I've tried forwarding a spam email from Apple Mail, but I got a response that it didn't work out. This is the raw email message I sent - http://pastebin.com/qNwT04my
Show HN: Spamnesty: Waste spammers' time
71–80 of 188 posts
Re: Show HN: Spamnesty: Waste spammers' time
#72Is there any way to have multi-language support?
Re: Show HN: Spamnesty: Waste spammers' time
#73The problem with Spam has always been the minuscule cost of doing it. If the cost can rise above the profit, spam could become unattractive. Imagine if spam attracted a sudden swarm of bots, just as a new email addy attracts spammers now.
And bots could do pretty well there. I recently read an article (cannot find it; but it may have been even linked from here) which explained the benefit of poor grammar in the spam (i.e., they want to put off more knowledgeable users as the cost of the follow on emails is significantly higher). El cheapo bots have pretty basic English skills which can help them fit naturally into the spam target patterns.
The paper you're referring to is probably this one:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-...
The same logic that favours using an opening gambit that scares off all but the most unworldly of people works against using bots for the followup conversation. You don't want to finally find someone that genuinely believes that a random central African stranger might want to split $138,400,000 with them and has funds ready to send only for your bot to fail the Turing test by misunderstanding their question about how to pay the deposit.
Also, anyone smart and knowledgeable enough to be able to write bots capable of persuading exceptionally gullible people to part with their money is probably capable of moving to the next level and going after the slightly-less gullible, who are more numerous and richer.
It's also probably a bit flattering to the average scammer to assume the flaws in their patter are a deliberate filter pattern though. They're just as likely to open with a highly plausible (probably copied) offer of high value second hand goods on a listings website that probably attracts dozens or replies and then respond to each of those genuine expressions of interest from people willing and able to pay with badly-written response(s) that conflict with the detail of the original ad, not to mention totally forgetting that little old Scottish ladies don't have email addresses registered in the name of Nigerian men.
Re: Show HN: Spamnesty: Waste spammers' time
#74I had a friend who tried messing with spammers and then was hit with a massive DDOS.
Was your friend working for Blue Frog [1]? I always thought it interesting that no one seriously tried to replicate a tool so good at its job that spammers were actually scared. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Frog
No. He set up some one-off script to annoy people who spammed him. One of the spammers didn't take to it.
Re: Show HN: Spamnesty: Waste spammers' time
#75Ahah, this is fun :) But please someone, let google know this exists. I just had a forward refused by gmail because "it contains viruses", and I realize I've forwarded 5 spams before that. I would not want google to think I'm "actually" sending spams :D
Google refused because the forward contained viruses? Hmm, maybe if you strip the link?
Yep. That's ok, I have forwarded plenty enough :)
What surprises me is that a mail with viruses is in my mailbox (my spambox, granted). I guess it was not know it was a virus when it was received.
Re: Show HN: Spamnesty: Waste spammers' time
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would also suggest giving the spammers more intense work to do. Like a pdf form for new suppliers that they have to download, fill out, sign, scan back in, and return. Or maybe submit to a form page with a horribly difficult captcha.
Submit a form page with an impossible captcha.
Ouch. That's evil.
Make it count how many times they've attempted. Every-time clear random fields and randomise fields to make auto-filling neigh-on impossible.
Re: Show HN: Spamnesty: Waste spammers' time
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love the randomness :) Just followed this one : https://spa.mnesty.com/conversations/rqtunkps/ > - we want to give you $10,500,000.00 !!! > - thanks, but it's out of our budget. Can you make an effort? I can only imagine the spammer reaction :D "Wait... wat?"
Wait, how did you follow that one? Isn't it unlisted?
What do you mean by unlisted? I forwarded it, then received a mail from smannesty containing direct link to the thread.
EDIT : oh, I also removed the private key from url param before posting it here.
EDIT 2 : typo in my initial message: by "followed", I meant "forwarded" (in french, we say "faire suivre", which translates word by word to "make follow")
Re: Show HN: Spamnesty: Waste spammers' time
#78This seems like a noble endeavor which will be useful (albeit under different names over time, I assume) right up until the spammers start using bots to hold their ends of conversations, to make their own operations more efficient.
If they do so they will likely lose the very few leads that actually earn them money. Remember, for them it's a real business.
Eh, machine learning is advancing enough that the sort of people that would fall for Nigerian prince emails could be conceivably convinced they're talking to a real person.
Re: Show HN: Spamnesty: Waste spammers' time
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I half-fell for one of these once. I was a teaching assistant with my contact info posted on our department page, and a woman in Africa wrote seeking a tutor for her son who would allegedly be doing a summer program at my university to prepare for enrollment in the fall. It all seemed reasonable until she wanted to wire funds to my account. I told her to have her son pay me in person, and she never wrote again! This…
How does the scam work, if they 're wiring funds to you ?
Because, in general, banks are terrible.
Wait, you want me to type in my username and password into your computer, and then you can take any amount of money from my account, and all everyone needs to do is trust each other?
Re: Show HN: Spamnesty: Waste spammers' time
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I half-fell for one of these once. I was a teaching assistant with my contact info posted on our department page, and a woman in Africa wrote seeking a tutor for her son who would allegedly be doing a summer program at my university to prepare for enrollment in the fall. It all seemed reasonable until she wanted to wire funds to my account. I told her to have her son pay me in person, and she never wrote again! This…
How does the scam work, if they 're wiring funds to you ?
In addition to the other possibilities mentioned, another common scam is to pay you too much, and ask you to send back the difference. Then the original payment gets reversed or turns out to be fraudulent, and they keep what you sent.
A lot of those "make $$$ working from home!" things are scams like this. They'll offer you, say, $1,000 for a small amount of work. On payday, they'll send you a $1,500 check, along with some excuse for why it's too high, and ask you to send them the extra $500. A couple of weeks later their check bounces, and you're screwed.
Another technique is to just ask you for help transferring money. They might send you $4,000, tell you to keep $500 to compensate for your time, and send $3,500 to their friend/partner/subsidiary outside the country. Then the $4,000 evaporates. This one is especially clever since the original scheme was probably some form of money laundering or other financial crime, so the victim will usually be reluctant to go to the authorities afterwards.