samba - Jun 2003 - OT: RE: Spam to the list, plus the Nigerian Scam

Joel Hammer wrote on Friday, 6 June 2003 8:46 a.m.:
> Which, BTW, is how we could easily stop all spamming. If we all
> respond to the spammers, that would but them out of business in one
> day. So, all of us on this list should agree to respond to the
> spammer hitting us, telling him we are interested.  That would make
> these guys stop spamming this list.    
The problem with this is a lot of spammers use false return addresses or
impersonate real addresses. In these two cases the solution you suggest
doesn't work. Granted, the "419" scammers usually have a proper
return
address so that they can get a response. What you should do in these
cases (if you want to do something) is simultaneously report them to the
FBI and to their ISP/email provider (eg. Hotmail), at which time their
account will be summarily terminated, and if you're really lucky they
will be prosecuted. 419 scams aren't just spam, they are illegal. 

Hopefully all unsolicited email will become illegal in enough states in
the US to result in a massive legal attack against spammers shortly.
This, coupled with the eventual fixing of the (IMO) highly broken SMTP
protocol, will be their end.
 
> BTW, if you respond, you get lots more mail.
Which is generally the opposite of what you're trying to achieve. :)

Cheers,
Paul