|
Donations |
|
 |
|
|
|
If you found this site helpful, please donate to help keep it online
Don't want to use PayPal? Try our physical address
|
|
|
Survey |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Translate |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
TD
Cadet
Joined: Jan 16, 2004
Posts: 3
Location: Canada
|
 Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 10:08 am Post subject: Can't add spammer to FA list |
|
|
I'm being bombarded by spam from a religious fanatic group who thinks they will save the world and they're starting with me...
I have tried and tried to add them to the FA! list, yet every day I keep getting more spams from them and FA! never seems to acknowledge that it's a known spammer.
After about a month of this I tried to unsubscribe from that spam, yet afater 5 attempts, I still keep getting spam from them. And still FA doesn't seem to know about them.
What's going on? Why can't such a spammer be added? Could there be someone at FA thinking that spam is no good unless it's religious spam? (Just kidding)
I'm getting so angry and frustrated about this that if I could find these spammers I'd surely punch them in the nose (or worse).
The spams keep coming from:
Please help!!!!
Tim |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
stan_qaz
General
Premium Member
Joined: Mar 31, 2003
Posts: 4100
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 11:49 am Post subject: |
|
|
If you have a copy of the spam you could forward it to firstalert @ firetrust . com with a complaint or PM boo here. In either case mention this thread and include a link.
Until then why don't you add a filter to delete the e-mails?
Also submitting this type of thing to spamcop.net will get them to clean up their act when their e-mail is refused from many places. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Terryphi
Private
Joined: Dec 15, 2003
Posts: 40
Location: Cymru/Wales UK
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 11:52 am Post subject: Re: Can't add spammer to FA list |
|
|
| TD wrote: |
I'm being bombarded by spam from a religious fanatic group who thinks they will save the world and they're starting with me...
I have tried and tried to add them to the FA! list, yet every day I keep getting more spams from them and FA! never seems to acknowledge that it's a known spammer.
After about a month of this I tried to unsubscribe from that spam, yet afater 5 attempts, I still keep getting spam from them. And still FA doesn't seem to know about them.
What's going on? Why can't such a spammer be added? Could there be someone at FA thinking that spam is no good unless it's religious spam? (Just kidding)
I'm getting so angry and frustrated about this that if I could find these spammers I'd surely punch them in the nose (or worse).
The spams keep coming from:
Please help!!!!
Tim |
I can't answer for FirstAlert but to save your sanity why don't you add the sender's address to your Blacklist in Mailwasher?
Terry
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
TD
Cadet
Joined: Jan 16, 2004
Posts: 3
Location: Canada
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 12:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| stan_qaz wrote: |
If you have a copy of the spam you could forward it to firstalert @ firetrust . com with a complaint or PM boo here. In either case mention this thread and include a link.
Until then why don't you add a filter to delete the e-mails?
Also submitting this type of thing to spamcop.net will get them to clean up their act when their e-mail is refused from many places. |
Hi Stan,
Thanks for your reply. I'll follow your suggestion and forward the spam to FirstAlert. But what do you mean by "PM boo" here? PM must be private message, but what or who is boo? (Sorry, this is my first time on this board.)
And I'm not familiar with Spamcop.net... I guess I'll go check them out.
Thanks.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
TD
Cadet
Joined: Jan 16, 2004
Posts: 3
Location: Canada
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 12:25 pm Post subject: Re: Can't add spammer to FA list |
|
|
| Terryphi wrote: |
I can't answer for FirstAlert but to save your sanity why don't you add the sender's address to your Blacklist in Mailwasher?
Terry |
Terry,
I've already done that, but it just burns me up that those *!@# keep on sending me that spam and that I have to do anything at all about it (every single day).
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
stan_qaz
General
Premium Member
Joined: Mar 31, 2003
Posts: 4100
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 1:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
boo is the user name of the first alert guy from firetrust. Note that boo might not be a guy!
The PM function is great for posting personal stuff like message headers and e-mail addresses. Putting that info on an open forum is asking to get it picked up by spammers.
