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What Happens When You Reply To ALL of Your Spam

networkworld.com — Each S.P.A.M. volunteer saw an average of 70 spam messages arrive in their in-box each day, with men receiving about 15 more per day than women. That was a lot to answer, but "Penelope Retch" — the alias that Mooney chose for her S.P.A.M. adventure — answered every single message.

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mark076h 103 days ago, made popular 101 days ago

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Minarchian, on 07/02/2008, -6/+22This is interesting.

But what happens if/when one of these spammers look for Penelope's emails and figure out where she lives?

I think I would be more worried about than anything else in the experiment.
- billyvnilly, on 07/03/2008, -1/+31Spammers are fat, lazy dudes that live in basements... whats to be afraid of.
- dullnation, on 07/03/2008, -4/+4How exactly would that happen? The most you'd get is an IP address which is very ambiguous.. unless you're stupid enough to give your real details away in any way in an email...
  - KMye, on 07/03/2008, -0/+15Minarchian's right. The stupid bitch gave out her home address, many times it seems...and then went and did a news article that links her real name to her pseudonym.
  - dullnation, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3Sorry, I didn't think someone doing such an experiment would be such a dumb ass in the first place.
- ScottoGato, on 07/03/2008, -1/+13Spammers are spammers because they're trying to make money. They're not going lose all of that little bit of money that they make by scamming to try and hunt someone down.
Cancerkitty, on 07/02/2008, -2/+55"the five U.S. participants received the most spam: 23,233 messages over the course of the month" Holy crap.
- bjornski, on 07/03/2008, -2/+9Yeah, I thought it was quite an interesting article. It was neat to see how they broke up what regions received what type of spam the most.
  
  If you want to go read more on the project (like I did), here's the link.
  http://www.mcafeespamexperiment.com/
- doublej42, on 07/03/2008, -0/+2ok I've got more than 50,000 in my spam box in 30 days, but I have multiple domain catch all filtering into my inbox.
- DeathfireD, on 07/03/2008, -0/+7The 90's called, they want their spam back.
dsoleil, on 07/02/2008, -2/+13Wow. I always wondered what would happen if you did that.
- twinklyJesus, on 07/03/2008, -17/+2You did? Wow, you're deep!
- opiniastrous, on 07/04/2008, -1/+1I hadn't dsoleil, but reading the article got me thinking that you might be able to fight spam by replying to it all with computer-generated spam. Think about it. If a spam filter not only filtered spam but also generated and sent automated responses, then spammers would have to deal with spam themselves: one worthless response for every spam e-mail they send. This would mean that to find responses from people who were genuinely fooled by their spam, they would have to scour through thousands and thousands of e-mails to try to work out which ones MIGHT be real. It wouldn't be worth the time! Spammers would just end up moving to other ventures. Even if a spammer was stubborn and just kept sending more and more spam e-mails, he could be hit with such a mass of replies that his computer wouldn't be able to handle the load, removing his contribution as well.
  
  The problem with this method I guess, is that you could start clogging up the Intertubes with the sheer number of spam e-mails and replies being flung back and forth. That said, the problem of Internet overload is going to happen anyway; given the increasing number of people playing games, watching YouTube videos and downloading HD movies, networks will have to be upgraded continuously. It might take governments and corporations a while but they will have to improve bandwidth eventually. The Internet will be able to cope than. Spammers and their computers however, wouldn't.
  
  ...
  
  I'm more a conceptualist than a techie. Anyone know if this is viable or am I just dreaming?
  - opiniastrous, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1Sooo...
    
    Does digging me down mean it isn't?
hollywoodphony, on 07/02/2008, -1/+4023,233? I'm pretty sure I get more than that. Thanks, Yahoo!
- aladrin, on 07/03/2008, -0/+29My original email account used to get 30,000 SPAM per month. It's down to about 12,000 now. Since I moved that domain to Google, only a few of those get into my inbox each month. I'm amazed at how good their SPAM detection is.
  - LightSpeed7, on 07/03/2008, -28/+3stop saying "SPAM"
    
