While everyone's input is interesting, these data points are not truly
meaningful.
A sound measurement study is needed to provide meaningful insight here.
There have been some efforts on that path in the past:
http://www.simplyquick.com/privacy.html#3
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/03/21/12ebsecret_1.html
The FTC did a study on this also, but I can't find the link right now.
My view is that this is directed related to the thread about the analysis of
the effectiveness spam response techniques. That thread focused on
responding with SMTP error codes. This thread speaks about responding with a
unsubscribe request. Peter, can you incorporate this into the analysis plan
that you are putting together? From there we can determine an appropriate
methodology for collecting this data.
-----Original Message-----
From: Shaun Bryant [mailto:sbryant(_at_)ThePit(_dot_)org]
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 8:58 PM
To: 'asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org'
Subject: RE: [Asrg] 2.a.1. Spam Measurements - Data - Unsubscribe
From the tests that I have done with various honey-pot
accounts I have seen a great increase in the amount of spam
that the account receives when I "unsubscribed". I believe it
depends a lot on the type of spam you are using in your test.
Was the spam mostly bulk, or was it semi-solicited? Where the
e-mails originated from somewhere the account you where
testing with gave the address out to that may have "shared"
it with other organizations?
Shaun
-----Original Message-----
From: C Wegrzyn [mailto:wegrzyn(_at_)garbagedump(_dot_)com]
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 3:54 PM
To: Yakov Shafranovich
Cc: asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: [Asrg] 2.a.1. Spam Measurements - Data - Unsubscribe
From what I've heard about the unsubscribe issue is that once you
"try" to unsubscribe they actually know there is active
account. There
is a spammer in Burlington MA that uses this technique to
build email
lists. I also understand they will send out "free things" types of
emails to get you to come to the site.
Chuck Wegrzyn
Yakov Shafranovich wrote:
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
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Yakov Shafranovich / <research(_at_)solidmatrix(_dot_)com>
SolidMatrix Research, a division of SolidMatrix Technologies, Inc.
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"One who watches the wind will never sow, and one who
keeps his eyes
on the clouds will never reap" (Ecclesiastes 11:4)
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