info from buy.com? Use the address username-buy@domain.tld I bought stuff from x10 before they started being so darned annoying. Now, I throw away anything that comes to username-x10@domain.tld

It helps you track spam AND get rid of annoying companies' e-mails. :-) And best of all, you don't have to get your own domain for this. You can use your existing e-mail address with just a slight tweak to your qmail configuration.

Re:My spam research

[dissy]

I do the same thing with my domains, however I take it once step further.

Once I get spam sent to one of the addresses, I change the forward so it no longer goes to me, but forwards to a number of addresses at their domain.
For example, if i signed up at yahoo.com and they spammed me, I would change my yahoo@mydomain.com forward to send to:
abuse@yahoo.com,staff@yahoo.com,support@yahoo .com, help@yahoo.com,postmaster@yahoo.com,webmaster@yaho o.com
etc

As they are all at the same domain, my mail server only sends one copy to the yahoo.com mailserver. Their server breaks it up then so I only really send one email out.

Using procmail to do this, i usually turn on logging until it hits a certain size.
If no real/ligit emails come to me before the log of spam reaches a couple megs, i turn off logging and leave it.

This generates surprisingly little traffic on my mail server, and one would hope they get the point

This way yahoo (only using as example of course) may remove me from their mailing lists, but they have to deal with the spam from all of their 'business partners' they signed me up for, and at that point i dont care if the address is removed or not :)

happy 1.3 user

[aoteoroa]

The promised junk mail control for Mozilla is finally here and I'm loving it. The wait was almost unbearable because all the other guys in the office have had spam filters with their OSX email client for months. I was tempted to switch. But now mail comes in and gets whisked away to the junk folder almost immediatly. It's a beautiful thing.

Re:happy 1.3 user

[doublem]

I know what you mean. It's been so good at work that I'm going to use it at home and migrate all my Pegasus and Outlook Express mail to Mozilla 1.3

I did get a great laugh though. One of the sales guys wants to send out a renewal notice. I read the text and realized it was worded like a stereotypical SPAM. I raised objections, but was ignored.

Then the Mozilla SPAM filter caught it during the test phase.

The registration notice is now being rewritten. :)

Surprised 'bots are that stupid

[great throwdini]

Web Sites received the most e-mails when an address was placed visibly on a public Web site. Spammers use software harvesting programs such as "robots" or "spiders" to record e-mail addresses ... E-mail addresses posted to Web sites using these conventions [Replacing characters in an e-mail address with HTML equivalents.] did not receive any spam.

The above CDT finding is mildly surprising to me. Is there a reason people haven't built 'smarter' Web scrapers that filter and convert character encodings of things like the '@' sign in email addys? Doesn't seem too difficult, but if the report is to be taken at face value, it seems a simple precaution to take (still). I had always considered it a low-tech defense easily overwhelemed. Guess I was wrong?

Re:Surprised 'bots are that stupid

[crschmidt]

That was always what I thought as well. If a human can read it without any prompting, why can't a spambot?

Then again, I have always used that method of hiding my email address for newsgroup postings, despite the fact that I thought it wouldn't really work. Good to know that it does, I suppose.

I'm actually interested in how well spambots deal with something like the email address listed at this page listing my contact info. Do they parse html info and realize that this is just a normal email address in a table, or is that confusing enough that they don't see it?

Re:Surprised 'bots are that stupid

[ergo98]

This isn't true, IMHO. Indeed, if this were true then why do spammers use fraudulent subject lines, and techniques in the text to avoid automatic filtration (such as images or text replacements)? The answer, of course, is that filtration and other preventative techniques can be a spammers best friend: If you've filtered 99% of spam, then that's all the more impact that 1% that sneaks through will have (one has to consider that there are hunderds of spammers-- rather than thinking that they beat "spammers", they should realize that it's all a bunch of spammers trying to dig and gouge ontop of each other). That's why fighting spammers is like digging a hole in sand.

I'd attribute the spammers not having more intelligent scrapers simply to laziness and stupidity: Most spammers, you will notice, are hucksters and fraudsters who happened to switch their game to the PC. These aren't technical wizards who decided that spamming was a great career choice.

Re:Surprised 'bots are that stupid

[40000]

The fraudulent subject lines work because once you have opened that message (thinking it could be important), you have probably downloaded a small image (very few spam messages are in plain text now). That download has been logged as a visit and the spammer's client is charged for it.
How often do you get plain text spam with any sort of contact details or a description of the product?
HTML e-mail with images, frames or tables is a starting point for spam filtering.

