[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Cypherpunks afraid of spam?



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, [email protected] (Alec) wrote:

> :> I put a spam-busted address in my .sig and give [email protected] as my email
> :> in the from: header. Sure, somebody out there is going to be unhappy with
> :> me, but if they have a clue they'll figure it out. Meantime, the SpamBots
> :> are bouncing mail to the admin of the site instead of to me.
> :
> For the less computer articulate (me), please rephrase what you just
> said more in the form of basic instructions.

For starters, root is the all-powerful system administrator account on
UNIX machines, and 127.0.0.1 is the "loopback" or "localhost" IP address,
generally used for testing.  A connection to loopback amounts to a
software connection back to the originating host, and e-mail sent to
loopback won't even go out the Ethernet card / modem / whatever.

So, if I put [email protected] in the "From:" field of my news reader's
configuration, all of my posts will give this as my e-mail address. 
Depending on the news reader, I may have to set options like "override
default domain name", which would override my service provider's name.

Since many commercial mailer programs ("SpamBots") scan Usenet news posts
for potential target e-mail addresses, these programs will pick up my
phony e-mail address and send their junk to their own system administrator
instead of me :-)

The smarter programs will also scan the bottom of posts for e-mail
addresses in people's signatures (or .sig files).  The "spam-busted"
address described above could be anything that is not a verbatim copy of
my e-mail address, for example:

[email protected]
cynthb[at]iosphere.net
cynthb@[NOSPAM].iosphere.net

Any reasonably computer-literate human will be able to figure out what my
real address is, but a cut-and-paste by a software robot won't work.

Hope this helps,

Cynthia

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3ia
Charset: cp850

iQCVAwUBMwfYOZOg7xGCJGQtAQFysQP/VBvuOqZnuQd/1PKz2eApuKUFhUSqWcMe
L0W44yFEhMF/vsSz9cZ1fY6ge72Mc1M6UaFPW109rkrmlT9Y0rytelmE+IVr5U92
Q0b+5t/SZAs2HTX8brF6XnqY+1kCcQCv20Yv1dUyWrHM/MOe6RUObSSS2uxqC7tf
r4TWCnQ6y7c=
=bet0
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
===============================================================
                   Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng.
E-mail: [email protected]  | PGP Key:  See Home Page
Home Page:  http://www.iosphere.net/~cynthb/
Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received.

        Klein bottle for rent; enquire within.