Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 10:19:34 -0400 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?S=EAr=EAciya_Kurdistan=EE?= <sereciya@kurdistan.ath.cx> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: E-mail Scam, Addressess being collected of mailing list ::Advice Requested Message-ID: <3E9971F6.70607@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <20030413120049.GF22242@kurdistan.ath.cx> References: <20030413114437.GC22242@kurdistan.ath.cx> <20030413115557.GD22242@kurdistan.ath.cx> <20030413115825.GE22242@kurdistan.ath.cx> <20030413120049.GF22242@kurdistan.ath.cx>
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Sêrêciya Kurdistanî wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I just recieved an e-mail from "lawmbeki100@indiatimes.com", India, and
> I recognized it as the Lawrence Mbeki Bank scam, which I heard about in
> our discussions with some friends.
>
> I have reason to believe that these scammers are collecting e-mail addresses
> of our mailing list users, I'm taking this very seriously and would like
> ask the more experienced of you on what action to take next.
Welcome to hell. While I don't have 100% proof ... I think you are absolutely
correct: that spammers harvest email addresses from this (among others) list.
Unfortunately, the nature of this list makes it very difficult (if not
impossible) to prevent that.
Keep in mind that questions@ is publicly displayed in many places as where to
send questions. Thus it can not be a "subscription only" list, and the
original email of the poster can not be obscured.
> I appologize in advance for posting off topic; I thought that this would
> concern a lot of the users.
Don't apologize ... you're not the one doing something wrong. You're a victim
like many of us.
> I have already forwarded the e-mail to the Federal Trade Commission
> "UCE@FTC.GOV", and I filled out their form to ensure that they have all
> the information needed, however, I think that something needs to be done
> to protect the mailing list users.
Forwarding it to uce@ftc.gov is a good idea.
Personally, I think that what needs done is that a lobby group needs to form
to force the government to do something about criminal junk mail. These silly
laws that have been passed so far are almost useless, and never enforced (that
I've seen) Part of the problem is that many of these emails originate from
outside the country, where there (apparently) are no laws about deceiving and
stealing from US citizens.
My opinion is that it should be against the law to lie or misrepresent yourself
in email, and the penalty should be high ... since all spammers lie.
Unfortunately, from a legal standpoint, the government could use this to bully
people. I mean ... what if you accidentally put the wrong name in your "from"
header and didn't notice and the government decided they wanted to bully you?
> What further action can be taken?
There are many things you can do. You may not want to do all of them.
1) Install Spamassassin or similar
2) Continue to report and complain about junk mail (another good place to go
is spamcop.net ... makes reporting junkmail very easy)
3) Contact your local government representative and complain loudly
4) Configure your mail server to use RBL, or sign up with a mail service that
does.
5) I had an idea for a "counter-scam" where I would get an email address for
my underage nephew. I would set up his signature to clearly announce his
status as being underage ("I'm only 14 and I love FreeBSD" or something)
and assist him in posting to mailing lists. Then I'd wait for some porn
site to spam him and sue them for everything I could get. Any lawyers
out there that think this would work?
> All advice is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.
I hope what I said is helpful.
> PS
> I will try to attach the original e-mail message, if it does not
> show up, please feel free to contact me.
Please don't. Many people will consider that spam in itself. Most of us
here have seen these scams and don't really need another example. Attaching
a copy doesn't really serve any purpose, but it does overload the list server.
--
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com
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