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Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time

spa.mnesty.com

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Re: Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time

#21

Post by nsb1 »

scottmac13 wrote: post #5

This is the email version of when Telemarketers call me and ask to "speak with someone in the house between the ages for x-y" to which I say, "sure just a sec", then put the phone down on the desk and walk away.

At this point, I've basically stopped answering my cell if I don't recognize the number. If it's important, they'll leave me a voicemail (it never is.).

One other thing I did was ported my landline over to callcentric.com, where for $3.50/month or so, I can 'firewall' all calls coming to that number, making it safe to give out to anyone. Their call treatments allow me to, by specific number or patterns (800*), drop, send to voicemail, play the "number disconnected" tone, forward, etc. It's great - no more calls I don't want.

Re: Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time

#22

Post by nvr219 »

nsb1 wrote: post #21
scottmac13 wrote: post #5

This is the email version of when Telemarketers call me and ask to "speak with someone in the house between the ages for x-y" to which I say, "sure just a sec", then put the phone down on the desk and walk away.

At this point, I've basically stopped answering my cell if I don't recognize the number. If it's important, they'll leave me a voicemail (it never is.). One other thing I did was ported my landline over to callcentric.com, where for $3.50/month or so, I can 'firewall' all calls coming to that number, making it safe to give out to anyone. Their call treatments allow me to, by specific number or patterns (800*), drop,…

I use google voice call announce for anyone not in my contact list

Re: Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time

#23

Post by laurent123456 »

thescribe wrote: post #17

I have been using this site for about a month on every piece of spam that tells me to write back. But, I have not gotten any responses. How are they even making money if they don't respond to clearly interested potential customers?

This website has been around for a while (it's the seventh time it's posted here) so it's possible spammers have blacklisted the domain by now.

Re: Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time

#24

Post by StavrosK »

laurent123456 wrote: post #23
thescribe wrote: post #17

I have been using this site for about a month on every piece of spam that tells me to write back. But, I have not gotten any responses. How are they even making money if they don't respond to clearly interested potential customers?

This website has been around for a while (it's the seventh time it's posted here) so it's possible spammers have blacklisted the domain by now.

Oh wow, seventh? I think it's the second time I see it. Didn't I only build it a few months ago?

EDIT: Oh huh, it's been more than a year: https://www.stavros.io/posts/spamnesty-waste-spammers-time/ How time flies.

Re: Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time

#26

Post by StavrosK »

kevin_nisbet wrote: post #18
StavrosK wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the goal is to waste their time a bit, you can't fool them forever anyway.

True, but also being a bit more random where it's not trivial to filter the bot on the spammers side would make it just a little bit harder to ignore.

That's true. Unfortunately, it's not trivial to add more domains, as you'd need to own them all (to add DNS records for sending and receiving). I wanted to accept donations at some point, in the form of pointed DNS records, but realized that I couldn't do that without owning the domain, as if the domain lapsed or was transferred, Spamnesty wouldn't know and it would keep sending email from that domain, to no avail.

Re: Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time

#27

Post by StavrosK »

arawde wrote: post #10
lisper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're lucky that your spam calls come from a human. All I get is bots calling to tell me I've won a free cruise.

I've found that if I don't recognize the number, I answer the phone and don't say anything. If no voice comes over the line within 5-10 seconds, I hang up.

Isn't there a registry where you can opt to not be disturbed there? We have it here and I signed up, and calls eventually stopped. I also love terrorizing spam callers with "give me your name and company name, this call is illegal". They usually get flustered and hang up.

Re: Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time

#28

Post by lisper »

StavrosK wrote: post #27
arawde wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that if I don't recognize the number, I answer the phone and don't say anything. If no voice comes over the line within 5-10 seconds, I hang up.

Isn't there a registry where you can opt to not be disturbed there? We have it here and I signed up, and calls eventually stopped. I also love terrorizing spam callers with "give me your name and company name, this call is illegal". They usually get flustered and hang up.

> Isn't there a registry where you can opt to not be disturbed there?

There is, and I signed up for it. When I did, I got an order of magnitude more calls. I eventually had to change my phone number.

> I also love terrorizing spam callers with "give me your name and company name, this call is illegal". They usually get flustered and hang up.

That doesn't work on bots.

Re: Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time

#29

Post by repsak »

thescribe wrote: post #17

I have been using this site for about a month on every piece of spam that tells me to write back. But, I have not gotten any responses. How are they even making money if they don't respond to clearly interested potential customers?

‘Nigerian Prince’ Email Scammer Arrested in Louisiana - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16035183

;-)

Re: Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time

#30

Post by Tempest1981 »

jdietrich wrote: post #19
superasn wrote: post #9

Well done. It does get the spammers frustrated. I remember reading about a similar thing[1] where instead of emails it was automated telephone replies and the scammers were cussing at the bots and generally super confused. It did also manage to flood their phone lines making their call center useless for a while. [1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bj8wg4/we-talked-...

Some magnificent genius has created the perfect bot for hooking predatory telemarketers. "Lenny" is a slightly confused elderly man with poor hearing. He wanders off topic, he isn't sure what you just said and he is absolute catnip for crooks. If you haven't heard a call to Lenny, you're in for an absolute treat. This call from a tech support scammer lasts an exhausting 31 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJT…

Very well done. And the ducks -- hilarious! Now how do you scale and vary this enough, to prevent suspicion? That's the next step. Near the end (28 min), it felt like the caller was probing with "can you hear me" to collect Lenny's canned responses. Would it be better to hang up earlier to avoid suspicion?
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