General Discussions

**serandfae** · 09-30-2007, 01:16 PM

Well, I was an idiot--I put my addy on my site in a mailto: link. And the spambots picked it up. And I got a deluge of spam. Of course, I changed my addy to an image with a munged addy in the alt tag. Then I collected all the addies from my spams and put them in mailto: links for spambots to pick up, just empty between the a tags so they don't show.

But this got me thinking: Why not use spammers' own tools against them? Anyone know of, or can create, a tool that creates random addresses by domain (random characters or names, same way the spammers create their addresses) and put those out in mailto: links to be posted on web pages for spambots to harvest?

There are, of course, programs like spampoison that create fake addies, but something like this would cause spammers to potentially ddos one another, IMHO.

Anyone with me?

**coolkbk585** · 09-30-2007, 01:57 PM

So you're going to give the spambots a fake email address? Do you think that using a script to give them a couple fake emails will stop them?

I don't really get what you're trying to do...even if every active person in this forum gave them a list of fake email addresses they'd just come back.

**ADAM Web Design** · 09-30-2007, 02:03 PM

Kyle's right, Tim. Putting a few fake addresses, when people can send to millions of addresses dirt-cheap, isn't going to do a thing to stop them. The fifteen or twenty fake addresses you might create, and the thousands of bad email addresses (dead, changed, or otherwise incorrect) don't make up for the millions of live ones they'll have and the relatively low percentage of success they'll need.

Mind you, screwing with their heads individually can lead to fun.

**serandfae** · 09-30-2007, 02:10 PM

A couple? Naah. OK, say you've got a spammer that's sending you stuff from domain @spammer.com. Your script spits out however many random addresses you want for that domain, in mailto: links. You post those on a webpage somewhere for spambots to pick up. Whether the addresses are valid or not, the spambot picks them up and spammers start sending mail to them.

**ForrestCroce** · 09-30-2007, 02:38 PM

I don't think those emails really come from the address they purport to.

What a lot of people do is use a page to generate a bunch of random email addresses with the date, time, and requesting IP address embedded in the address. Some people log that to a database for an added layer of proof. When one of those addresses get an email, which gets forwarded to info@domain.com then they can trace it back to the spambot, and try to take court action.

**tripy** · 09-30-2007, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by serandfae

A couple? Naah. OK, say you've got a spammer that's sending you stuff from domain @spammer.com. Your script spits out however many random addresses you want for that domain, in mailto: links. You post those on a webpage somewhere for spambots to pick up. Whether the addresses are valid or not, the spambot picks them up and spammers start sending mail to them.

I don't get what does it does to stop them ???
You just create a lot more noise to the net, as those emails, even invalid, will lead to traffic between the routers before they know that's an invalid address.

And seriously, do you really think it matter to them?
They don't care how many addresses are invalid, as long as at least 1 answers, they have reached their goal.
They have a live one.

**serandfae** · 09-30-2007, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tripy

I don't get what does it does to stop them ???
You just create a lot more noise to the net, as those emails, even invalid, will lead to traffic between the routers before they know that's an invalid address.

A barrage of data, say e-mails, sent to a specific router, bogs it down. That's a denial of service attack. Sent from several locations, it's called a distributed denial of service attack, or DDoS. So, if spambots pick up a large number of addys from a known spammer, and suddenly start sending mail to it from several locations, it's a....

Quote:

Originally Posted by tripy

And seriously, do you really think it matter to them?
They don't care how many addresses are invalid, as long as at least 1 answers, they have reached their goal.
They have a live one.

If their operations are interrupted? I'd say they'd care. And the addresses they harvest will be only of known spammers, so I hope they do find a good one. At least.

**tripy** · 09-30-2007, 07:56 PM

Quote:

say e-mails, sent to a specific router, bogs it down

What you forget here is:

1:
it don't affect only the spammer

2:
They fake the origin of the emails, and probably forge the IP packets too, so either you'll end up attacking someone that's not involved, or you'll miss your target.

Not to mention that there are many places where organizing a ddos attempt is an offense, and you might get problems with that too.
And I'm more than positive that "it was to bugger a spammer" won't do any good to your record, if you are taken down for the same charges as they are being monitored and sent in jail

**swiftmed** · 09-30-2007, 08:05 PM

Hey,

unfortunately i dont think the internet or email is ever going to be free of spam, so its just something your going to have to get used too unfortunately

**serandfae** · 09-30-2007, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ForrestCroce

I don't think those emails really come from the address they purport to.

What a lot of people do is use a page to generate a bunch of random email addresses with the date, time, and requesting IP address embedded in the address. Some people log that to a database for an added layer of proof. When one of those addresses get an email, which gets forwarded to info@domain.com then they can trace it back to the spambot, and try to take court action.

What you're describing is how Project Honeypot works, in a nutshell. There's another good one, too, that uses a forward traceroute through the links of a spam (which have to be good if the spammer hopes to be profitable) to identify the "scam behind the spam", as it were. They call themselves KnujOn. I'm impressed with their results, so far.

**serandfae** · 09-30-2007, 09:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tripy

Not to mention that there are many places where organizing a ddos attempt is an offense, and you might get problems with that too.

At least in the U.S., if someone sends you an unsolicited email that address becomes public domain. That is, you can repost it and be within the law. And, sure, the originating address can be forged, but most spammers I've come across aren't that bright (the forward traceroute matched the originating IP).

Far as I know, if you post an email address and a spambot harvests it, you as the poster are not liable. So, if I can be a thorn in the side of some of these &(^%(&%)&*^!!! , I'll be happy to. My inbox has had a lot less spam since I started doing this, without filters.

And sure, I know that there's always going to be spammers and abusers out there. But learn to live with them?

**dansgalaxy** · 10-01-2007, 09:38 AM

This is completely Futile.

Firstly IF the address spam appears to be sent from is actuallly connected to a server, then im 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999% sure that it would be a black hole adress or a pipe.

meaning all emails would be instantly deleted as soon as they are sent to the mail server.

Unless you could get litterally millions of users to flood known spam servers at exactly the same time there isnt really anything you can do. and even if you managed to take one server down it would only be temporary, and im sur etheir are thousands of servers doing exactly the same thing.

**CSS4Life** · 10-01-2007, 03:20 PM

Just install and run things like Spam Assassin to act against it. If you are using Hotmail, get another address - I use it for my social emails but otherwise, it's rubbish for spam prevention.

**dansgalaxy** · 10-01-2007, 04:15 PM

dito ^^ the ONLY reason i have a hotmail address is because i found some things wouldnt accept address to sign in for hotmail unless it was a @hotmail....

was a bit of a life saver tho when my old host decided he didnt feel like paying his bill ¬.¬

**Learning Newbie** · 10-01-2007, 06:15 PM

You know, we all hate spam. But what you're suggesting isn't going to stop it.

**serandfae** · 10-01-2007, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

You know, we all hate spam. But what you're suggesting isn't going to stop it.

Yeah, you're probably right.

I do think groups like KnujOn and Project Honeypot are on the right track as a different way to combat the problem, though. And, like ADAM Web Design said earlier, it is at least therapeutic to mess with the ones you can....

(steps off of soapbox) Ow! How'd that thing get so high?