All, Thank you all for your posts. Of course I'm aware of the potential that unsub's actually attract mail. Here are some thoughts on this.
- if in addition to your own address, (or in place of it) you submit a lot of bogus addresses (ones that won't even resolve for mx) you poison a source of their email harvesting - emails that are evil spam (like the porn someone mentioned) probably don't have unsub links, so it wouldn't matter on these - you would only unsub if the email is very clearly spam, (thereby avoiding unsubbing from legitimate lists that inadvertently got tagged) - some shallow research indicates that a lot of spams have the same unsub url. This would therefore be an indication of something. Perhaps the seller of the address list, the originating spammer, etc. it also could indicate that there are only a few such unsub pages and that therefore the poisoning strategry outlined earlier would be even more effective. - even if you get more mail, it just gets filtered anyway I'd like to set up a couple such honeypots and see what the level of attraction is they get. Perhaps this would make a good research project. Leon > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Louis LeBlanc > Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 10:53 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > On 10/14/03 08:28 AM, Leon Oosterwijk sat at the `puter and typed: > > All, > > > > I would like some feedback from you all on the following > idea. What if > > spamassassin followed unsubscribe links for all emails that came > > through it's filter for emails that are obviously spam. This way > > people would automatically get unsubbed from some of these lists. > > > > Leon > > I guess you've gotten the idea from other posts that this is an idea. > To confirm the legitimacy of these doubts, try this: > > Set up a pristine new email address, but DON'T GIVE IT OUT > TO ANYONE. > Everytime you get a spam with an unsubscribe link, follow > it and unsubscribe this new pristine address. Nevermind who > the message was sent to, I promise the unsub page won't care > 99.999% of the time. > Sit back and watch what happens. > > I've heard of people trying this experiment and actually > getting spam within a few days of dropping these unsubs. > Even though the address never appeared in a web page, > newsgroup, or email message of any kind > - only in the unusb links. > > Seems like a decent way to seed a honeypot address. > > Lou > -- > Louis LeBlanc [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Fully Funded Hobbyist, KeySlapper Extrordinaire :) > http://www.keyslapper.org ԿԬ > > Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. > SourceForge.net hosts over 70,000 Open Source Projects. > See the people who have HELPED US provide better services: > Click here: http://sourceforge.net/supporters.php > _______________________________________________ > Spamassassin-talk mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk > ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. SourceForge.net hosts over 70,000 Open Source Projects. See the people who have HELPED US provide better services: Click here: http://sourceforge.net/supporters.php _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
