Spammers Ply Trade To Share Tips And Tricks

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January 02, 1998 (8:51 AM EST)

By Malcolm Maclachlan,

Unsolicited bulk e-mail called spam is self-perpetuating itself in a new trend that is attracting like-minded individuals looking to make a buck off the Internet.

A new class of unsolicited e-mail encourages users to buy mailing lists of thousands of e-mail addresses or the latest software for sending mass e-mails.

One ad offers "34 Million Email Addresses" plus a free demonstration of the "Stealth Mass Mailer" software that purports to let online marketers send 300,000 e-mails per hour over a typical modem while disguising their return addresses. Other mailings offer to sell programs such as E-mail Blaster Platinum, which would let users no longer be dependent on companies such as spammer CyberPromotions.

"The guys who do a lot of spamming are trying to do it without getting a lot of flames back," said Robert Lowe, vice president of World Research, a company that conducted a much publicized study on spam in April.

Spammers Aren't All That Bad
Although some studies show most e-mail users find spam offensive, the Web has become a fertile ground for mass mailers who want to share products and information with each other. Spammers are creating Websites and chat rooms to trade advice.

On the BMP Message Forum, for instance, online marketers debate which mass e-mailers are the best and trade advice on the best ways to stay out of trouble.

In another, users offered to trade software that cloaks a sender's e-mail address in exchange for software that will process faxed checks. Others talked about ways to get around America Online filtering software, such as not listing addresses in alphabetical order in mass mailings.

Such online arenas are increasingly becoming an arena for pro- and anti-spamming forces, according to one spam fighter.

"The pro-spammers are upset that some anti-spammers are monitoring the list," said Ray Everett-Church, co-founder and congressional liaison of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email. "Of course, they monitor some public anti-spam lists, too. That's why we discuss important things on private lists."

The price of incurring the bad will of netizens can be immediate. In its early days, World Research mass mailed a survey and soon found itself kicked off its access provider because of complaints.

Still, companies that sell mass-mailing software operate Websites and sell openly online.

Mark Sabatini, a marketing representative for the Floodgate site, which sells software to collect e-mail addresses, said his company has not been bothered by anti-spammers.

"Why would we get harassed?" Sabatini said. "We're not sending the mail. If somebody gets in a car accident, you don't blame the car company. You blame the person driving the car."

Marketing Masters is a 2-year-old company in Nevada that sells bulk e-mail software from a variety of different software makers. The owner, who asked not be identified, said her company is flamed all the time. "It's mostly people who have nothing better to do," the owner said.

The owner defended the practice of sending mass e-mails, pointing out that it doesn't waste paper or fuel, unlike sending traditional postal fliers.

"I get more in my [postal] mailbox, and I can't say 'remove me' because there is no list to be removed from," she said.

Such sites might be harassed more if they were easier to find. Any search under "mass e-mail" or "spamming" will turn up dozens of anti-spamming sites before it turns up a single how-to page.

Say No To Spam
There are dozens of sites that offer advice on how to beat off spammers. Stever's Anti-Spam Response, for instance, contains a form that can be sent to spammers explaining that you would be willing to evaluate any commercial e-mail sent to him as a business service. The cost, the letter said, is $50 per mail, and any further mail sent will be taken as an acceptance of this business proposition.

The problem with such a strategy, of course, is that many spams make it impossible to reply to the sender, or simply add your name to a database to be sold to other spammers if you reply.

Sites such as SpuTools and Get That Spammer contain tips on discovering spammers' real identities. The Exspaminator Top Ten List details 10 of the stupidest spams ever received, as well as the e-mail addresses of the authors.

In case this fight among the spammers and spammed gets too contentious, Web surfers can always take time out with the favorite poetic form of the Internet -- spamku. Based on the traditional haiku form, these poems are dedicated to the pork product of Hormel. For instance:

Old man seeks doctor "I eat spam daily" he says, Angioplasty.