From: attila <attila@primenet.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 95 11:16:39 PST
To: Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: (fwd) Junk email address collection (from a junk emailer)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.ULT.3.91.951219210009.8207F-100000@Networking.Stanford.EDU>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSD.3.91.951220184848.5597E-100000@usr5.primenet.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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On Tue, 19 Dec 1995, Rich Graves wrote:

> Personally, I think anyone who uses dejanews as a way to grep Usenet is
> an idiot, but since this idiot actually did spend several hours doing so,
> and then sent unsolicited commercial email to several thousand people,
> it's worth listening to him. 
> 
	[snip]

    [START] <attila>
	"forcing" a change on DejaNews to strip addresses would defeat
    the "redeeming" value of such a database. Since I, like many, 
    occasionally fall into the trap of opening my response before
    clutching in my brain, I used DejaNews to "count" the gaffes! 
    Fortunely, none on that search, just the usual sloppy keyboard entry.
	and, coming down on DejaNews just puts the fire out in just one 
    room of a conflagration. 
    [CONTINUE]

> Here it is:
> 
> When one of these mailers goes to do a search (and from what I hear, many
> of them do it on regular intervals to get new names) they cannot do a TERSE
> search. Why?  Because it cuts off the email addresses if you notice the
> output.  They cannot obtain addresses from this data.
> 
> So what do they do?  They do a VERBOSE search and this way the email
> addresses are completely listed.
> 
> Make a change to this VERBOSE search option so that it will only list the
> partial email address, and you will eliminate THOUSANDS, if not millions of
> unwanted email messages on the Net.
> 
> I guarantee if they made this change to the site it would make a HUGE
> difference.  From what I hear, most newsreaders only list news post lists
> by "author" and not by email address, so these companies cannot easily
> strip names through regular newsgroup programs, and must use a service
> (like Deja News) to compile large email lists.
> 
	[snip]

    [START] <attila>
	Searching with a news reader message by message would be more than
    painful!  all they need to do to obtain names from any newsgroup 
    is to scan the entire news base, or groups of interest. It took me 
    less than a minute to strip names from the alt.religion tree.
	I dont think the spammers are too worried about adding a few names 
    when groups are sorted by interest anyway.

	for amusement, I have started to code a simple program which
    takes a feed from procmail where known spammers are listed and it 
    prepends a message about spamming and send 1 - n copies to the 
    offenders' PostMaster.  ...and, I will send them from my own address 
    as a token of my affection....

	The only aggravation is adding offender to procmail after finding 
    the source as many are using remailers.  If they have 800 numbers, 
    there are always auto-dialers with a message.. ..

	I hate to waste the bandwidth, but the spammers are getting out 
    of hand and procmail -> /dev/null is less than satisfying!

    [END] <attila>