    you're a *****
  - cindya, on 07/03/2008, -0/+10Agreed. I abandoned my hotmail account because of Spam overload. No more than 2 per month get thtough to my gmail inbox.
- Inflammo, on 07/03/2008, -0/+35Why would anyone still use Yahoo when GMail exists?
  - cawpin, on 07/03/2008, -31/+2Because Yahoo's email interface is vastly superior to Gmail's.
  - ScottoGato, on 07/03/2008, -3/+13vastly superior? GTFO
  - kaph, on 07/04/2008, -2/+1OpenID and data portability maybe?
  - sgtbutterscotch, on 07/04/2008, -1/+1I use Yahoo for stuff I don't care much about, like when I sign up for stuff and I have to give them my email. Anyway, I only get a few spam messages per day that go straight to the spam folder, so I don't understand when people complain about this kind of stuff. Maybe you guys surf the internet too much ;)
- Xondar, on 07/04/2008, -2/+2I'm pretty sure sites like Yahoo and Hotmail sell your e-mail address to spammers.
ChronicColonic, on 07/02/2008, -1/+44You mean the Nigerian Government windfall I have been expecting is FAKE?!? CRAP!!! This just ruined my day!
- cheeseplease, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2No dude these guys are just trying to make people think these things are fake so they can arrange all the deals with Nigeria themselves and earn ***** of money.
bdub92, on 07/02/2008, -1/+87'Mooney — who had observed the family's PC crippled just before Christmas by a virus " I cannot tell you how many times I've had friends who buy new computers because their old one had a "virus"...
- Gutterpunk, on 07/03/2008, -0/+15yeah I think that most of the emails with a payload are sent by Best Buy...
- ieatpizza, on 07/03/2008, -1/+36noobs
  - bradleyland, on 07/03/2008, -0/+3By virtue of the fact that they managed to get infected to that point, yes, but most people -- when faced with the choice of paying someone $150 to backup their crap, reinstall Windows + drivers + updates, then basically starting over -- will simply opt to buy a new $499 bargain computer.
- Snake100, on 07/03/2008, -0/+27....and then they log into their email accounts which had virus attachments open them up and get the same problem again :P
  - Tenoq, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1No, they use POP3 and the e-mail was already lost on their old system. :p
- DeathfireD, on 07/03/2008, -3/+4ya I agree, It's insane how uneducated people are still. If they just download a few anti-spam tools they could totally rid their PC of the crap thats installed without having to buy a new PC or even reformat.
- s0lidmetal, on 07/03/2008, -12/+3shoulda bought a mac
  - Cloud7654, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1There is a time and place for this sort of thing. It is not here, nor now.
  - mossblaser, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1I would think of an inteligent retort but I cba. Just ***** off.
MarianaPeyton, on 07/02/2008, -2/+136Gmail excludes all my spam. Props to Google!
- kipmartin, on 07/03/2008, -26/+7at work, when i set gmail to catch everything, i miss 20% of my legitimate emails. when gmail is set to let most legit emails through, i get inundated with spam.
  
  at home, i use the Mac Mail email program for hotmail and gmail and it is MUCH better.
  
  who said gmail prevents spam? its no better than hotmail. i have metrics to prove it.
  - sublimemm, on 07/03/2008, -0/+11where
  - ralphodog, on 07/03/2008, -1/+1Gmail has been the best for preventing spam, but occasionally I have 1-2 important emails slip into the 500 spam emails I get a week and things get bad.
  - krustie, on 07/03/2008, -0/+9http://www.google.com/mail/help/fightspam/spamexpl ...
  - bjornski, on 07/03/2008, -4/+2Google is pretty good about them, but the occasional one still slips through. But I'd have to agree, I've been having fantastic results with the spam filters at Hotmail. Love 'em or hate 'em, MS isn't doing a bad job with that project. It's the e-mail address I use the most, and it's the one I get the least spam with. Yahoo sucks, and Gmail is pretty good. I use Hotmail and Gmail for different projects, so I appreciate them both being good.
  - Oronar, on 07/03/2008, -1/+9I signed up for Gmail back when it was invite only. I've only had one legit email caught by the spam filters and maybe a total of 10 spam emails getting through. Gmail is the god of spam filtering.
  - Niightwitch, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2I have to disagree. Every once in a while gmail will let a piece of spam slip through, but it's a rarity and it also rarely labels a legitimate piece of mail as spam, but that's very, very seldom. I have no complaints about gmail.
  - sittered, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Are you friends with Nigerian princes?
- umbrellainabin, on 07/03/2008, -4/+8Gmail reads your spam and gives it to advertisers
  - bjornski, on 07/03/2008, -1/+8Well, to their "partners".
    