There is a spamcop entry on your "Source of Spam" spam tool and at the bottom of the list of tools (scroll down) there is an automated reporting tool. Very handy!
Spamcop.net is catching almost everything that First Alert doesn't and they add based on the number of folks reporting. One option they offer is to send the ISP of the spammer a complaint about the message. The complaint has a section where you could mention you didn't ask for the mail and have tried to unsubscribe. For small time spammers it is almost 100% effective in getting them off the net.
This is a parse from spamcop on just the e-mail address, you'll get more info from reporting the entire e-mail.
-----------------------
Parsing input:
64.74.35.161 is an mx ( 10 ) for partner.beliefnet.com
host 64.74.35.161 (getting name) = agnes.beliefnet.com.
[report history]
64.74.35.161 is an mx ( 10 ) for partner.beliefnet.com
Resolves to 64.74.35.161
Tracking ip 64.74.35.161
Routing details for 64.74.35.161
[refresh/show] Cached whois for 64.74.35.161 :
Using abuse net on
abuse net internap.com =
Using best contacts
Statistics:
64.74.35.161 not listed in bl.spamcop.net
More Information..
64.74.35.161 not listed in dnsbl.njabl.org
64.74.35.161 not listed in dnsbl.njabl.org
64.74.35.161 not listed in cbl.abuseat.org
64.74.35.161 not listed in dnsbl.sorbs.net
64.74.35.161 not listed in relays.ordb.org.
Reporting addresses:
---------------------------------
Sure hope spammers don't harvest their address from our posts and start spamming them, that would be a low down dirty shame. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
AbdLomax
Private
Joined: Mar 10, 2004
Posts: 35
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 8:56 pm Post subject: Re: Can't add spammer to FA list |
|
|
| TD wrote: |
| I'm being bombarded by spam from a religious fanatic group who thinks they will save the world and they're starting with me... |
There seems to be some confusion here. Not all unwanted mail is spam. You have easy means to deal with that mail, but it appears that, instead, you want to punish them. That gets harder.
| TD wrote: |
| I have tried and tried to add them to the FA! list, yet every day I keep getting more spams from them and FA! never seems to acknowledge that it's a known spammer. |
What if you are the only person to whom they are mailing? Or, more reasonably, that you are the only person to whom they are mailing who doesn't want to receive the mail? That would not be spam by any definition. Nothing in this thread, that I noticed, anyway, supported the claim that this is a "known spammer."
| TD wrote: |
| After about a month of this I tried to unsubscribe from that spam, yet afater 5 attempts, I still keep getting spam from them. And still FA doesn't seem to know about them. |
One attempt to unsubscribe is enough. Unsubscription is a courtesy, it is not a necessity. If you really thought they were spammers, why did you try to unsubscribe? More likely, they simply are not doing a good job of maintaining their mailing list. Lots of legitimate mailers and lists don't. Given that you can deal with this mail, ever, without any action on their part, why bother with anything more?
| TD wrote: |
| What's going on? Why can't such a spammer be added? Could there be someone at FA thinking that spam is no good unless it's religious spam? (Just kidding) |
Might be. Not just a joke. "Religious spam" is not common. My guess is that the mail doesn't look like spam. It looks like a religious newsletter. Further, if I'm correct, First Alert is not a sender blacklist. It is a content filter. If each newsletter is substantially different, even if First Alert accepts the report, the next issue would not be tagged.
| TD wrote: |
| I'm getting so angry and frustrated about this that if I could find these spammers I'd surely punch them in the nose (or worse). |
So why haven't you added them to your own Mailwasher blacklist? Better might be a Filter that hides the mail and deletes it, it is more configurable. But I suspect that you are angry with them, perhaps you detest what you think they stand for, so you want to *get back* at them. And this is what is making you so frustrated. Because you could deal with the unwanted mail problem in less than a minute, certainly much less time than it took you to write here.
| TD wrote: |
| The spams keep coming from: |
I've heard of belief.net. It is not a site for religious fanatics at all. From their description of themselves:
"We are a multi-faith e-community designed to help you meet your own religious and spiritual needs -- in an interesting, captivating and engaging way. We are independent. We are not affiliated with a particular religion or spiritual movement. We are not out to convert you to a particular approach, but rather to help you find your own. Fundamental to our mission is a deep respect for a wide variety of faiths and traditions."
