Exhibit 1.
A message asking to be added to my mailing list. Spam was simply the
URL in the .signature. I would have fallen for it but they went a
touch too far and included a picture as well.
Did they actually want to get on your list, or was the return address a
fake? I've seen some pretty egregious wallpaper in legit mail.
Exhibit 2.
A message to abuse complaining about spam. The spam was the message
that they were "complaining" about.
Seen some of those, never had much trouble figuring them out.
Exhibit 3.
Message asking me to attend a conference. (You've probably seen these.)
Indeed. They struck me as instantly spamous because of the lack of any
plausible reason they'd invite me. (I may be famous, but I'm not THAT
famous.)
I can certainly imagine situations where spam could masquerade as
individual messages well enough to fool some people, but I don't see that
as a big problem. So long as most of the recipients can figure out that
it's spam, any negative feedback scheme we invent will still work.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl(_at_)iecc(_dot_)com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet
for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner
"A book is a sneeze." - E.B. White, on the writing of Charlotte's Web
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