    But yes, you do get targeted ads with Gmail.
- sarixe, on 07/04/2008, -1/+4gmail catches a lot of my spam, but not all of it. however i've never experienced a loss of a legitimate email.
  - Rotzooi, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1I have. Rarely, but it happens.
Lucas123, on 07/02/2008, -4/+36I wish someone would invent a virus that attacks spam servers that the average consumer could send.
- silverleaves, on 07/03/2008, -5/+2I'm with you Lucas!
- Iluvator, on 07/03/2008, -4/+28That would be a terrible idea, since a great deal of the spam we see comes from computers that don't know they're sending it (ie, unwitting members of botnets). You'd be sending a virus to some poor soul who has no idea it's happening.
  - banmaster, on 07/03/2008, -4/+33So? They OUGHT to ***** know.
    Why the ***** should I be deluged by spam being sent from some *****'s computer who doesn't know how to update their virus scanner??
    Kick these assholes off the net and make it better for the rest of us!
  - CCmachined, on 07/03/2008, -1/+7DAMN!
  - NinjaBoy, on 07/03/2008, -1/+6I agree totally. I mean their computer is already infected so its not like you are doing that much more harm.
  - sarixe, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2also, if you send them a virus, it'll probably come right back to you
  - jeffhansen, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3How about sending a virus to eat the other virus?
- twiztidsinz, on 07/03/2008, -0/+13There was a story on Digg a while back, about a guy/company who developed a way to use a bot net (I think it was seized by the authorities) to send out a 'virus' to all the people infected to fix the problem and destroy the original virus and dismantling the whole of the bot net.
  I think they ended up NOT doing it because of the Moral dilemma -- they could have used the existing 'unauthorized access' to distribute it, but then they'd be just the same: abusing the vulnerabilities.
  - mike81890, on 07/03/2008, -2/+10The crew of the Enterprise had a similar dilemma with the Borg.
  - ultrafez, on 07/03/2008, -1/+7What a bunch of *****, it would have done so much good to fix it, why not exploit people one last time for the greater good!
  - yunus, on 07/04/2008, -0/+0ultrafez - Your suggesting the ends justify the means which is the excuse used by dictators and oppressive leaders throughout history.
- Thorpe, on 07/03/2008, -1/+3Well, usually it's not all sent by a server. Rather, a series of zombie computers, which makes finding the idiots who do this rather annoying.
shauntacular, on 07/03/2008, -1/+49Spam is bad? Yeah, and that girl I met on Myspace the other day isn't a model from Brazil! C'MON!
- MScrip, on 07/03/2008, -0/+4Angles
- jtbell04, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3Like the guy in the $6,300 suit is going to date a some Myspace model from Brazil.
sdrawkcabton88, on 07/03/2008, -15/+2***** site is *****
stopbrorape, on 07/03/2008, -6/+13If that woman's PC was crippled by a virus why didn't she reformat the hard drive and install windows again.
- twiztidsinz, on 07/03/2008, -3/+21because a surprising number people don't know how to do that or feel they have too much 'important stuff' and will deal with it.
- banmaster, on 07/03/2008, -5/+17Coz, like most computer owners, shes a stupid ignorant jerk. Thats why.
zadadka, on 07/03/2008, -0/+30There is only ONE guarantee when you reply to spam.
You'll get more....lots more.

Common Sense 101.
centran, on 07/03/2008, -1/+12I would like to see the difference between someone responding to all the SPAM and someone "trying" to unsubscribe from every SPAM.
mattyx, on 07/03/2008, -1/+7That is a really annoying ad on that page.
- plundstedt, on 07/03/2008, -1/+6Um...what ad?
CCmachined, on 07/03/2008, -1/+54gmail's junk filter FTW
compgeek, on 07/03/2008, -4/+2I can't believe they actually tried this experiment. like come on why do an "experiment" if you know or ought to know the result already. as much as getting a new pc is a nice little perk for participating it still seems like one of the stupidest premises ever
- mike81890, on 07/03/2008, -1/+2Lets do an experiment where we stab 5 people from 10 countries each and see what happens...
  
  They would probably bleed?
- starmanfalls, on 07/03/2008, -1/+3Probably collecting data. For uh maybe to help stop the problem. Just a guess.
- NinjaBoy, on 07/03/2008, -1/+4Its called marketing. It made you read the name mcafee didnt it.
- madmccoy, on 07/03/2008, -0/+4I don't know, maybe because statistics and precision are useful?
- Kzoo, on 07/04/2008, -0/+0The same reason scientists keep coming out with "obvious" studies. . . because 'common sense' and intuition are many times not true.
drjekelmrhyde, on 07/03/2008, -0/+10Wait but these penis pills really work
- muffinmonk, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1No, that's just your boner
  - menwuur, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Nah its true what's your email i'll send you some info
  - Fubarepublic, on 07/04/2008, -0/+0Pics with an American flag or I ain't buying!
suttercain, on 07/03/2008, -1/+8"I'm amazed at what true junk is out there when you're clicking through on e-mail."