They are well-known. They appear to be as they describe themselves. They run quite a few mailing lists; to see what would happen, I subscribed to what may be the same list as in this complaint. I used a distinctive address. We'll see how their unsubscribe works.
I belong to a lot of mailing lists and it is amazing how many people don't follow simple unsubscribe instructions.
Right off, I see that there was no mention of a confirmation e-mail. That's not a good sign. If they don't require confirmation, perhaps Terry was subscribed by someone else. But I *very* much doubt that he was "spammed," i.e., that they purchased or bot-gathered a list and sent out lots of mail to it. It has been a few minutes and no confirmation mail....
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ikeb
General
Premium Member
Joined: Apr 20, 2003
Posts: 3531
Location: Canada
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 12:20 am Post subject: Re: Can't add spammer to FA list |
|
|
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| I belong to a lot of mailing lists and it is amazing how many people don't follow simple unsubscribe instructions. |
I never respond to any unsolicted email unsubscribe function. Now if there was a tell-tale sign that the unsubscribe would be honoured....
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| Right off, I see that there was no mention of a confirmation e-mail. That's not a good sign. If they don't require confirmation, perhaps Terry was subscribed by someone else. But I *very* much doubt that he was "spammed," i.e., that they purchased or bot-gathered a list and sent out lots of mail to it. It has been a few minutes and no confirmation mail.... |
By the strictest definition; SPAM does have to be generated from a hot-bot or purchased list. Being subscribed by someone else qualifies in my books! "Unsolicited" means that the receiver was not confirmed as the requester. So is the message part of a bulk email service? If the answer is affirmative, the message is indeed SPAM.
_________________
I like SPAM ... on my sandwich!
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
boo
Firetrust Host
Joined: Oct 06, 2003
Posts: 25
Location: New_Zealand
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 6:30 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hi Tim
FirstAlert! looks only at the subject and body of an email, not the sender's email address or originating IP address.
So if they were sending the exact same email to you over and over again, then FirstAlert! would be great, but if not you need to use your blacklist.
Or another suggestion, if you don't want to even see the emails, but don't want to set your whole blacklist to auto delete, then set up a filter to catch mail from that email address and delete it automatically.
- Oh, thanks AbdLomax
Hope this helps.
boo (PS - of the female variety!!) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ikeb
General
Premium Member
Joined: Apr 20, 2003
Posts: 3531
Location: Canada
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 7:05 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| boo wrote: |
| boo (PS - of the female variety!!) |
And that's why it's said "variety is the spice of life!" 
_________________
I like SPAM ... on my sandwich!
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
AbdLomax
Private
Joined: Mar 10, 2004
Posts: 35
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 7:28 pm Post subject: Re: Can't add spammer to FA list |
|
|
| Ikeb wrote: |
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| I belong to a lot of mailing lists and it is amazing how many people don't follow simple unsubscribe instructions. |
I never respond to any unsolicted email unsubscribe function. Now if there was a tell-tale sign that the unsubscribe would be honoured....
|
Generally, if a mailing comes from a reputable business or organization, unsubscribes will be honored, I've found, but some organizations are not very "organized." If the process is automated, though, there should not be a problem. I know that our own mailing list was *not* automated until recently, but, then again, with about two thousand names on the list, I think we saw one unsubscribe request every six months or so. I just know that an organization can intend that nobody receive the mailing who does not want it, but fail to realize that intention.
Now, of course that is a problem. But it is not spam, which is intentionally sent to large numbers of people who have not requested it. Very, very little traffic results from organizational errors like that described, compared to the huge amount of mail being spewed out from spammers.