Re:Surprised 'bots are that stupid

[dwsauder]

Okay, how about these:

j,o,e,@,a,o,l,.,c,o,m

<table><tr>
<td>j</td><td>o</td> <td>e</td><td>@</td> <td>a</td><td>o</td> <td>l</td><td>.</td> <td>c</td><td>o</td> <td>m</td>
</tr></table>

jo<!-- jabiuaiwoiuvklakj -->e@<!-- j89euB -->ao<!-- 88ba0s9 -->l.co<!-- a9aBVU9d0 -->m

Need more ideas? You'll get a lot more ideas from the spam emails in you get every day.

Re:Surprised 'bots are that stupid

[ChangeOnInstall]

I've found this works quite well. I didn't use their technique, but instead embedded HTML comments in the addresses, e.g.

bob<!--NOSPAM-->bobson<!--NOSPAN-->@
<!--NOSPAN -->bob<!--NOSPAN-->son<!--NOSPAN--&gt ;
tech.<!--NOSPAN-->com

The address is encased in an <A> tag that whose target is JavaScript code:

<a href="javascript:doMail('bobbobson');">...

Where the doMail() method appends @bobsontech.com onto the email and redirects to "mailto:bobbobson@bobsontech.com".

When I was building the web site I figured it was worth a shot, although I didn't think it would work. There are about six email addresses on a single page, and I've yet to see a single spam show up in all of them together. Some of the addresses have never received a single spam.

Re:FTC links on Charles Childs

[Tackhead]

> The FTC already filed a complaint [ftc.gov] and had a preliminary injunction [ftc.gov] against Childs back in April. See the press release [ftc.gov] for more information. The article mentions he lives by Riverside drive in an apartment, could be with Linda Lightfoot [superpages.com], the woman mentioned in the complaints with him?

Rules of spam:

0) Spam is theft.
1) Spammers lie.
2) If you think a spammer's telling the truth, see Rule #1.
3) Spammers are stupid.
Corollary: Spammer lies are really stupid.

So when I read this:

"To Internet users who complain that their e-mail inboxes are crammed with ads for products and services they would never purchase, Childs' response is, "Quit your whining. I'm asking you, how stressful is it to push the delete button? We have become a nation of crybabies."

I immediately thought "This asshat wants me to Just Hit Delete. Every time I've heard that excuse, the guy saying it has been either lying (Rule #1), or stupid (Rule #3). This guy sounds like both. (Corollary). So I'll lay odds that this guy's a spammer."

I was just about to Google for the proof, when you did all the leg-work by posting the FTC links. Thanks. J00 r0x0r!

My Active Michigan Lawsuit

[Slashdolt]

I don't want to get myself into any possible legal trouble, so please excuse me if I'm somewhat vague in some respects. IANAL.

About 2 or 3 years ago, my wife visited a store in the Lansing, Michigan area and gave them my email address. From time to time, I would receive email from them. Eventually, I asked them to stop. They stopped.

On November 21, 2002, I received an email from them asking me if I would like to begin receiving advertisements and marketing offers from them again. There was a link to click on, if I didn't want to opt-in. I clicked on that link.

Approximately 2 months later, I received an email from them. They had an option to unsubscribe by sending an email to their unsubscribe address. It said I would be removed immediately. I even received a confirmation stating that I had unsubscribed. For the next month, I continued to get 2-3 emails from them per week. Each time, I clicked unsubscribe and was told that I had indeed been unsubscribed.

After the 2nd email, I contacted customer service and reported the problem. No response. After the fourth time, I contacted them again, and threatened legal action, if they didn't stop. No response. I called customer service, talked to a live person, and was told that I would be removed from all their lists. But the email continued to come.

I filed a lawsuit in Michigan small claims alleging violations of the "junk fax" law, having heard about a Michigan man who had won by doing so. 6 violations for $500 each, resulted in $3,000, the maximum allowable under Michigan Law for small claims. As evidence, I have nearly all of the advertisement emails as well as my requests to be unsubscribed, and their acknowlegements stating that I had been unsubscribed. Additionally, I have the emails I sent to customer service, which never received replies.

About 2 weeks after filing suit, I received an email from their customer service stating that they were finally looking into the problem. I haven't received an email from them in the last 2 weeks, so I assume that I'm finally off their list, and it only cost me $36.50 ($32 small claims, $4.50 certified mail).

However, now their attorneys have demanded that the case be removed from small claims and placed into general civil court (which is their right). Unfortunately, I plan to do just that.

The FTC has publicly stated that not honoring removal requests is illegal. However, I'm not sure I have a private right of action in this situation. Using the Junk Fax law in general civil court is probably a bad idea, and I think I would likely have to claim actual damages in order to pursue it in general civil court.

I don't really want to get in over my head. I'm sure they realize this, which then makes me WANT to get in over my head. However, I'm still not sure that I have a legal basis for my case. Even in a state like Washington, where anti-spam laws exist, half of the cases get dismissed by the judge.

