Additional Warning

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> Just today I have received a string of "undeliverable" notices from email
> addresses I never sent any mail to.  I forward mine to the "abuse" address
> at the KU comp center.  I think it is possible that someone got hold of the
> Siouan list directory.  If others of you get this sort of mail, check with
> your local university ISP or comp center web site: they probably have
> something like an abuse address you can forward your viruses and spam to for
> action.

There's not much point in forwarding virus mail to an abuse center, as
there is no one to track down and complain to.  SPAM mail varies.
Originally it was mostly return addressed the sender or then someone whose
mailing setup had been hijacked.  Today a lot of it is pattern automatic
stuff with invalid return addresses, but some sort of valid contact
address for the customer who purchased the campaign in the body of the
letter.  It's not worth complaining more than once about particular
patterns of SPAM.  If you get more than some threshhold number of a
pattern of SPAM letter you're better off creating a mail filter that
trashes letters that match the pattern.

At some point they will start verifying that all incoming and outgoing
email addresses are valid, a lot of overhead, I think, and that will cut
down on most of the things you see today, when combined with blocking
sending sites that won't stop sending validly return-addressed SPAM. At
the moment the will to regulate is lacking in a lot of quarters and a few
legistators - in the US, anyway - seem to think that unsolicited
commercial email is a valid commercial activity.

JEK