Mailing list confirmation is important, but if an organization has never before experienced what might be called illicit subscriptions, it might not realize the risk.
I don't know about beliefnet. The web site is pretty sophisticated. I mentioned that I was told my subscription had been accepted, and that there was no mention of a confirmation mail. That doesn't mean one would not be sent. Was one sent? I haven't received *anything* from the list. I checked through my MW logs to see if it had somehow been deleted. No.
From a review of the web site, and from my prior knowledge of the organization, they are not spammers. They might -- or might not -- have poor list maintenance procedures. What I said was a fact: Many mailing list members -- who did subscribe to the list and responded to an original confirmation message -- and who then want to unsubscribe, don't follow the directions, instead they send plaintive messages to the list about how they are trying to unsubscribe and it isn't working. In one case yesterday, a writer, swearing and cursing, wrote many messages to a software support list "I don't know you, don't keep sending me mail." This list probably has about two or three thousand subscribers. He had posted a message to the list, asking for something irrelevant, three months earlier. Definitely, he subscribed. But he didn't read or follow unsubscription instructions.
The starter of this thread *assumed* that these were spammers. Did he subscribe? Given the hysteria of his response, I wouldn't bet that he didn't. He gets these mails repeatedly, if we are to believe him, and they all come from the same address. Spammers, nowadays, don't do that. It is trivial to filter out or blacklist mail from a single address. Would that spammers behaved like this list is behaving!!!
If I'm getting unwanted mail from an unknown business, I treat it as spam, generally. If I ever did business with a company, their mail to me is not spam. If I don't want the mail, I can unsubscribe or blacklist or filter. Blacklisting is easiest. But I don't see much repeated unwanted mail from reputable businesses, and I just looked at my blacklist. It had three names on it.
Mailwasher is a *mail* filter, not solely a spam filter. Spam is a terrible problem, simply unwanted mail is quite minor in comparison. I would never report as spam, go through the SpamCop process, merely because a mail is unwanted. It is when the mail is clearly being sent without any regard for whether or not it is wanted, and, in particular, when it is sent deceptively, i.e., with phony subjects and polymorphic text and spoofed senders and all the spammer tricks, that it becomes a serious social problem and is, in my view, a major crime.
Many people have a much more open definition of spam: if it is commercial, and it was not solicited, it is spam. I'd say that's too harsh. What if person A tells me (literally, speech) that person B would be interested in hiring me, and person A gives me person B's email address or phone number. Is it spam if I email person B or the telephone equivalent if I telephone person B? I don't think so. On the other hand, if I, in the hope of getting a job, send a piece of email to every person whose email address I can find, *this* is spam.
If a mailing list has ten thousand subscribers, and one of them was improperly subscribed by someone else (as one possibility here), is the operator of the mailing list a "spammer"? I don't think so. Judging from the reported lack of response of First Alert to the writer who started this thread, they don't think so either.
| Ikeb wrote: |
| By the strictest definition; SPAM does have to be generated from a hot-bot or purchased list. Being subscribed by someone else qualifies in my books! |
Then you have a very strange book, I must say, especially if a list was only being improperly sent to a single person. If someone improperly subscribed *many* people, that person would be a spammer, perhaps. Would the list maintainers be spammers? Well, they'd be guilty of poor security practices, and until they fix those practices, they might find themselves treated as spammers, but they would not be spammers. Their sin was not spamming, it was lack of caution to prevent others from abusing their service. Likewise someone who ignorantly maintains an open relay is not a spammer, but can't complain about being blacklisted. But a single piece of mail unless it is on the face spam would never justify blacklisting.
| Ikeb wrote: |
| "Unsolicited" means that the receiver was not confirmed as the requester. |
No, Unsolicited means that the mail was not requested. What if a person who has access to my mail (as I do to my wife's mail, I filter it for her) solicits something on my behalf? And that person responds to the confirmation mail. And then I come along and start screaming about how I'm being spammed. Do I keep all my mail? Do I look back and see if there was any prior correspondence? If it really matters to me, do I ask anyone who might have had access to my mail if they did this? Do I write the mailer? The complainer here put a lot of effort into trying to punish the mailer, much more effort than would be involved in simply blacklisting the mail, or simply asking to be removed.
