(no subject)

[asheris]

The latest spam scam is seriously pissing me off- and by that I mean more than any I've seen in a long time.

It seems the latest thing is for spammers to send out a message that includes something along the lines of "welcome to the (cheesy list name here) information list. If you would prefer not to receive our special offers, please click here (broken link) to unsubscribe now. If you do not click here (broken link) or reply to this message within xx hours (24-48) with the word "remove" in the subject line, you will be added to our mailing lists."

Of course, all you noticed was "oh, more spam", and deleted the message. A day or so later, you're suddenly deluged with spam, all claiming you "opted in". Some even start with a note saying you opted in by selecting "include other offers" at a companion website on such-and-such a date/time. Not sure how "I" did that, since they're sending this crap to an email address I haven't used publicly in about two years.

(Of course they suggest you use the (broken) link at the bottom of the email if you wish to unsubscribe, or reply with "remove" in the subject (bounce). If you have trouble with those, they offer a handy-dandy long distance phone number you can call to get yourself removed. Which, if they're consistent, won't be in service...)

I've tried reporting via spamcop, but it doesn't look like it'll help:

Would send message source reports to:

Re:207.33.16.64 (Administrator of network where email originates)

pmg_dosnt_care@devnull.spamcop.net

Comments

[meta.livejournal.com]

I'm running SpamAssassin, which is doing a fantastic job.

I don't bother to report spam any more; about a year ago the scum all moved to using mail servers in China, Korea and so on, and the sysadmins there just haven't got a clue. Lots of people have just mailblocked the whole of Korea. It's getting to the stage where the country has severely curtailed connectivity, and sooner or later there's going to be trouble.

The only spam I report is that which is from otherwise reputable companies who might give a rat's ass. For example, there was an Apple dealer in Taiwan who spammed me, so I forwarded it to Apple so they could yank his dealership.

[asheris.livejournal.com]

I've stopped bothering to report most spam, but I thought this particular "list" business was worth a try.

Judging by the header information on my email, my (about to be former) ISP has SpamAssassin running on their email servers. They must not have it set up properly, though, because it lets through loads of crap.

They're definitely behind the times on virus scanning, too- most days I get a half dozen copies of that damned Klez thing. I'm going to be so glad when they are out of my life!

[meta.livejournal.com]

Do they let you edit your ~/.spamassassin/user_prefs file?

If so, try

full CONTAINS_EXE /\tname=.*\.(exe|com|bat|pif|scr)/i
describe CONTAINS_EXE Contains Windows executable filename
score CONTAINS_EXE 5.0

full CONTAINS_HTM /\tname=.*\.htm/i
describe CONTAINS_HTM Contains Windows HTML file
score CONTAINS_HTM 5.0

header FROM_MYDOMAIN ALL =~ /from mydomain\.com/i
describe FROM_MYDOMAIN Received from 'mydomain.com'
score FROM_MYDOMAIN 2.0

score SUBJ_FULL_OF_8BITS 4

[asheris.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Considering that they never notified users that they were going to start using it, and that you have to fight tooth and nail wo have any shell access whatsoever, I'm going to guess no.

Still, I'm dumping them this week since I no longer have need of a dialup connection, and I have my own domain on a more reliable server to handle everything else.