I just had a great idea while I was futilely sending e-mails to korean spammers with the message “Please Remove me from your mailing list!” converted to korean by babelfish. (I originaly pasted the actual korean into this post, and it seemed to work until I clicked ‘preview post’)
It would be great if I could write an internet virus that would go to every mailing list server on the planet and after checking that my address is on the list it would display the following message -
“You have been infected. Kindly remove the address e-mail@somewhere.com from your mailing list. you have 10 minutes to comply! Reseting the computer will activate the virus! Running a virus checker will activate the virus! Non-compliance will activate the virus! Compliance will disable the virus! You have my word as an honest victim of your dishonest activity that what I have said up to now is true. GET MY ADDRESS OFF NOW!”
(or something like that)
Spammers usually leave no trace of where they came from so this virus would have to be programmed to find ALL mailing lists.
Any virus writers reading this - do something good for mankind! write this virus!
Lobsang, you shouldn’t reply to spammers. Not even to request to be removed. Block them or forward them to your ISP.
You especially shouldn’t click on a button that they claim will automatically remove you from their list. Spammers sometimes use computer-generated lists that may or may not be real addresses. When you reply, you verify that they have found a real person. Now they can sell your address to other spammers.
In addition to that, don’t ever open spam, and don’t use an html-enabled e-mail client.
A common technique is to include a bit of html like
<IMG HEIGHT=“1” WIDTH=“1” SRC=“http://www.spamserver.com/youraddress-yourserver-com.gif”>
(eg mudd-pgpin-com if the spam had been sent to mudd@pgpin.com)
That way a request will be logged at “spamserver.com” for the non-existant image, and they know that the spam has been received by a real person at that address.
One of the things that irks me about Outlook Express, is that you can’t turn “preview” off, so html gets processed whether you open the thing or not, (if the message is highlighted by being the last one received.) Stupid.
Larry I haven’t seen a version of Outlook Express where you couldn’t turn off the preview pane. <hmm, close Eudora and blow the dust off OE> In OE6, choose View > Layout and uncheck the “Show Preview Pane” checkbox.
If this doesn’t work for you, where are you having trouble turning preview off?
