Getting spammed

[bestfriend]

A quick note to say that I am starting to get spam on my regular email (not my PM box), and it is sailing related. So, I have turned off my "send email message" option. Just a heads up for you all and your own emails.
Best

[sailingdog]

Thanks for the warning...

[Idiens]

If you are running any Google or Yahoo software (just to mention two) you can thank them for sail related spam, as they check and keep a record of your activities to refine the effect of their own advertising. Naturally, others have found ways to tap into that font of knowledge.

[hellosailor]

Idiens, Google and Yahoo may track things--but they don't send spam. They target the ADS which they display, but they don't send spam, and anything they do send shows them as the "FROM" address, they don't harvest and sell your directly for spam.

On the other hand--any email address which is PUBLISHED openly on any web forum, including the moderated Yahoo groups, will be harvested and sold by folks who get paid per address.

The bottom line is that you cannot "publish" your email address anywhere on the web, unless it is a disposable address and you change it every couple of months to ditch the spammers.

I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising folks in a 3rd world country have hired rows of hungry folks and said "OK, you join this forum, then look at the memberhsip list, and copy every email address shown for every member. We'll give you two cents per hundred addresses." Because in some parts of the world, that IS a profitable business, and a dollar a day is a great wage for indoor labor.

[camaraderie]

My guess is that they simply have bots crawling the web and looking for anything with an @ symbol followed by a .com or .net. You just can't leave your e-mail address out there anywhere.

[sailingdog]

Actually, the bots will harvest anything that is in the format xxxxxxxx@yyy.zzz and try it anyways... They're not particularly picky, as sending extra e-mails out costs them effectively nothing.

[hellosailor]

SD-
This goes beyond the bots. Bots can only reach certain pages, but humans can go to "member information" pages and harvest whatever is on them.

Heck, there are even "factories" in China where teenagers are paid to play some of the online games and build "life" points and other virtual goods which are then SOLD for REAL MONEY on the aftermarket.

The problem is, no one is really willing to try stopping spam. Microsoft, Yahoo, and a couple of other names made a big statement about forming a consortium 3(?) years ago, nothing has come of it. There are ways to authenticate users and ways to blacklist ISPs (some of which seem to be state-sponsored spam harbors in the Orient and eastern Europe and parts of South America) but again, no one is willing to act.

Except, IIRC Comcast. One of the big ISPs in the US announced that any user caught sending out spam, zombie or not, would be disconnected and not allowed to connect again for life. All considered, not an unreasonable way to keep the drunk drivers off the information highway. People just don't give a damn, and it seems that everyone is content to let it alone until something major breaks--and the government comes in.

[Giulietta]

Guys


you are a shame...you've all spelled BOAT bad....

ITS BOAT not BOTS!!!!

Then I am the one that can't spell

[bestfriend]

Okay, lets not turn this into the newest "stupid thread of the week". I was just giving a heads up. I don't care who, what, why, where, or when. Thats it, I am taking my thread and going home to my bot.

[sailingdog]

BF sleeps with a bot?? I knew he sounded like a very strange and twisted individual...