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Where Is Spam When You Want It?

Posted by timothy on from the come-here-little-spider dept.

Sean writes "In a complete twist to what everybody else is trying to do these days, I need to attract spam to an e-mail address for a research survey I am conducting. I have submitted a few articles to a handful of Usenet groups, and I have signed up to some general mailing lists but so far I have nothing to show for it. How come by personal account gets 100+ spam each day yet when I try to find it I get nothing? Where should I post my address so that it attracts spam?"

6 of 580 comments (clear)

  1. Why not by Alystair · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You want spam? You should have put in your email address into the submitted article...

  2. Re:Hotmail. by norsk_hedensk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    yeah but if they ask for you email address and you give it to them, it is not spam anymore. spam is unsolicited. you giving them your email says that they can email you. unless they say they WONT send spam, but yeah, thats gonna happen.

  3. Re:Outlook... by dboyles · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you do this, are you willing to be responsible if someone hijacks the machine and uses it to commit illegal/unethical acts? I know, it's unlikely that this would happen, but knowingly putting an open machine online with the intention of having it compromised is asking for trouble. It's one thing to not know any better, but it's another to be apathetic to the situation.

    --
    -- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
  4. Use a control group by Kehl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Create Several Email Addresses - Be scientific ...

    Address 1 - (Control Address) Post No Where and read no messages until the testing time is over

    Address 2 - Post On Usenet (Deja.com)

    Address 3 - Post In Public ICQ program

    Address 4 - Porn Sites

    Address 5 - IRC

    etc .....

  5. Re:Outlook... by circusnews · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I was about to use one of my mod points in this thread, when I came to this post.
    Okay, let's talk about the box of goodies. Let's say you leave a box of weapons outside with full knowledge that a neighborhood kid will probably find it and will likely use the contents for something illegal. If that happens, do you think you are partially responsible for whatever happens?
    dboyles goes on to make the point that does not equate running an insecure machine with handing out a small arsenal, and that you aren't responsible for others' actions, you are only liable for your irresponsible action. These are both points I agree with, but the analagy used still bothers me.

    Gun's are designed to kill. Computers are not designed for cracking/spaming/etc. If you leave a chain saw out in your back yard, knowing that the kid down the block is (1) a bit whacked, (2) could be a potential danger, and (3) should not be on your property, are you partially responcible for when he kills some one with that chain saw? Now, what if it is the kid on the next block that could be the danger? Or the next city, county state of country? At what point is it no longer reasonable to expect that the public to know something is a threat?

    It used to be enough to run a virus scanner every so often. Now you have to start by patching your systems regularly, then move on to running regularly updated virus scanners, installing and updating firewalls for the network, scanning for spyware, installing and updating desktop firewalls, updating spam filters, chasing drivers, updating applications (add more from the endless list here), all to keep a system going. So I ask again, at what point is it no longer reasonable to expect that the public will know something is or could be a threat?

    And at what point does the public feel that it is no longer reasonable to expect them to know something is or could be a threat when it comes to that "harmless little box on the desk"?

  6. Re:Outlook... by ^Case^ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't this (more or less) the point of a honeypot?

    More or less yes. The major difference is that with a honeypot you make sure that there's only a way in -- you make it impossible for the offender to use the honeypot to carry on attacks from the honeypot. And that does not seem to be the case in this example.