Does the complainer ever do anything and then forget that they did it? Does he or she ever get confused? If the answer is no, then he or she is blessed indeed. But I don't think so. People who are blessed like that don't get hysterical about receiving an unwanted daily inspirational message from a rather mild organization.
| Ikeb wrote: |
| "So is the message part of a bulk email service? If the answer is affirmative, the message is indeed SPAM. |
There are "bulk email services" and "bulk email services." Is any mailing list a "bulk email service"? Whether operated for profit or not? Whether mailed to purchased or bot-gathered lists or not?
I'll stick with this: if mail is not spoofed, if it always comes from the same address, and that address is indeed the mailer, if it has a clear and identifiable subject line, if it is only sent to those who request it (which *ought* to require confirmation for safety but which might not), if it has a clear and quick unsubscription method, if it is a *service*, rather than an advertisement, it is not spam. I agree that mailers who allow their service to be abused properly risk being classified as spammers, but such a classification would not properly be based upon a single report of an unwanted mail. After all, how do we know that the reporter did not solicit the mail? How do we know if there was or was not confirmation? In this thread, we have only the report of the complainant. No evidence whatever has been presented that this mailer has ever been even accused of spamming before. The mailer is on no blacklists.
One of the writers here posted the addresses for this mailer, and it seemed to me was gloating that this "spammer" might receive spam as a result. Now, the mailer has public addresses already, and such addresses are not going to receive any significant increase of spam because of a posting here, but it did betray an attitude. What is the evidence that beliefnet is a spammer, deserving of such treatment?
(I don't know them, but I do know they have an excellent reputation in some circles. The only people I'd expect to hate them would be ... religious fanatics.)
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ikeb
General
Premium Member
Joined: Apr 20, 2003
Posts: 3531
Location: Canada
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 12:05 am Post subject: Re: Can't add spammer to FA list |
|
|
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| Ikeb wrote: |
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| I belong to a lot of mailing lists and it is amazing how many people don't follow simple unsubscribe instructions. |
I never respond to any unsolicted email unsubscribe function. Now if there was a tell-tale sign that the unsubscribe would be honoured....
|
Generally, if a mailing comes from a reputable business or organization, unsubscribes will be honored, I've found, but some organizations are not very "organized." If the process is automated, though, there should not be a problem. I know that our own mailing list was *not* automated until recently, but, then again, with about two thousand names on the list, I think we saw one unsubscribe request every six months or so. I just know that an organization can intend that nobody receive the mailing who does not want it, but fail to realize that intention.
Now, of course that is a problem. But it is not spam, which is intentionally sent to large numbers of people who have not requested it. Very, very little traffic results from organizational errors like that described, compared to the huge amount of mail being spewed out from spammers.
Mailing list confirmation is important, but if an organization has never before experienced what might be called illicit subscriptions, it might not realize the risk.
|
Sure. I wasn't intending to imply that such email is SPAM, just that when I don't know that the mail originates from a reputable firm, an unsubscribe request runs the risk of confirming my email address to a SPAMer, thus increasing my SPAM. BTW, one must take care to guard against messages apparently from a reputable firm but which are forgeries intended to deceive the recipient into revealing something about themselves.
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| If I'm getting unwanted mail from an unknown business, I treat it as spam, generally. If I ever did business with a company, their mail to me is not spam. If I don't want the mail, I can unsubscribe or blacklist or filter. Blacklisting is easiest. But I don't see much repeated unwanted mail from reputable businesses, and I just looked at my blacklist. It had three names on it. |
I'm not talking about mail from companies I've dealt with in the past.
