full-disclosure - Drive-by download from a spam email message

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Message-ID: <002e01c2c15e$6c6bb5c0$6801a8c0@rms2>
From: rms at computerbytesman.com (Richard M. Smith)
Subject: Drive-by download from a spam email message

Actually the US Federal Trade Commision did a survey and found that this
isn't really true.  Most opt-out pages simply don't do anything.
Verifying valid email addresses doesn't really matter to most spammers
apparently. 

www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/spam/pubs/removeme.ppt

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: Nexus [mailto:nexus@...rol.i-way.co.uk] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 7:43 AM
To: Richard M. Smith; full-disclosure@...ts.netsys.com
Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] Drive-by download from a spam email
message

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard M. Smith" <rms@...puterbytesman.com>
To: <full-disclosure@...ts.netsys.com>; "'Richard M. Smith'"
<rms@...puterbytesman.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 3:05 AM
Subject: [Full-Disclosure] Drive-by download from a spam email message

> Hi,
>
> I just tried to opt-out from a spam email message from some sort
> Internet keyword system.  When I went to the opt-out page for the

*doh!* ;-)

The "opt-out" link is just a trick to confirm to the spammers that there
is
a live human being on the end of that email address - sure you may not
get
another one from that particluar spamming domain, but you will get even
more
from others since you confirmed that the email address is read.   They
sometimes use other tricks to track live accounts, such as web bugs and
other tags.
The only reply to spam is to forward it to the domains abuse@ address
(if
they have one) and the upstream ISP.

Cheers.