Re: WTB: Echo-back software against junk e-mail advertisers

[gdr@eddore.myrias.com (Devin Reade)]

In article <5ce0mm$co8@lynx.unm.edu>,
stephen e buggie <buggie@enzu.unm.edu> wrote:
>
>I have heard that software is available to echo back to the junk-emailers 
>thousands of repeated copies of their unrequested email ads. [...]
>
>Is this true?  Is there an Apple II version of that software?  Any 
>creative programmers getting the hint?  ;-)   Any disadvantages?

This is traditionally done with a shell script (a al Bourne) that
takes the offending email/news posting and mails it back to the
originator multiple times, usually with a note at the top with something
like "your boneheaded action which caused this reply was ..."

This worked fairly well before the explosion of the internet when the
majority of the problems were just newbie-related and, although they
were common, they weren't epidemic.

Part of the problem now is that often the offenders know what they
are doing is wrong, know how to avoid the simple reprisals, and they
just don't give a sh*t.  One common trick is to make the Reply-To
field bogus so that simple remailers won't work.  You actually have
to read through their drivel before you find out how to contact them,
which of course is what they want.

There are a few ISPs out there which intentionally support bulk 
advert mailings, but have the decency to remove you from the mailing
lists of _all_ their clients if you request them to do so.  I find
this marginally acceptable -- it's good that I can be so removed, but
I didn't want to be on their d*mned list to begin with and I had to 
waste some of _my_ time to tell them so.  OTOH, there are a lot worse
sites out there...

The last thing to consider with such a bulk emailing is that there
is a fine line between flooding their mailbox (which is annoying to
the originator) and flooding the site to the extent that nobody at
that ISP gets mail (you may also crash the ISP mail machine).  The
former sometimes works.  The latter gets (usually innocent) people pissed
off at you.

So what's the solution?  I honestly don't know.  For now, most go to the
big bit bucket in the sky.  With repeat offenders I usually try to talk
to their ISPs and have them shut down (or at least reprimanded).  It
might be tilting at windmills.

And specifically, I don't known of any Apple-II specific scripts.

[Further oration on the thread -- unless it is appleII stuff -- properly
belongs in one of the news.* groups ...]

-- 
	"Very funny, Scotty.  Now beam down my clothes."