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Following the Spam Trail

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-read dept.

An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC's Bob Sullivan doggedly follows a spam trail from Alabama to Argentina to find out who actually benefits from spam. The beneficiaries aren't necessarily the pasty faced, high school drop out industrial spammers we have gotten to know, but well known companies."

3 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Pick up the phone. by pontifier · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you can nail down a domain that seems to profit, use the whois information and call them on the phone. I usually dont get spam after I have complained to a person. If the phone number is bogus you can report them at http://reports.internic.net/cgi/rpt_whois/rpt.cgi

    --
    -John Fenley
    1. Re:Pick up the phone. by notfancy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Don't bother calling. The number is disconnected. I just called (I'm in BA, so it's local) and the earnest recorded-message lady informed me of the fact.

      I pity the poor soul that gets assigned that number.

  2. Sneakemail.com by KevinMS · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is why Sneakemail was created over 3 years ago. You can easily bust whoever benefits from your stolen/sold email address no matter how far down the chain it goes. For those who don't know Sneakemail was the first disposable email address service which was designed both for keeping your address clean and tracking those selling your address. Sneakemail got a mention in this months MIT Technology review magazine.

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    Sneakemail is to spam filters what an ounce of prevention is to a pound of cure.