....Amazed?.... Really?
DroppedGT, on 07/03/2008, -0/+14I got my free Gold Rolex watc|-| in the m@il today!!!
CCmachined, on 07/03/2008, -8/+3next time give the people Ubuntu computers, and see how much they get clogged and slow down.
- Jorry7, on 07/03/2008, -0/+0sorry not familiar, more or less clogged?
- ExRe, on 07/03/2008, -1/+2Just make sure you install Ubuntu first and that it is compatible with all of the hardware. Otherwise they'll have to make friends with the command line.
PhilThePhenom, on 07/03/2008, -2/+5So... Did the Nigerian ever place the million in her bank account?
jnava121, on 07/03/2008, -0/+26the irony of the GIGANTIC ad that loads on the screen on page 2 ... spam was blah blah then dear god ! *Screen DARKENS* downloading .gif.... WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY NEWSWEEK?
- sjaxso, on 07/03/2008, -0/+1That annoyed the crap out of me. At least I know to not click through spam, this jumped on me without warning.
  
  I'VE GONE BLIND!
  
  oh
  Shame on YOU, whatever stupid publication you are.
thedogfatherx, on 07/03/2008, -0/+6I think all spammers should be shot in the groin so they can never produce as loser offspring as themselves.
prompel, on 07/03/2008, -5/+3Already covered by ars technica.
http://digg.com/tech_news/A_Month_of_Spam_Enlarge_ ...
- kjd84, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2So ***** what?
kh99, on 07/03/2008, -0/+2Back when I used to get spam, I'd click the "remove" link and enter "spam@uce.gov" as my email address (the ftc spam complaint email address). Maybe they were smart enough to filter out .gov addresses, but it amused me to imagine spammers sending their emails directly to the complaint address.
FeloniusMonkey, on 07/03/2008, -0/+3Those who have their own domain name understand how these spammers can simply use (some-madeup-name)@yourdomain.com as the sender address, thereby subjecting your "catch-all" mailbox to thousands of "undeliverable" return messages, and hate mail from various recipients of their spam. This happens to my domain at least once a week. I'll wake up in the morning, or come home from work, to over 2000 messages in my catch-all box.

If you're a spammer, and this is a common practice of yours, pray you never meet me in person. I will rip out your ***** tonsils, fry them in habanero pepper sauce, and make you eat them.

DISCLAIMER: I'm just kidding about the tonsil thing.
- kh99, on 07/03/2008, -0/+1I have my own domain name. I don't use a catch-all, and I get no spam whatsoever. My original plan was to make up a new address every time I had to give one out (which I still do), so if anyone put me on a spam list I could disable the offending address. But it turned out that in 4 years I've never had to disable an address.
  - theJeebus, on 07/07/2008, -0/+0I've done the same. So far, only servicemagic.com has sold my address to spammers.
- mike81890, on 07/03/2008, -0/+2Or is he?
  /devious laugh
- lostlo, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Ugh, I have the catch-all box for the domains at work, and that happens to me. It's interesting to get the rejection notices from servers that detect them as spam; it shows me which anti-spam services actually work. It's just so frustrating to deal with the spammer's aftermath and have no way to direct my anger at them.
sarge, on 07/03/2008, -0/+14I think a few of my users are part of the McAfee S.P.A.M. experiment -- they just haven't told McAfee... They reply to emails from people they don't know, sign up for crap using their work email address, and click on things they know they shouldn't -- and then bitch at me when their inbox gets filled with junk.
- ultrafez, on 07/03/2008, -0/+1Try and get the upper management levels of your business to do a Spam Masterclass course or something... noobs need teaching somehow.
billbugger, on 07/03/2008, -0/+4Penelope Retch was the lady's alias
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Penelope+R ...
bardamu, on 07/03/2008, -1/+3I get no spam. thanks gmail!
umbrellainabin, on 07/03/2008, -15/+9***** BUSH
***** THE RIAA
***** THE MPAA
***** THE IFPI
***** THE BFI
***** VIACOM
***** COMCAST
***** MEDIADEFENDER
***** AT&T
- tito13kfm, on 07/03/2008, -2/+16***** YOU
- Divals, on 07/03/2008, -1/+4***** everything!
  But ***** you the most
  ***** everyone!
  But ***** you the most
  With a big rusty pole or a splintery post
  ***** you the most, ***** YOU!
  - Tylerbinski, on 07/03/2008, -3/+3someone needs to get laid... or flattened by a steam roller....
  - Divals, on 07/03/2008, -0/+2Not me. Those are lyrics from a song.
  - lastthingusee, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2I can always stop to appreciate some Reel Big Fish.
  - Divals, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1***** yeah!
- knopper67, on 07/04/2008, -1/+4Don't Forget Rogers.
  
