The Worst Anti-Spam Technique Ever: “Bouncing” Spam Messages

Some well-meaning, albeit uninformed soul (who just got Dugg) came up with what he believes to be a great way to combat spam. The idea is to “bounce” the spam messages back to the spammer — presumably so that you don’t exist.

Interesting. So the best technique for fighting spam is to send a message to the spammer saying,

Hi, this is a valid email address (they can tell it’s not a real error). Do me a favor and don’t spam me. Oh, and one more thing — don’t spam me using the address I’m sending this from.

Outstanding. I’ve got another great idea: let’s make a list of dates of birth and social security numbers to put online that’s part of a “Identity Theft Prevention List”. This way the identity thieves can have one place to go to ensure they don’t steal the identity of someone who doesn’t want theirs stolen.

Use some logic, people. If they were willing to spam you the first time, do you really think they’re going to stop because you ask them to? Here’s another stellar crime fighting technique: go up the the friendly neighborhood rapist and say,

Hey, do me a favor, don’t ever come to 135 Elm Street where my wife’s often home alone while I’m on business. M’kay? Thanks.

Genius.

** It’s not quite this bad since it’s made to look like an error rather than a reply, but to a spammer this is a trivial obfuscation. Things like the time the spam was sent vs. the time it was bounced (as well as mail headers) illustrate very clearly whether something was actually bounced or was made to look like it did. Spammers tend to react negatively to the latter. Plus, a good portion of spam comes from spoofed addresses anyway, and responding just clogs bandwidth and freaks out the spoofed users. Don’t waste your time.