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Can Spammers be Reformed?

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This is an actual email that was sent to me quite some time ago. I've been sitting on this email for well over a year trying to figure out what to do with it. There's a lot to look at, a lot to think about.
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Internet Mail Server 2.1); Mon, 27 Sep 1999 08:52:09 -0700
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Mon, 27 Sep 1999 04:51:38 -0700 (PDT)	(envelope-from apache)
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 04:51:38 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199909271151.EAA11439@web001.mediacity.com>
To: spam-hater@studio42.com
From: raccoon@sba.attmil.ne.jp (William B. Doyle)
Subject: Honesty Is The Best Policy

Below is the result of your feedback form.  It was submitted by William B. Doyle 
(raccoon@sba.attmil.ne.jp) on Monday, September 27, 1999 at 04:51:37
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

email: raccoon@sba.attmil.ne.jp

realname: William B. Doyle

subject: Honesty Is The Best Policy

Form-ID: Anti-Spam Email Form

Message: "Honesty Is The Best Policy"

Sir, I am William B. Doyle and find myself the unwitting dupe of a company
selling e-mail lists of folks "interested" e-mail concerning products/services.
It's lists such as these which result in UCE and/or spam, whatever you choose 
to call it.

I stupidly purchased membership in such a company and sent an inquiry e-mail to 
folks on 3 of the lists requesting confirmation that indeed they were interested 
in receiving e-mail concerning products/service. No ad.

After 2 days of using these lists, I quickly found out I had been conned, stopped 
using the lists, deleted them, asked the company to terminate my membership and 
give me a full refund. They agreed.

I also promptly informed my ISP's, website hosts, company etc. of the incident. 
They all agreed I made a dumb error believing the list company's party line and 
steered me to acceptable resources and tools to use.

How did I know something was wrong? Well, sir, over 33% were undeliverable/user 
unknown, too many "removes" to count, etc. I had made a mistake and immediately 
ook actions to correct it and never do so again.

Too late.

Evidently, one of your graduates or a graduate of a similiar course of instruction 
is aggressively utilizing the methods and tools to lable me Internet wide as a 
"spammer". 2 websites briefly shutdown, 1 ISP investigating
the accusation.

I applaude your attempt to educate others on identifying spam, UCE, and possible 
actions to stop further nuisances clogging all of our Inboxes!
I have no ill will toward you and definitely am not going to attempt to "scold" 
you! I am definitely not in a position to scold anyone but myself.

Lessons learned the hard way.

If someone begins to see spam/UCE starting to come into their Inbox regularly,
there's a good chance there's an e-mail list obtained in a questionable fashion 
(harvested, extracted, etc.) that's being sold. I advise folks to find out from the 
marketers sending such spam/UCE just WHERE did they obtain the e-mail address from 
FIRST, prior to sending complaints all over the world. Shut it down at the source!!! 
Consult with your attorney concerning your legal options.

Also, be careful of the actions one takes against an alledged "spammer"...some of it 
is illegal (harrassment, slander, etc.). The person(s) attacking me are in for a big 
surprise.

Again, sir, please continue to educate others about spam and UCE, legal actions to 
take against offenders, list companies, etc., how to set their e-mail filters to block 
the junk and so on. I wish I had found your website prior to my recent experinence! It 
is now bookmarked (perfect examples of what is considered spam/UCE).

Very Respectfully,
William B. Doyle
PSC 476 Box 64
FPO AP 96322-0064
(011) (81) 6117-52-7534
raccoon@sba.attmil.ne.jp
raccoon@usonet.ne.jp


 



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REMOTE_HOST: 30.pool0.sasebo.attmil.ne.jp
REMOTE_ADDR: 165.76.162.61
REMOTE_USER: 
REMOTE_IDENT: 
HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt)
So, this misguided person spammed, and has paid for it. On the good side, the lesson has been learned and it is highly unlikely this person will ever spam again. I must applaud this person for their honesty about this issue. What I like best about this is that I'd pretty much lost hope on internet abusers, seeing them as persistent idiots who will do whatever they can to continue abusing the internet. A spammer with ethics and morals, turned from spammer to reformed user and now good internet citizen. I wish there were more happy stories like this to share.

I'd also like to address a few issues that this reformed individual has brought up. First, I do still advocate an aggressive anti-spam policy. However, limits must be placed, especially on a first-time offender. As far as I'm concerned, if there is a repeat, then the rules are all off. Make sure that one uses common sense when fighting spam. I do advocate legal action whenever necessary. I fight one-timers as hard as repeat violators, but repeat violators get much more pleasant "surprises" that they tend to not like.

Lastly, in regards to teaching people how to set their email filter to block spam, this individual's request is not without merit. No disrespect intended, but Studio42 will not advocate those sort of measures. Why? Because even if our email clients can do it, we, being users of the internet, should not have to do this. Why? The spam should not be sent in the first place, and further explanation is that once the message has been downloaded, it has incurred cost to the recipient and damage is done. Users should not have to filter their email.

I'd like to thank this individual for making this effort and sharing his experiences. It shows how spammers operate, shows that there is no honor among thieves. We get insight as to how spammers operate, even from the views of someone who is definately not a hard-core spammer. Sometimes good people do bad things, but when good people do bad things, they learn from the experience, grow and don't make the same mistake again. He realized his mistake, took responsibility and in my views, he did the right thing, despite doing a very wrong thing in the first place.

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If you are one of the dilweeds who sent me unsolicited email or are someone thinking about it, drop dead.
Also, if you've got a complaint about my anti-spam feelings or want to scold me for being justifiably sick of spam, I have the following words of wisdom for you:

YOU'VE COME TO THE WRONG PLACE!

Anyone else, I'd like to hear from you. Click below and drop me a line.
Anti-Spam Site administrator