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| Mailwasher is a *mail* filter, not solely a spam filter. Spam is a terrible problem, simply unwanted mail is quite minor in comparison. I would never report as spam, go through the SpamCop process, merely because a mail is unwanted. It is when the mail is clearly being sent without any regard for whether or not it is wanted, and, in particular, when it is sent deceptively, i.e., with phony subjects and polymorphic text and spoofed senders and all the spammer tricks, that it becomes a serious social problem and is, in my view, a major crime. |
Nor bulk mail I no longer want and haven't bothered to unsubscribe from.
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| Many people have a much more open definition of spam: if it is commercial, and it was not solicited, it is spam. I'd say that's too harsh. What if person A tells me (literally, speech) that person B would be interested in hiring me, and person A gives me person B's email address or phone number. Is it spam if I email person B or the telephone equivalent if I telephone person B? I don't think so. On the other hand, if I, in the hope of getting a job, send a piece of email to every person whose email address I can find, *this* is spam. |
I always considered SPAM as unsolicited commercial bulk mail to be based on an incorrect premise: that SPAM is always commercial in nature.
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| If a mailing list has ten thousand subscribers, and one of them was improperly subscribed by someone else (as one possibility here), is the operator of the mailing list a "spammer"? I don't think so. Judging from the reported lack of response of First Alert to the writer who started this thread, they don't think so either. |
I agree that not all unrequested mail is SPAM. Of course a single incorrect subscription to such an email list can't be considered SPAM. But if the mailing list operator doesn't have the means in place to allow confirmation of mail list subscription, the list can indeed be abused and opens to door for abusers. Such an email list is thus being operated in a negligent manner and if commonly abused, the mail sent out unsolicited can indeed be considered to be SPAM.
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| Ikeb wrote: |
| By the strictest definition; SPAM does have to be generated from a hot-bot or purchased list. Being subscribed by someone else qualifies in my books! |
Then you have a very strange book, I must say, especially if a list was only being improperly sent to a single person. If someone improperly subscribed *many* people, that person would be a spammer, perhaps. Would the list maintainers be spammers? Well, they'd be guilty of poor security practices, and until they fix those practices, they might find themselves treated as spammers, but they would not be spammers. Their sin was not spamming, it was lack of caution to prevent others from abusing their service. Likewise someone who ignorantly maintains an open relay is not a spammer, but can't complain about being blacklisted. But a single piece of mail unless it is on the face spam would never justify blacklisting.
|
There are always exceptions. Of course a single incorrect list sent to someone isn't SPAM. You are perhaps more forgiving of negligent mail list operators than me. That they didn't intend to SPAM is of no consequence to me. The same can be said of the negligent driver who didn't intend to hit my vehicle. The lack of intent is no excuse for the damage caused.
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| Ikeb wrote: |
| "Unsolicited" means that the receiver was not confirmed as the requester. |
No, Unsolicited means that the mail was not requested. What if a person who has access to my mail (as I do to my wife's mail, I filter it for her) solicits something on my behalf? And that person responds to the confirmation mail. And then I come along and start screaming about how I'm being spammed. Do I keep all my mail? Do I look back and see if there was any prior correspondence? If it really matters to me, do I ask anyone who might have had access to my mail if they did this? Do I write the mailer? The complainer here put a lot of effort into trying to punish the mailer, much more effort than would be involved in simply blacklisting the mail, or simply asking to be removed.
Does the complainer ever do anything and then forget that they did it? Does he or she ever get confused? If the answer is no, then he or she is blessed indeed. But I don't think so. People who are blessed like that don't get hysterical about receiving an unwanted daily inspirational message from a rather mild organization.
|
As I said, there are always exceptions to every rule. I no longer bother to get annoyed at receiving hard core SPAM either. MWP greatly lowered my stress level. But I don't blame anyone for getting annoyed at getting unsolicited email of any sort. Just like I don't blame someone for getting annoyed for getting unsolicited phone calls, whether they be from a religious organization, a charity, or some long distance reseller with a promotion.
| AbdLomax wrote: |
| Ikeb wrote: |
| "So is the message part of a bulk email service? If the answer is affirmative, the message is indeed SPAM. |
There are "bulk email services" and "bulk email services." Is any mailing list a "bulk email service"? Whether operated for profit or not? Whether mailed to purchased or bot-gathered lists or not?
