Funny, but depends on the reply-to address being legit. Which most aren't.
An even better project years ago launched DDoSes against the SITES spammers were linking to. Much better.
Two years spent spamming spammers back
71–80 of 140 posts
Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back
#72I once made the mistake of sending a joke reply to a spammer from my legitimate email.
Turned out they pulled my phone number from the WHOIS info on my domain which I can only assume they sold to some marketing companies as I received about a dozen cold calls from various "web agencies" from the states. A lot of them were relentless, calling me repeatedly and leaving voicemails.
Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back
#73Spam doesn't bother me anymore, but unsolicited phone calls do. The majority of phone calls that come in are not legitimate.
You should probably check Lenny out: https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/
Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back
#74The one for phones has been on HN before. This one for spam is nice, but not yet smart enough. With more smarts and some understanding of the messages, it could keep spammers going forever. It doesn't need to be very intelligent; it just needs to get up to the Eliza level.
If it detects a spam related to search engine optimization, it should have a list of about a hundred plausible questions it can ask on that subject, for example. There aren't that many spammed subjects.
Most email spam, though, is promoting a link, and can't handle an email reply. You'd need something smart enough to go to a web site and sign up with fake credentials.
Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back
#75This is a great idea. Waste the spammer's time and it's no longer worth it. The phone version of this is Lenny[0], a set of audio files/Asterisk script which pretends to be a senile, doddering old man (who has a duck problem). There's a reddit user who runs a number you can forward your sales calls to, and he'll pick out the best ones and put on YouTube[1]. The record is keeping a caller on the phone for 56 minutes.…
I was actually thinking it would be awesome to combine the two. Inject a phone number on one/some of the random responses and let Lenny pick up the phone and take it from there...
Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back
#76> Imagine if this type of thing happened in real-life. You walk out the door in the morning and you’re immediately attacked by Parul, Kevin, and Amelie. I laughed out loud at this, because it's exactly what I'm experiencing now in West Africa. Street vendors are aggressive about selling whatever they have, and they seem to assume I want it - almost like I owe it to them to buy it - I'm not sure if it's because I'm Wh…
Locals usually have a way to get rid of street vendors that is effective, so finding out what that is in your locality is a good idea.
In Mexico, it's Hoy no (Not today) and it works pretty well.
Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously not the same but I've had this happen in a couple places and I just say "FUCK OFF" as loud as I can and get visibly upset and they leave me alone after that.
....That's a horrible way to react. I wonder what these people think about you and your country of origin. You are, after all, an ambassador for your country when ever you are outside it.
This response just shows you are unfamiliar with these types of encounters or at the very least accepted behavior in such situations.
In one area I used to live in the general "proper" behavior when you are approached by street vendors or beggars was essentially 3 phase.
1) Ignore unless you intend to buy or give. This means you do not reply to anything they say or even make eye contact.
2) Engage verbally or even just visually. This means you intend to buy or give. Now you will be pressured and given an aggressive sell/ask.
3) If it was a mistaken engagement or you don't reach an agreement you MUST aggressively exit. This often means yelling, possibly swearing, and in some cases even putting your hands on someone and even verbally threatening in bad situations.
I spent a significant enough amount of my childhood growing up in this type of culture. My wife was always from a small city. When we later moved I explained to her that this was a big cultural difference than she was used to and the expected way to behave in these situations.
Being from a small city she thought this was disrespectful and continually made things, putting it lightly, more difficult for us.
Eventually it actually put us in a situation that escalated to being dangerous. A seller that she responded to with small talk became very angry that she had wasted his time. He then got in her face, put a hand on her shoulder and started screaming at her.
At that point I ran over, pushed the man off of her and said, "She doesn't fucking want anything. Now get the fuck out of our faces before I have to kick your ass."
After that happened she finally took my advice.
Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back
#78Should just connect two or more spammers together and let them offer their products to each other.
Oh that would be awesome, maintain a list of previous spammer emails then generate the responses from a random one of those.
Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back
#79Reminds me of the guy who set up an automated voice script on his landline to thwart telemarketers:
Re: Two years spent spamming spammers back
#80One spammer realised that he is talking to a bot and asks the bot about the three laws.