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Re: [Asrg] 2.a.1. Spam Measurements - Data - Unsubscribe

2003-08-08 16:03:28

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yakov Shafranovich" <research(_at_)solidmatrix(_dot_)com>
After trying to do unsubscribe from every spam that I got in a poisoned account, I came with some interesting observations. Of course there is not enough data to make this statistically correct but the empirical observations are interesting.

From all the spams that were received in this account in the last 2 days, most seem to come from four specific sources. All these sources had unsubscribe pages. When I tried to unsubscribe twice, I got a warning that the address has already been removed. I tried doing this a day apart, it still worked. You can see for yourself at:

http://www.med21sx.com/a.html

What I am getting from this is that these four specific spammers maintain "remove" lists. One possible reason for them to do so, is that sending spam to people that do not want it anymore, will not provide spammers with any possibility of extra revenue, and may hurt them in the long run because those people if still receiving the spam, will report the spammers. Of course, the other reason could be that its all a ploy or a verify operation.

In any case, we need more data on this and preferably a large-scale study.

Yakov

I have found that after about a week the sources that used to send the spam actually do stop. Then new sources start sending. Then they stop, and all that is left is the ones without unsubscribes. By some odd twist even those seem to have slowed down for me.

John Fenley

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