I'll stick with this: if mail is not spoofed, if it always comes from the same address, and that address is indeed the mailer, if it has a clear and identifiable subject line, if it is only sent to those who request it (which *ought* to require confirmation for safety but which might not), if it has a clear and quick unsubscription method, if it is a *service*, rather than an advertisement, it is not spam. I agree that mailers who allow their service to be abused properly risk being classified as spammers, but such a classification would not properly be based upon a single report of an unwanted mail. After all, how do we know that the reporter did not solicit the mail? How do we know if there was or was not confirmation? In this thread, we have only the report of the complainant. No evidence whatever has been presented that this mailer has ever been even accused of spamming before. The mailer is on no blacklists.
|
Actually I think we're pretty much in agreement in general terms. It seems your beef is about the OP and the lack of evidence that this particular list operator is a SPAMer. I didn't mean to infer any comment as to the validity of your comments in that regard. But I will now. If indeed the list operator is not responding to unsubscribe requests, that's a pretty good indicator of a SPAMer. In my "strange" book at least.
| AbdLomax wrote: |
One of the writers here posted the addresses for this mailer, and it seemed to me was gloating that this "spammer" might receive spam as a result. Now, the mailer has public addresses already, and such addresses are not going to receive any significant increase of spam because of a posting here, but it did betray an attitude. What is the evidence that beliefnet is a spammer, deserving of such treatment?
(I don't know them, but I do know they have an excellent reputation in some circles. The only people I'd expect to hate them would be ... religious fanatics.) |
He was obviously frustrated and lashed out with words. The simple fact remains that if the list operator would just remove that poster's address from the list, we wouldn't be having this discourse.
Hmm .... some purpose served I suppose.....
_________________
I like SPAM ... on my sandwich!
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
AbdLomax
Private
Joined: Mar 10, 2004
Posts: 35
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2004 11:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
We don't know that the recipient properly tried to unsubscribe from the list. He said he tried, but, back to what I originally wrote, many people will not follow the instructions. Instead they do something else and then they complain when it doesn't work.
As I mentioned, I subscribed to the list in question. I have not received any post yet. Maybe I'll try again.... It was supposed to be a daily mailing....
On the face if it, the mail described does not bear the marks of spam. Very little spam now comes from known, openly identified sources! But we don't have all the facts. That the source is reputable makes it unlikely that it is spam, reputable sources have too much to lose.
_________________
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
AlphaCentauri
Captain
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
Posts: 300
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 5:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I have also been getting a lot of anonymous religious spam. I think some religious person(s) decided the end justifies the means and its okay to spam if you can save even one soul. Or maybe the sender went off his/her meds. I report them. It isn't all from one email address, either, though I haven't checked to see if any are real addresses. I'm a Christian and I'm offended, so it isn't just not agreeing with the sentiments.
My filter for it is this:
[enabled],proselytize,proselytize,4227327,AND, Body,containsRE,god|jesus|christ,Body,containsRE,church|repent|pray, Body,containsRE,hell|save|redeem|salvation
(Remove the blank spaces at the end of each line to make it into a one-line character string. Paste it into your filters folder. If you get legitimate email from folks not on your friends list that include all three topics it won't work, of course.) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB 2.0.8a © 2001 phpBB Group
Version 2.0.6 of PHP-Nuke Port by Tom Nitzschner © 2002 www.toms-home.com
Version 2.2 by Paul Laudanski © 2003-2004 Computer Cops
|
You can syndicate our news using the file RSS 0.91, ultramode.txt, or RSS 1.0.
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Login to check your private messages
Login
