Posted by JRM on May 16, 2001 at 14:53:13:
In Reply to: Re: Why did this happen? posted by Chris on May 16, 2001 at 14:05:13:
Spammers are using a dirty trick. The only fair thing is to reply in kind. We'll clog their database with bogus addresses.
Hack together a quickie CGI script (or I can send you one) which generates an HTML page full of randomly generated email addresses. Then throw a link in your pages, hidden if you prefer, that links to that script. The stupid bots follow the links, and end up loading thousands of bogus addresses into their database.
I have done this at several of the ISP's I've worked at. Then you can check the access log to see who viewed the page, and have a cold one in their honor. Of course, if you modify your script to end all the addresses in @aol.com, you win twice.
I've been fighting SPAM from the ISP end since 1994. If anyone wants to swap lies about the lengths they've gone to nail 'em drop me a line. I've got some great ones about the guy out of Vegas we battled for almost two years back in the late nineties. Now that one required some dirty tricks!
JRM
--Chris, you do a great job. Keep up the good work!