Re: Spamming (Good or Bad?)
At 6:04 PM 8/21/96, Gary Howland wrote:
I always send a quick one liner - "Please send me more information". Often I'll ask a stupid question too ("Does your software work in France?"). If more people did this, then they'd have to choose their victims a bit more carefully in the future (assuming of course they're trying to sell something).
As I said in my last message, I don't even do this--I just bounce it back to them. I see no need to "ask questions" (such as "Does it work in France?") to, perhaps, "establish legitimacy." If they sent it to me, I can send it back. Simple. And if their software is set up in a brain-damaged way, so that my bouncing it back to them also sends it out to their list, so much the better...at least in terms of helping to anger their potential customers. --Tim May (By the way, some of you younger folks may not remember all the creative ways people used to have to deal with unwanted junk mail. For "return postage provided" replies, they would often attach the return forms to large packages of stuff (sometimes even organic, stinky stuff) and let the junk mailer eat the postage charges at his end. Or they'd fill out the "get free stuff" forms with the addresses of local officials.) We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
On Wed, 21 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
At 6:04 PM 8/21/96, Gary Howland wrote:
Often I'll ask a stupid question too ("Does your software work in France?"). If more people did this, then they'd have to choose their victims a bit more carefully in the future (assuming of course they're trying to sell something).
As I said in my last message, I don't even do this--I just bounce it back to them. I see no need to "ask questions" (such as "Does it work in France?") to, perhaps, "establish legitimacy." If they sent it to me, I can send it back. Simple.
I think that the purpose of asking a question is to consume _more_ of their time. If they read it, they have to decide if and how to respond. Cousme more of their resources. It might even be interesting to write a script that automatically inserts a silly question (like "does it work in france") and mails it back with the single stroke of a key. Petro, Christopher C. petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff> snow@smoke.suba.com
snow wrote:
On Wed, 21 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
At 6:04 PM 8/21/96, Gary Howland wrote:
Often I'll ask a stupid question too ("Does your software work in France?"). If more people did this, then they'd have to choose their victims a bit more carefully in the future (assuming of course they're trying to sell something).
As I said in my last message, I don't even do this--I just bounce it back to them. I see no need to "ask questions" (such as "Does it work in France?") to, perhaps, "establish legitimacy." If they sent it to me, I can send it back. Simple.
I think that the purpose of asking a question is to consume _more_ of their time. If they read it, they have to decide if and how to respond. Cousme more of their resources. It might even be interesting to write a script that automatically inserts a silly question (like "does it work in france") and mails it back with the single stroke of a key.
Sure, I bounce it back to them too, by quoting the whole post - but like snow says, I try to consume their time by asking stupid questions. I feel it is important to show a little interest in their product or service in order that they can't tell the genuine replies from the anti-spam replies, which should (hopefully) mean they'll target their spam a little more carefully in future. Gary -- pub 1024/C001D00D 1996/01/22 Gary Howland <gary@systemics.com> Key fingerprint = 0C FB 60 61 4D 3B 24 7D 1C 89 1D BE 1F EE 09 06 ^S ^A^Aoft FAT filesytem is extremely robust, ^Mrarely suffering from^T^T
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