I called a local attorney and was told that I should dismiss, or risk being counter-sued for a frivolous lawsuit. Essentially, what they did is illegal, but there really isn't much I can do about it other than contact the FTC and the state attorney general, and if I pursue my case against them, I could wind up paying them.

--
Slashdolt

Fix for problem number two

[archos]

When i registered my domain, I gave the address archos@myprivacy.ca. Any mail sent to this address is is held while a challange is sent to the sender. The sender just has to reply to the challange email, and the original will be sent to me. Automated spammers won't reply to the challange. myprivacy.ca is a free service provided mainly for .ca domains, or for domains registered with a participating registrars.
Does anyone know of any other services like this?

My plan for spam..

[xchino]

Spam needs legitimization. Hear me out, now, before you add that -1, Troll. By legitimizing spam we put ourselves in control. We need laws on a national level defining exactly what is valid spam and what is illegal.

We need the ISPs to work WITH the spammers ( or vice cersa). Make it trvial to filter, and only send it once. Give everybody a shared "Spam box", as place to go and see if they really need to acclerate their dialup to new levels, or a vacation, or whatever (I'm assuming 18" Penis and XXX TEEN LESBIANS will not be considered legit). We need stiff penalties to those who violate the law. We can't enforce the law in other spammer friendly countries, but we can enforce the law in our own. The company marketing should also be held responsible for violations, preventing American companies from just outsourcing their spam. Any spammer friendly ISP's either deal with their spammers or risk the entire range being blocked (voluntarily) by American ISPs. I know 99% of service providers would have no problem blocking out spammers voluntarily, especially if they are being good Americans while they are doing so. Let's not forget that as rapidly as it's changing, a majority of popular sites are American based. I know all you Norwiglians out there would probably drop your ISP if you couldn't get to slashdot just because your ISP supported spam.

The DMA has too much money to let spam die, and apart from the slashdot crowd a majority of people don't find spam to be a big problem in their daily lives (albeit mostly thhanks to us busting ass). Some people actually enjoy getting spam. I don't understand it either, but to each his own. As an option in a recent poll said, grey areas definately exist.

I think spam is a fact of life. Sometimes I get emails from business friends who include a small ad as their sig. We can't kill spam but we can change the face of it to be ever os less intrusive. We're going to have to compromise our "FUCK YOU AND YOUR GOD DAMN SPAM" attitudes if we plan on giving our credibility to our cause.

We want complete restriciton, and they want no restriciton. Somewhere in the middle there's a feasible solution for both of us.

Use javascript

[autopr0n]

A good way to prevent spamming is to use javascript to generate your address. So rather then writing "me@wherever.tld" you write
<script>
document.write("me");
document.write("@");
document.write("wherever");
document.write(".tld");
</script>

It works pretty well, I've found.

Re:the two things I've seen increase spam for me..

[bughunter]

Unfortunately, you can do a lot to minimize spam, but there's very little you can do to eliminate it completely. I've had my earthlink account for 8 years now, and it is becoming overwhelmed by spam. Even with Earthlink's spam filter, and my spam filter, there's still a couple of dozen emails per day that are unsolicited and include my address in the mailto header.

Yes, I've posted to usenet, and with only a couple of instances excepted, I've munged my address both in the from header and in the sig.

Yes, I've used the address when shopping online, registering shareware, signing up for other services, etc. Some of these actions have been followed by noticeable increases in spam.

One of the things that really bugs me is web services who solicit email addresses for their service (such as a greeting card or "e*kiss"), and then sell those addresses to spammers.

My ex-girlfriend once sent me an e-greeting using some unknown service, and addressed it to my earthlink account. I strictly use the ".net" tld when I give out that address, but for some reason, my ex used the .com tld for this greeting card. Before I even viewed the card, my inbox was flooded with spam addressed to me "@earthlink.com"

Needless to say, I was pissed. I sure wish I could remember which e-card website she used. Bastards.

Re:bah

[FeloniousPunk]

If you read the article, you find out the guy is a cop who got fired for selling drugs. So, I doubt he'd be much concerned with family values no matter what the circumstance.
And let us all hope that he doesn't pollute this world with offspring.

Lots of filters, just a few spam

[MBCook]

On my PC (win 2k, using MS Outlook (not express)) I've managed to get almost all my spam filtered out. I still get 1 or 2 a day, but that's way better than the 30+ I used to get. All it took was spamassassian (to catch most of the spam) and cloudmark spamnet (which catches many/most of the viruses that seem to find their way to me). Works great.

Google Groups

[iso]

I have the same email address that I've had since 1994 (basically firstname@lastname.com). Unfortunately I used it on the Usenet many years ago, before this was considered to be a bad idea. Nowadays, Google Groups (and perhaps others?) have my postings, and email address, forever immortalized.

