Re: Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks

[Will Rodger <rodger@interramp.com>]

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>If you know a valid email address on the spammers system you can always 
>bounce each message back to them.  If enough people turned the messages 
>back on them it might give them the opportunity to experience first hand 
>what its like to receive tons of mail you don't want or need...
>

Ah, but they never do.

Why not? Because spammers _invariably_  forge the return addresses to keep
exactly that from happening. Indeed, Cyber Promo claims it "had an
understanding" with AOL that it could use AOL boxes  or bogus adresses to
keep bounced messages from coming back at them and crashing their server.
Deliberatlely forging addresses, Cyber claims, is entirely legal. AOL says
it's fraud.

Interesting footnote: AOL, of course, is able to trace a lot of the spam it
gets. It has sent back thousands of messages at once to Cyber which, in
turn, has gotten it bumped from several ISPs once their servers crashed as a
result.

Tough business, huh?

Will Rodger
Washington Bureau Chief
Inter@ctive Week
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