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Re: Why No One Should EVER Send "Remove" Messages

Although a number of people have suggested not responding to the 
recent spammer,  no one has yet explained in any detail WHY none of us 
should fall for that "Remove" ploy.  
                   
                      HOW THE SPAM WORKS
If you don't explain how the spam works, you can't expect people to 
understand.

                  HE WANTS YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS

This spammer, like many others, is trying to build up a mailing list 
without having to pay for the names.  His technique is simple.  He sends 
an innocuous message to a number of lists, and offers to remove people's 
names if they send him a "Remove" message.

                  DID YOU SEND HIM YOUR ADDRESS?

If each one of us had realized he didn't have A SINGLE ONE OF OUR NAMES, 
we would have known that there was nothing for him to remove.  But some 
of us didn't stop to think, and so we sent him our names and addresses, 
with the message "Remove."  This has enabled him to add us to his list, 
at least those of us who replied to HIM.  If you sent HIM a "remove" 
notice (with your name and address), you made his effort worthwhile.

         OR DID YOU MISUNDERSTAND HIM AND SEND YOUR ADDRESS TO THE LIST?

At least a dozen of us misunderstood him, and sent our "remove" reply to 
Perennials!  HE doesn't subscribe to Perennials, so he wasn't able to add 
these names to his new mailing list.  Those of us who sent "remove" 
notices to Perennials therefore did not benefit him.  The only benefit 
was to make us all very aware of spammers and their selfishness.

                   HOW TO CAUSE SPAMMERS TO LOSE MONEY

Next time, God forbid, I hope we will ignore "cheeseball" offers.  The 
best way to thwart spammers is to cause them to have wasted their time 
completely.  How do you do that?  By COMPLETELY IGNORING them.  Their 
wasted time is their wasted money.

                       WHOM TO WRITE ABOUT SPAMMERS

If you MUST write to someone about spam, write to your mother, or to your 
Congressman.  Please don't write to the spammers.

Cheers,

Harry  

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997,  Kwint <gwprod@primenet.com> wrote:

> Subject: Question regarding  "Remove"
> 
> Maybe I'm missing the point, but isn't the idea to send the word "remove"
> to the sender of this spam, that is  --->   RAMM111@1stfamily.com <--------
> NOT to the list?
> 
> One replaces the To: line with the address of the ad sender. All you put in
> the body text is the word "remove"  but you DONT send it to
> perennials@mallorn.com. You send it to RAMM111@1stfamily.com.
> 
> By sending the word 'remove' to the perennials list it's causing more mail
> than was ever created by one ad.
> 
> Am I missing something here? If it's different, someone please correct me.
> 
> Karen
> 
Yes and no, Karen.  You're right in that he wanted your name sent to him; 
he didn't want it sent to the list.  He didn't realize that people would 
misunderstand, and bombard the list with their "remove" messages.  
Because he didn't get ANY of those remove messages, he doesn't even know 
about how the list was disrupted.

IF HE KNEW, he would wish he had said "Be careful not to send your 
'remove' message to your own list; send it to me instead.  I'm the one 
who needs your address.  Your list already has your address."

But he doesn't know about all our grief.   And I doubt if he would 
care very much even if he did know.        --HD

Listowners, Alpine-L, the Electronic Rock Garden Society:
Active: Louise Parsons & Harry Dewey; Quiet: Eric Gouda & Alexej Borkovec
To join Alpine-L, send the message INFO to Alpine-L-Request@nic.surfnet.NL
All Alpine-L members should use that address for Louise OR Harry, please.

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