[ATM] SPAM AGAIN!

[Bruce MacDonald]

Some observations:
First,
Although early spammers mined internet sites, few do now.  Not much
point in it from their point of view -- most new addresses are
obfuscated, most old ones are, well, old.

They have much better ways:  greeting cards, fake virs warnings (send
this to everyone on your address list) and viruses/trojans that infect
machines and send entire address books back to them.

Second,
Spam is annoying like mosquitoes are annoying.  Learn the defenses, do
what you can, live with the rest.  Some mosquitoes carrry malaria or
west nile virus, some spam carries other bad things.  There are many
free and lo-cost anti-spam programs.  Use them.  I used to get
hundreds of spam messages/day at work, now I get next to none.  I'm
not sure what my employer uses, but it is obviously very, very
effective -- but not perfect.

Finally,
Complaining on an ATM list won't help.  Congress can't help, nor can
any other government.  There is just too much money in it, and besides
-- it is a global phenomenon.  There are no technological solutions to
behavioural problems, and spam is a behavioural problem.  As long as
they have customers, there will be spammers, and there will be spam.


Cheers,
--BM

On 6/30/07, Chris Rowland <chris_group_mail at dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
>
> I am truly appalled about how complacent the senior members of this
> group are about their providing email addresses for spammers.
>