Well you should always, in all circumstances, reply to a reply-to field, if
one exists -- it has a higher priority.
My old procedure used to be to have screwed up To: field, and a proper
Reply-To field... then if i was posting somewhere I didn't want my address
to show up I could go up and delete the Reply-To header manually...
Now i have Yarf set up, I've eliminated my reply-to field. (-: New tools,
new strategy.
>Where does the spamming software get the address from, the reply-to:
>field or the From: field, or both?
Don't ask me, I've never seen any spammer software. I just ask myself, if i
was going trawling for email addresses where would I look. And the answer
is: EVERYWHERE. (-: Absolutely everywhere.
>I've been getting more junk mail recently too, but I thought it was
>because I just recently configured my reply-to address in
>%yarn%\config properly. Before when it was blank, and I did not
>receive much junk.
Hmm, i suppose if a spammer wanted the fastest, easiest to obtain, and most
reliable collection of email addresses then the Reply-To is the way to
go... because it has a high priority, and who is going to mess up their
reply-to field? Though again, if i was an Evil spammer (and there are no
Good spammers! The only Good spammer is a Dead spammer!) I'd suck back
every email address possible, searching the entire header, and even the
body of messages. And then i'd write a web crawler to starts sucking email
addresses off of web pages -- all email addresses in every html, but of
course, specially the easy-pickings of <mailto:whoever@wherever> codes. I'd
have it all sorted and indexed for fast lookups to eliminate duplicates.
And at this point in net.History i don't even think i'd bother trying to
eliminate bogus addresses -- because there aren't many -- so a few spam
messages bounce... no big deal, especially if you have a fake header... or
buy an internet site (with a false name) specifically for the purpose of
sending the spam and abandon it when the spam has been sent...
It's hard to fight spam... they have a lot on their side -- the internet is
wide open -- the only way to really fight it is to get everyone to leave
the internet. If everyone leaves the internet then spammers will stop. (-:
Next best thing is to keep a low profile and make your privacy a priority
-- as has already been expounded here, most (the vast vast majority) aren't
even aware of how much info about them is being archived out there by
unknown people. Most people have no idea that netscape is sending their
email address to every web site they visit (there are ways around this, as
also discussed, but MOST people have no idea)...
Of course some people don't care. But some do.
I put all spam i recieve into a folder, UNREAD (it's an important principle
with me to read as little of spam as possible.. usually can identify it in
the first couple of lines... won't even give them the satisfaction of
taking my time to look at their defications in my mailbox), for
hypothetical future reference. I've never referenced it before, but now
for the first time I just checked to see when my last spam was... November
21. Not too bad. I used to get a lot of spam... but i've been getting less
and less. Of course maybe there's less spammers out there these days. (-:
Some how i doubt that!
Though i've probably alienated half of the internet with bouncing messages
on them when they've tried to mail me for legit reasons. <G> Oh well!
Of course if i was a desperate spammer i'd also examine URLS... my (soon to
die) url www.io.org/~tm pretty clearly betrays my address there... )-:
Hopefully spammers aren't this desperate yet... hopefully no spammers are
reading this message and thinking, "hey, good idea! never thought of that!"
Then there's the "problem" of people placing my email address on their
pages. Doesn't happen often, but occassionally. I have a team of
bloodthirsty lawyers combing the planet prosecuting and persecuting them
mercilessly! Just kidding. It's always so flattering that anyone might want
to link to any of my pages (or whatever) i'm too scared to say Anything for
fear of offending them! A chink in my armour... one of many.
Ho hum... what a tangled web we weave...
--
.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.+.
Tim Myddleten =As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning= as544 torfree.net
-=-=-= begging you to read Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis =-=-=-
~`~`~'~`~`~'~`~`~'~`~`~'~`~`~'~`~`~'~`~'~'~`~'~'~`~'~'~`~'~'~`~'~'~`~
Yarn/2 Bells & Whistles Page: http://www.io.org/~tm/bells2.html
* January 10th * International Day of Crossing the Street