gnupic: Thread: Not OTP! Re: Welcome gnupic@linuxhacker.org!

Well, it might be slightly off topic, but the topic lately has been
spam, and this does have a degree of importance.. so..

Some advice to all, if you receive spam, and that spam says, "Click here
to be removed from our list" or "Click here if you don't want to receive
this".

DO NOT click there.  If it IS spam (unsolicited email), clicking on the
link they provide typically does nothing more than to confirm that your
email address is valid (the email got to you, for you to click on the
link, so it must be an active email address), and therefore able to
accept more spam (from whoever sent you this spam, as well as whoever
else they decide to sell their list of email addresses to).

If you *don't* click on it, even though the mail doesn't bounce, it
makes your email account look 'inactive' to the spammers.  Well, maybe
not completely inactive, but "not active" anyway, so it's not worth as
much as an email account that 'CLICKS HERE' and shouts out "HEY, I'm a
valid email address!! Please use me to send your spam to!!"  It may take
a while, but by not clicking, you'll actually help to reduce the amount
of spam floating around.

just my $0.02, from someone technical who works for a little internet
service provider type company :)

-detrick

"Super-Bargains.net" wrote:
> 
> If you believe this is spam, go here:
> 

On Monday 09 December 2002 15:56, you wrote:
> Well, it might be slightly off topic, but the topic lately has been
> spam, and this does have a degree of importance.. so..
>
> Some advice to all, if you receive spam, and that spam says, "Click here
> to be removed from our list" or "Click here if you don't want to receive
> this".
>
> DO NOT click there.  If it IS spam (unsolicited email), clicking on the
> link they provide typically does nothing more than to confirm that your
> email address is valid (the email got to you, for you to click on the
> link, so it must be an active email address), and therefore able to
> accept more spam (from whoever sent you this spam, as well as whoever
> else they decide to sell their list of email addresses to).
>
> If you *don't* click on it, even though the mail doesn't bounce, it
> makes your email account look 'inactive' to the spammers.  Well, maybe
> not completely inactive, but "not active" anyway, so it's not worth as
> much as an email account that 'CLICKS HERE' and shouts out "HEY, I'm a
> valid email address!! Please use me to send your spam to!!"  It may take
> a while, but by not clicking, you'll actually help to reduce the amount
> of spam floating around.
>
> just my $0.02, from someone technical who works for a little internet
> service provider type company :)

Right - One question. How useful is the 'bounce' feature offered in some 
e-mail clients? Does it fool anyone? I've taken the trouble to bounce your 
message as well just for the sample. That should arrive to you shortly. 

-- 
	Regards,

	Declan Moriarty