  ***** ROGERS
  - jeffhansen, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1***** BUCK ROGERS?
    
    What did he or his side kick robot do to you?
- Niightwitch, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3That was pertinent.
- muffinmonk, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1*****'S JUST A WORD AND IT'S ALL ***** UP
Zoshchenko, on 07/03/2008, -0/+3McAfee or someone needs to develop a fool-proof system that can ONLY be used against spammers that blows up their machine, deletes all their files, severs their Internet connection and drains their bank account...hey wait a minute...isn't that what the spammers are trying to do to us in one way or another?

Please, someone come up with a way to identify these people and put them away.
SubKamran, on 07/03/2008, -0/+1I've had my Comcast account for about 6-7 years and I get maybe 3-5 spam messages per month. I also tend not to super publicize it. The emails that I have that I do publicize do get spam every day, but Thunderbird does a decent job filtering them.
srodolff, on 07/03/2008, -2/+1Captain Obvious here!

Did I miss something?
mrm3x1can, on 07/03/2008, -0/+8ironically, i got a pop up asking me to subscribe and fill out a survey while reading the article
Brassbud, on 07/03/2008, -2/+1A Naperville housewife would do this. Damn Napervillians.
ajv570, on 07/03/2008, -0/+1haha bravo lady
lazlonger, on 07/03/2008, -1/+8that article is spam. It does NOT tell you what happens, other than your computer slows down. "results to be released tuesday"...and all that. bull.
and303, on 07/03/2008, -1/+2It doesn't really tell you "what happens".
jackal42, on 07/03/2008, -2/+1What I wanna know is. What the hell happened to Naperville I and Naperville Il?
modelchick8806, on 07/03/2008, -1/+7Anyone else find it ironic that when you attempt to uninstall McAfee Antivirus it's never fully removed?
Typhoon2009, on 07/03/2008, -4/+1Spammers have a special spot in hell where I'll personally penetrate their rectal cavities with my cavalierly *****.
vcudigg, on 07/03/2008, -0/+5I can't imagine the amount of time these people wasted just answering all the messages and dealing with a slower and slower computer. Whatever junk email I get I just ignore and delete. I also can't imagine what it's like to use the internet when you don't know the things that we geeks know. :(
mdude85, on 07/03/2008, -0/+15"[The spam] grew exponentially, so I stopped giving out my home address," she says, adding, "I am concerned about the environment.""

I'm speechless
kookbutt, on 07/03/2008, -0/+6Why isn't the government and Senator Ted Stevens going after the Spammers with the same vigor as they do as regular internet users that like to download movies and music? It seems to me that spam clogs up the "tubes" as much as NetFlix, iTunes, Hulu, Revision3, YouTube and of course bittorrent sites.
skyz, on 07/03/2008, -2/+3gmail
jedinsyd, on 07/03/2008, -1/+4this website just crashes my FF3
- Gizza, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2crashes my FF3 too.
sq2shooter, on 07/03/2008, -0/+6If tomorrow everyone switched to Gmail, this problem would go away. The spammers emails would basically reach nobody. If I could only make that happen.
waydee, on 07/03/2008, -0/+5GMail is the key, never had a single piece of spam get through its filter.
Abennobashi, on 07/03/2008, -0/+3whats snake oil?
- 5plic3r, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1McAfee software.
  
  "Overall, the most obvious result of the S.P.A.M. experiment was that the PC that MCAFEE HAD PROVIDED for the project noticeably slowed down, clogged up with spyware, Mooney says."
  
  (emphasis added)
  - Fubarepublic, on 07/04/2008, -0/+0Yes! not very diligent of McAfee.
5LRoll, on 07/03/2008, -0/+0She should have used a different address than her home address.
- Fubarepublic, on 07/04/2008, -0/+0ex would be good fun
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What Happens When You Reply To ALL of Your Spam

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