Spam Addresses

[Dark_Lizerd]

Do you get spam address for... well, everything???
Want to fight back?
Try this, capture the address, and name if you can, and sign up for random sex sites,
using their info...
Especially the ones where you "Won the UK lottery"... You know the type...
Let them receive unwanted emails for a change...

[Shannon SteelSlave]

I'll send one to the oldest porn star, who keeps telling me about his**********
Next, the makers of that magic oil that will protect me from Covid-19.
Yes, I do want better sleep. So I'll sign up that guy too.

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[sweh]

99% or more of spam is not from the person it says it's from. It's trivially simple to fake email addresses, and it's been common for the past 30 years for spammers to harvest email addresses and pretend to send from them. Some of these harvesters are so stupid they even use old Usenet message IDs because they _look_ like email addresses.

So you see a spam message saying "From fred@example.com" you can be pretty sure Fred was _not_ the real sender.

So unless you're really really confident that you know the real spammer, and not the forged address, all you're doing is signing up an innocent victim...

[Shannon SteelSlave]

What do you want from me,

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[Dark_Lizerd]

I thought of that... (The wrong address)
But you "should" get the correct email if you reply...
just don't send...
I haven't yet... but some time I really want to do this...
(Just venting mainly)

[sweh]

I thought of that... (The wrong address)
But you "should" get the correct email if you reply...

No. You have zero information about the correct sender, so the "reply" function will _also_ go to the faked address.

[sweh]

For what it's worth, on the internet, email goes something like this:

Client connects to Mail server

Server: Hello! I'm a mail server. How can I help you
Client: Hello! I'm Microsoft
Server: Well, OK, if that's what you want to call yourself. But I know you're connecting from IP 10.20.30.40 and are really a.machine.in.russia
Client: I want to send mail from god@heaven.com
Server: OK...
Client: I want to send it to target@yourserver.com
Server: Sure, go ahead
Client: here's the message
From: god@heaven.com
To: Sinners
Subject: The end is nigh
Date: now

The end is night, so repent!

... OK, that's it that's the message.

Server: Hmm, let me think about that. Hmm... it doesn't look like spam... hmm, you're not on any naught list. OK, I'll deliver it for you!

And then the server adds a line to the message that says "I received this from a machine claiming it was microsoft but was really a.machine.in.russia (10.20.30.40)".

And that's what you get in your Inbox.

So if you look at everything, _all_ the information except the sending machine's IP address was created by the spammer. None of it can be trusted.

Now modern mail systems try to check some of it (does the sender address look sensible? Is it permitted to send from that machine? Is the message properly signed?) but a lot of domains don't specify these rules, so those checks don't take place.

At then end of the day, if the message makes it way through the spam checks and into your Inbox then -all- the information (except that one line saying "received from a.machine.in.russia") is controlled by the sender.

And even that's not helpful because a lot of spammers use Bot-nets. If a desktop machine (and it's nearly always Windows desktops without the latest antivirus/malware software) gets infected with a botnet agent then the spammer can use that infected machine to send the message. So now even the IP address points to an innocent victim, and not the real culprit!

So, no. Really, no. Don't reply, don't target, don't retaliate. You don't have the information necessary to find the culprit.

[Dark_Lizerd]

Oh, well...

[bound_jenny]

Drat... I was just about to deploy the killer drones...

Jenny.

[Shannon SteelSlave]

Drat... I was just about to deploy the killer drones...

Jenny.

I'm still gonna'. Somebody has to pay for bothering me.

[Dark_Lizerd]

So... you are telling me that the ones like this do not have a "valid" reply address...
"I am Mr. Bacon from Niroby with a shipment addressed to you, and I just need the following info...
(personal info)
Reply to me at MyAdress@Net.net

And this is not a usable address???

Those are the ones I'm after...

[Shannon SteelSlave]

2 wrongs can make a right. Can I post those spam addresses here so everyone can sign them up for..........I don't care what. That'll learn them a thing or 2.

[bound_jenny]

And if you happen to get your hands on some Nigerian million$, save some for me!

2 wrongs can make a right.

Mathematically, that's true if your multiplying the two wrongs. Assuming that -1 is a wrong, and +1 is a right:

-1 x -1 = +1

Division will work too (because division is multiplying one term with the reciprocal of the other term):

-1 / -1 = +1

But if you're adding them up, you're just getting into deeper mathematical doodoo...

-1 + -1 = -2

If you're subtracting them, you just get nothing, good or bad:

(-1) - (-1) = 0

But that doesn't work with ice variants that have Roman numerals as suffixes. You just get more ice.

*poking the pony here*

And hamsters only multiply. They're one-operation beasties. You might get them to divide if you turn one of them upside down. But don't hold your breath.

Jenny.

[sweh]

Since this is hypothetical, we're really dealing with imaginary numbers; "i".

Now two imaginary rights makes a real wrong (i*i == -1)
And, interesting, so do two imaginary wrongs (-i*-i == -1)

But _four_ imaginary rights or 4 imaginary wrongs both make a real right; i^4 == (-1)^4 == 1

[bound_jenny]

Since this is hypothetical, we're really dealing with imaginary numbers; "i".

Now two imaginary rights makes a real wrong (i*i == -1)
And, interesting, so do two imaginary wrongs (-i*-i == -1)

But _four_ imaginary rights or 4 imaginary wrongs both make a real right; i^4 == (-1)^4 == 1

Keep that up and you'll create a rip in the space-time continuum, with all those imaginary numerical guts spilling out into our universe and really bollixing things up (even worse than coronavirus combined with politicians ).

And if my imaginary universe counterpart crosses over... let's just say she's even more evil than I am (and I'm really evil ).

Jenny.