NODE 10ba0c04Re: Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
Will Rodger <rodger@interramp.com>Tue, 10 Sep 1996 09:36:53 +0800
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>If you know a valid email address on the spammers system you can always
>bounce each message back to them. If enough people turned the messages
>back on them it might give them the opportunity to experience first hand
>what its like to receive tons of mail you don't want or need...
>
Ah, but they never do.
Why not? Because spammers _invariably_ forge the return addresses to keep
exactly that from happening. Indeed, Cyber Promo claims it "had an
understanding" with AOL that it could use AOL boxes or bogus adresses to
keep bounced messages from coming back at them and crashing their server.
Deliberatlely forging addresses, Cyber claims, is entirely legal. AOL says
it's fraud.
Interesting footnote: AOL, of course, is able to trace a lot of the spam it
gets. It has sent back thousands of messages at once to Cyber which, in
turn, has gotten it bumped from several ISPs once their servers crashed as a
result.
Tough business, huh?
Will Rodger
Washington Bureau Chief
Inter@ctive Week
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NODE b8404410Re: Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
NetSurfer <netsurf@pixi.com>Wed, 11 Sep 1996 06:25:41 +0800
On Mon, 9 Sep 1996, Will Rodger wrote:
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>
> Why not? Because spammers _invariably_ forge the return addresses to keep
> exactly that from happening. Indeed, Cyber Promo claims it "had an
And then there are the network headers - you can usually see where the
msg entered the net. These people aren't usually clever enough to spoof
the headers beyond the from and reply to fields.
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