Farelf Posted March 16, 2004 Share Posted March 16, 2004 Do you believe this? A letter published from Britain in the current issue of New Scientist says that writer's experience with spamvertized URL links is that "none of the offers was real" - refer: http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/oplett...jsp?id=ns243812 Britain's procedures to "control" email are notorious but are they really *that* effective? - and that quick to affect hosted web page services, many presumably off-shore? I must confess that I have never actually tried to purchase the wares on offer as he has ("None are actually trying to sell anything.") but the majority of the ones I see (North American "market") are certainly traceable according to SpamCop and therefore, I would have thought, more than capable of taking any money one cares to throw at them. It seems that spam is highly targeted by region. For instance, in some 2,000 spam, I can't recall a single instance of origin from the much maligned Telstra BigPond which I therefore presume operates only in the Australian region. Does anyone know what *is* the deal with spamvertized sites in the UK? In any event, it seems a bit irresponsible for New Scientist to print the suggestion that one can (presumably) open spam and (certainly) visit spamvertizer's pages with impunity. Much of what I see in these pages indicates otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted March 16, 2004 Share Posted March 16, 2004 none of the offers was real There was a US outfit that did this very thing a while back, with over 80% of the spam followups actually having no product to hpysically buy. Gave up looking for a link .. sorry .... spam is highly targeted by region Considering that I see Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, etc., etc., I'm not as convinced that there's much targeting at all ... one can (presumably) open spam and (certainly) visit spamvertizer's pages with impunity Liken it to providing medical care to infectious deseased peole ... you take certain precautions <g> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farelf Posted March 16, 2004 Author Share Posted March 16, 2004 Wow - radical paradgm shift. I've been imagining a whole bunch of loser troglodytes trying to eke out a wretched existence through their minuscule commission on the 1 in 400 of their victims who actually look at the garbage they send out, only to find out now they're mostly no more than internet-capable serial pests (running interference intentionally or othrewise for a handful of actual "operators"). Worse, all those promises of products to either enhance certain of my private parts or to reduce them (the implication is not always clear) and other products to more or less permanently activate the same are possibly ficticious. Come to think of it, I've not seen any "satisfied customers", but there again I really wouldn't want to. Seriously, I've been thinking about this all the wrong way. How can we moderate or otherwise make a difference to people like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted March 16, 2004 Share Posted March 16, 2004 Not sure you can gracefully. In general, the "top" spammers aren't actually selling anything but the "promise to deliver" to those that somewhere down the line think they'll be making the big bucks. Then you've got the real lowlife scum like the idiot tracked down and successfully prosecuted by Earthlink (and a few others) that allegedly had less than a couple of hundred dollars (US), and that's after sending millions upon million of spam messages through mostly bogus accounts, though these included his hijacking his own mother's account .. I mean, what the hell can you say that'd make a difference to someone like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farelf Posted March 16, 2004 Author Share Posted March 16, 2004 You're right Wazoo, it would be hard to see any way to affect or influence such as these, wreckers and/or ignoranuses (it was in the Washington Post and on King of the Hill - it has to be a real word) not being noted for their tractability. Little wonder there is talk on another forum of "undiscussable ... methods". Which begs the question, "so, what good are we doing with what we're doing?" We have to assume that organizations like SpamCop, the software developers and the service providers who join up (may their DNSs multiply) can, sooner or later, get in front of the game. Looks to me like they need some help and leverage because that's just not going to happen as long as spammers can do what they do with so little cost or consequence. Hope I'm wrong! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhanna Posted March 29, 2004 Share Posted March 29, 2004 I made the mistake of visiting a site from a spam email once... never again. I just wanted to see if they actually had anything to sell. I run a popular AV software, which is kept up to date automaticly. I get to the site and after closing 10 or so popups, My AV software goes off. I stop the execution of the site, and threat. I close my browser and run my AV software and sure enough it detects 5 or so "Ad-ware" threats. I was able to delete all but one of the threats. The last one was a tricky one. It would rename and copy itself to different locations. It would also re-execute itself. I would have to do another scan to find it, every time I killed it. I do not remember how I finally got rid of it, but I do remember spending almost an hour doing so. As I said, never again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farelf Posted March 29, 2004 Author Share Posted March 29, 2004 Thanks for that dhanna. Clearly the warnings others have given are well justified - I can't afford to be too ventursome with my setup (limited protection) and appreciate the detail of your confirmation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted March 29, 2004 Share Posted March 29, 2004 Thank goodness I have always been too chicken to do that! Though I have always been curious. Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WB8TYW Posted April 1, 2004 Share Posted April 1, 2004 Miss Betsy, If you can find the time to waste, check out http://www.userfriendly.org/. In one of the threads about a year ago, the sales critter got a date set up with the femail technician, right after he got a high performance graphics workstation. He made the mistake of visiting a porn site just before she showed up to go out with him. He was unable to keep up with the number of additional windows that it kept poping up. -John Personal Opinion Only Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farelf Posted April 1, 2004 Author Share Posted April 1, 2004 Unless some kindly soul finds it I, for one, am happy to take your word for it John - that's a fairly large site! Liked their 404 http://www.userfriendly.org/discus/ but effect was a little diminished as it was from their internal link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted April 1, 2004 Share Posted April 1, 2004 When I have time, I will have to go there! But having experienced those pop ups that won't go away - I am already having a good laugh! Thanks! Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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