50 ways to kill a spammer

I dream of it often!

[Liane]

I just checked my e:mail as is my normal routine every morning ... and my mail washer notification was there staring me in the face as per usual. I noramlly have about 200 virus infected and junk messages every morning.

Of course I went to see how many spam messages I had to delete today. I could not believe my eyes! There were 1407 messages!

So after making a cup of coffee and turning the air blue for several minutes (we sailors know how to do that rather effectively) ... I settled down to the task of removing them 10 at a time for those containing viruses and 25 at a time for those which are just your day to day junk mail.

After 11 minutes of my life passed by, I was done. I proceeded to answer a real e:mail inquiry. That took 6 minutes. I hit send and receive and lo and behold, my mail washer programme sent me another notification.

I went to investigate. There were another 42 "present filled" messages and 6 junk messages!

I deleted them and waited for 5 minutes and went back again. Sure enough ... 37 more!

By the time I finish writing this, I am sure there will be between 25 to 50 more and they are all from the same e:mail address.

I would absolutely, positively and sincerely love to get my boney fingers around this guy's neck and squeeze hard enough to watch him gag and choke ... indefinitely.

Once I got bored with that, I think it might be fun to see what his tolerance for Gospel music might be. The same song played very loudly, over and over again for 10 to 12 hours. Not sure which song would be best, but it must be very repetitive and preferably lacking in rythm. Or perhaps a nice aria would be better.

Then, let's see. Ooooh, I know! Then I would take him outside, strip him naked and pour honey all over him close to a nice patch of grass infested with ants. That might be amusing!

*&^%$##@!*&^%$#@#@%^

When will these guys get a life?

[TheVisitor]

Are you sure it's a man?

[Custodian]

I'd like to see a spammer incarcerated until they sat down a read each and every piece of spam they have ever sent.

That should be enough to drive a person crazy.

[rocknbil]

The worst thing about it is they don't care. Spammers are the brat in the back of the theatre throwing juju-drops in your date's hair. There the ones putting bubble gum under the handrails in public places, writing phone numbers on the walls, the schoolyard bullies shaking down the weak for their lunch money.

The only way to beat this is to not own it. Their philosophy is if you p*** off 10,000 people and get one lead, it's all worth it. By allowing them to get to you, they've just marked you as their territory.

Personally I think we should pull the plug on email and make it a paid service only with fines for abuse. If it cost money to annoy people it wouldn't be so rampant.

Of course that would never work. But since we're dreaming . . . . :-)

I say strapped to a chair watching endless episodes of Barney. Better yet, Ashlee Simpson doing the Star Spangled Banner.

[greenleaves]

If it cost money to annoy people it wouldn't be so rampant.

Junk snail mail and telemarketing proves this theory wrong.

[wruppert]

greenleaves - I've worked in the "junk mail" industry, and you can be sure that every piece mailed is carefully considered. The sender spends a lot of many - thousands of times much per piece - as a spammer. If spam cost even 1 cent per email, you can be sure that 99.9+% of it would be gone.

[limbo]

over and over again for 10 to 12 hours

Liane you are way to nice :). That's in the realm of pleasant. 10 - 12 years of the same tune might have a more interesting effect on said spammer/spammerette...

[krieves]

I think you lock spammers in a room with only peanut butter to eat and only salt water to drink.

[Syzygy]

I think you lock spammers in a room with only salt water to drink...

Syzygy

[vkaryl]

I think one should ignore them. If no one pays attention to them, they can't make any money, and they have no reason for being.

Or so one hopes.... I was lucky. Gone a day and a half, only 30 junk emails. Life is good.

[Essex_boy]

Make 'em live on Canvey Island....

[bill]

You actually still spend time looking at spam messages? Time to look at another software...

[osfp]

I have a better way against spam Joe's. I just forward my mail to another host (don't mention names) and with a click I delete spam.I use my normal mail only to answer

[rocknbil]

Junk snail mail and telemarketing proves this theory wrong.

I didn't say it would STOP it, I said it wouldn't be so rampant. Sure, the telemarketers and junk mail keep coming, but you don't get 1400 of them every day. That is, unless you think You May Have Already Won and responded to the mailer. :-)

[twist]

If email worked like this,

1) Server sending email sends request and ip to recieving server.

2) Recieving server accepts request and returns acceptance to ip.

3) Sending server sends message to recieving server

Sender can't spoof ip address. If sender spoofs ip the server will call upon spoofed address to get email. Spoofed address will not have any email to send.

How email currently works,

1) Recieving server accepts email

You block ip address and sender just spoofs new one.

Email is flawed but could easily be fixed. Spam only exists because of the ability of the senders to spoof ip address's. If they couldn't spoof then you could just block ip's. Why this hasn't been fixed yet is the real mystery.