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Subject:
Spam
Category: Computers > Internet Asked by: steveeyer-ga List Price: $3.00 |
Posted:
16 May 2006 19:22 PDT
Expires: 15 Jun 2006 19:22 PDT Question ID: 729593 |
If I open spam coming through my eMail, does the spammer see my eMail address so that he can keep it active? If I visit a website, does that website have my eMail address so he can spam me later? |
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Subject:
Re: Spam
Answered By: djbaker-ga on 16 May 2006 21:32 PDT |
Greetings! The short answer to your questions is yes, opening a spam message or going to the website advertised can cause you to receive even more spam. "Just delete it. Don't try, don't buy, and don't reply. Never visit Web sites or buy anything advertised in a spam message. Spam is almost always a scam. Just delete it. Don't respond. Never open, reply to or click on the "remove" or "unsubscribe" link in a spam message. These actions can confirm your email address, causing you to receive more spam." http://www.stopspamhere.ca/#2 The reason this happens is based on a couple of tricks the spammers can pull. In today's technological environment, almost all email supports html. This means that spammers can put pictures and other things into the messages that they sent you. A very simple way for them to see that you opened the message would be to embed a picture tag, such as... <img scr="http://www.randomspammer.com/2432fa2.jpg"> in your email. When you load the message it pulls the picture down from the spammers server. Each picture id would be a unique end number specific and logged to your email address. When the server logs show that picture 2432fa2.jpg was pulled down they know that you must have opened their email and thus your address is active. When following a link to their website they'll use a similar trick. The link for you to click on would be something like... http://www.randomspamer.com/index.php?id=234234 The id 234234 would be unique to your address and would tell them that not only did you open the message, you followed the link and thus are receptive to email advertisements. A trick they have been doing for awhile as well concerns those "Click to unsubscribe me" type things on unsolicited emails. When you click to have your email taken off the list they know they found an active one. Best of luck! djbaker-ga Search Strategy: open spam verify email go to website ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=safari&rls=en-us&q=open+spam+verify+email+go+to+website&btnG=Search |
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Subject:
Re: Spam
From: thither-ga on 16 May 2006 19:50 PDT |
"Opening spam can often alert spammers that they have reached a working email address and potentially sell your email address to other spammers. If you do not know the sender and the subject line has odd characters we suggest that you do not open the email but to delete the email." http://www.gwu.edu/~virtual/mailfilter/spam.html I hope this helps with the first part of your question. Have a good day. |
Subject:
Re: Spam
From: eiffel-ga on 17 May 2006 02:58 PDT |
I feel it's not necessary to be quite so paranoid. Merely displaying the plaintext of a message can't send any information back to the sender, and you can configure your email client so that it does nothing more. If your email client is set to display plain text only (no images, no JavaScript, no HTML), and to refuse to respond to "Received" or "Read" receipt requests, then you can safely view spam. Alternatively, if you don't want to do this (e.g. because you want to see images in your emails) most email clients allow you to view the message source. This is just plain text and does not send information back to the sender. You will have to scroll past the headers to see the message proper. This can be quite revealing, e.g. for a spam message you will often see that the hyperlinks go to different places from what the text suggests. Then, you can delete the spam without being tempted to open it in the usual way. |
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