I imagine that harvesting software would crawl Google groups regularly. Is there anything I can do about this? This study makes it clear that after an email address is removed from the web, the amount of spam it receives drops off dramatically. It makes sense that removing my email address from google groups (the last remaining place it exists on the web) could help substantially.

So the question is, will Google remove my email address from their site if I ask them? Has anybody else tried this?

- j

Spam is an end in itself.

[douglips]

Sure, spammer X knows that someone who spells out their email address in an attempt to avoid spam is not going to buy anything.

But, many spammers exist solely to sell other spammers email addresses. So, an obscured email address is just as valuable to such a spammer as any other email address.

Of course, they won't tell their spammer clients that the email address is for a spam-averse user, they'll collect their .003 cents for the email address for each spammer they sell to and buy a silk kimono and leather slippers and sleep until 1 PM. Bastards.

Re:So what??

[Anonymous Coward]

i know who not to buy from, i also drop them an email saying you can close my account because i will not do business with spam companies. One of these wont deter xyz.com but a few hundred a week would. because the lost business is more than the few hundred they get from the spammers.

New Tactic

[thecoolestguy]

I've also noticed that lately spammers have been putting a 1 pixel wide image in the email message itself. (I.e. img src=spammers_server/pixel.gif?email=youremailaddre ss ) If the message gets opened or previewed - the pixel is pulled from the spammers server and a web log is created with your email address in it. Even viewing a potential spam email can verify your email address to the spammer as a valid account.

Re:bah

[bheerssen]

I wonder, does he have children? If not, would he relish the idea of them constantly being hit with sex ads?

Clearly he doesn't care. We're talking about a guy who violated his public oath as a peace officer to make money by selling drugs on the street. In my opinion, breaking that oath is a far worse crime than selling drugs because it illustrates a perfect lack of integrity that the simple act of selling illegal drugs does not. Someone who would sell out the citizens he has sworn to protect certainly would not care about how spam affects other people - just so long as he makes money off of it.

rant <<EOR;

I am amazed that officers are not imprisoned more often for this sort of behaviour. While breaking a public oath of office may not be a crime, selling illegal drugs certainly is. Ordinary citizens get serious jail time for that. Peace officers - apparently - just get fired, as though all that they had done was break their oath, for which they should be fired. What I want to know is: how did his superiors find enough evidence of wrongdoing that they can terminate him, yet not bring him up on criminal charges for the activities that led to his dismissal?

The system is backward. His crime, apparently, was willfully and maliciously engaging in conduct that materially breaches his oath as a police officer. That should be a very serious, jailable offense, not simply grounds for termination. We depend upon these people for our very lives - those who would take advantage of that for their own enrichment endanger all of us as surely as do those whom they are sworn to protect us from.

EOR

Can you believe this?

[megazoid81]

Just look at a spam I got today:

--- BEGIN QUOTE ---

A friend and I had an idea one night that the best way to seek revenge on someone is to post their personal information on the internet, for everyone in the world to see, and let everyone seek revenge on that person for us. Thus, The Dox Depot was created. If you want to get revenge on someone and ruin their life, post their personal information on our page. Put their phone number so they get thousands of calls. Click here to get revenge

http://www.doxdepot.com/

To be removed from our mailing list please send an email to us admin@doxdepot.com

--- END QUOTE ---

Great article but one fundamental oops

[forged]

The article was a great informative piece, and their conclusion was interesting:

• Conclusions
  1. E-mail addresses harvested from the public Web are frequently used by spammers. By an overwhelming margin, the greatest amount of spam we received was to addresses posted on the public Web.

They have forgotten to mention the very mailto: tag in their research. IMHO this might have been a crucial factor to their research.

Although on the majority of web pages you have the mailto: link to be the same as your email address (duh), for research purpose it would have been interesting to separate the visible email address and the one in the mailto: tag. I am confident that whatever is in the mailto: link is what attracts spiders, and the email address displayed on the page gets less.

Can someone with knowlege of harvesting get back to us and tell me if this assumption is correct ? Better yet, does someone has any data ?

Make spam work against itself

[zornorph]

Tired of your legislators not doing anything about spam? Then perhaps they need to see just how much fun it is... send an email with their return address to several of those "remove me from your mailing list" links, and see how long till they come around. Of course, you should only do this where it is legal to do so, but I'm sure if you repeat this many times over, that should change soon enough :)

Re:Burn in Hell, Son of Spam!

[Dyolf Knip]

Charles Childs
8002 Bellcreek Ln
Dayton, OH 45426
(937) 837 - 6997

I also tried to find a satellite image, but no luck.

If someone can verify this info, that'd be great. This was the only one I could find.