I have a question, too. This one is about SPAM.

[Guest Rustic Monk]

Okay . . . so I was looking around the net for one of my email addresses and I only got one hit. I found out this hit was on a well known (at least to us) website, in a supposed "spam trap" list. This list is at least a megabyte large and it contains more emails than I could imagine counting. It's a straight-up dictionary print-out of combinations of email addresses. And this gay author just has it sitting there. I don't know if any of the other email addresses are real, though I assume many of them are. . . .

What do you think I should do? Show I blow it up and make a counter-page to expose the guy? Should I send an email to his hosting company? Should I alert the FTC or the FCC?

The list has probably been up there for years.

What do you think?

.

[Trab]

I'm not computer savvy enough to even know what you are talking about, so I don't think I'm qualified to answer your questions. It would be nice to get a bit more information as to what you mean though.

[Guest Rustic Monk]

okay, then, some definitions.

1. Spam Trap; a collection of fake emails published in an attempt to clog a spammer's database
   
2. Dictionary Attack; This term used to refer to "blunt-force" password cracking attempts. A program is used to create all possible combinations of Words AND ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ & 0123456789 to find a user's password. Spammers use these dictionaries and combine them with known Domain Names (i.e. cat0000@yahoo.com, cat0001@yahoo.com, cat0002@yahoo.com and so on) to send out SPAM.
   
3. SPAM; Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing
   

Anyway, I looked at the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (US Public Law, December 16th, 2003) and it's totally illegal to compile databases of email addresses. But this isn't a database, it's a humongous list. And most of the provisions of the CAN-SPAM ACT only apply to Businesses and only talk about how to enforce the law AFTER someone has harvested emails off a web page. But isn't publishing a web page under the false pretenses of being a spam trap more illegal than actually harvesting the emails?

What do you think I should do? Show I blow it up and make a counter-page to expose the guy? Should I send an email to his hosting company? Should I alert the FTC or the FCC?

I've created a webpage with screen shots and stuff. I just want to know if I should go public or wait until GoDaddy.com gets back to me. The list has probably been up there for years.

What do you think?

.

[Trab]

I'm assuming you are hoping for response from this godaddy, presumably the server for this particular place. I'd say if you don't hear anything back in a reasonable time, like 2 working days for any commrcial place of business, you should take whatever countermeasures you can legally take. As long as you don't break the law, or do it so that you cannot get caught at it, as long as you are basically doing a public service, go for it. I've broken actual laws in order to save people from harm, knowning that I'm actually doing less harm than 'the other'. Sometimes just stepping aside and ignoring something is worse than taking action.

[Tanuki Racoon]

Write the POSTMASTER@ISP and ROOT@ISP and ABUSE@ISP addresses with a polite explanation of the problem -- be technical; they'll get it.

In the subject line "ONE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS IN VIOLATION OF LAW! Reply Requested" and make sure you get to that first and quickly.

You could let the author know if you'd like but it doesn't sound like he/she's reputable so I'd just go the above route.

INSIST on a reply from a human so you know it's been properly received. If that doesn't work after 7 days, then you can contact the FTC and file a formal complaint but that takes ages.

[Trab]

See; now that's the kind of advice really needed: something that smacks of actual knowledge.

[Guest Rustic Monk]

The page was taken down after I did the following:

1. Emailed all the ISPs listed in the WHOIS.
   
2. Emailed the owners of AwesomeDude, The Mail Crew, CRVBoy and Gay Authors.
   

Knowing full well the file would be taken down before anyone else could have a look, I made a webpage with extensive screenshots. I converted the file to PDF and it came out to 129 pages. PDF will be made available FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

Http://www.lonelyocean.co.uk/spammers/iomfats_emaillist.html

Let me honest. I don't know if this belongs here. But I got so angry that I HAD to document this. And because it's someone we know. I used to be friends with this guys. I feel exploited and I didn't want him exploiting anyone else. This list obviously targets people who either spammed him or pissed him off in the past.

The thing is, this was very illegal. And I'm glad it's gone.

[Trab]

Your link doesn't work. I'm glad this thing is off the 'air' though. Thank-you for that.

http://www.lonelyocean.co.uk/spammers/iomfats_emaillist.html

I'm not sure why, but this one does. Although it doesn't show in yours, there seems to be a double http:// in yours when clicked

[JamesSavik]

Savik & Associates: Zealous Arbitrators for Personal Satisfaction

Will kneecap: lying b@stards, spammers, weasels, lawyers, jerks, punks, drunks, flunkies, flaming @ssholes, troublemakers, louts and the occasional drooling idiot.

Basic Package: Fee: $250,000 + 2 passports and reasonable expenses. Ass whupped.

Bronze Package: $350,000 + 2 passports, reasonable expenses. We guarantee target will have a permanent limp.

Silver Package: $450,000 + 2 passports, reasonable expenses. Same as above + X-rays, target will walk with a cane.

Gold Package: $550,000 + 2 passports, reasonable expenses. Same as above + target will eat through a straw for minimum of six months.

Platinum Package: $750,000 + 2 passports, reasonable expenses. Same as above + targets balls will be delivered to you in a pickle jar.

When peace of mind is worth more than money, call a pro.

[Trab]

Not to be picky, or anything, but your Platinum Package doesn't address the situation as well as the cheaper packages. Most of those listed as irritants are rather ball-less to start with, not to mention they might be female as well. I'd rather see a wheelchair involved in this top echelon of personalized justice.

[Mountain Dude]

As I was reading this thread I said to myself - that sounds like Iomfats spam jamming list. I remember reading about it a few years back on his site. As he explained then it is a list that was built to jam software aimmed at extracting email addresses from a site like his. Harmless to all but not harmless to someone phishing for email lists.

[Guest Rustic Monk]

Mt Dude, ehhh. Giving away real email addresses in a spam trap is self-defeating.

I was looking at the packages and thinking . . . why would i want to spend more than 250-thousand-dollars if his ass is gonna get kicked? It's already pretty impressive that someone would actually take 250,000 to track someone off the net. I mean, that's more impressive than making someone eat a straw. But you know what would be really cool?

Double Platinum Package: $2,000,000 + full cover. Target(s) will be delivered to you in a pickle jar. Up to 3 targets.

Straight up. But I'm old fashioned. I'd rather get my dirty deeds done dirt cheap.

Anyway, I'm working in another design for the poetry corner. I'm almost done.

[The Pecman]

Savik & Associates: Zealous Arbitrators for Personal Satisfaction

Boy, that sounds tempting!

I once worked a little bit on the 1992 film Hoffa (about the life of notorious mob-connected Teamsters union prez Jimmy Hoffa), and there's a scene where a newspaper reporter gets a strange package delivered to his desk. He opens up the package and sees something in a glass jar filled with water, then throws up. We never get to see what's in the glass jar.

I assume your company was involved. Nice work!

[Mountain Dude]

Mt Dude, ehhh. Giving away real email addresses in a spam trap is self-defeating.

I was looking at the packages and thinking . . . why would i want to spend more than 250-thousand-dollars if his ass is gonna get kicked? It's already pretty impressive that someone would actually take 250,000 to track someone off the net. I mean, that's more impressive than making someone eat a straw. But you know what would be really cool?

Double Platinum Package: $2,000,000 + full cover. Target(s) will be delivered to you in a pickle jar. Up to 3 targets.

Straight up. But I'm old fashioned. I'd rather get my dirty deeds done dirt cheap.

Anyway, I'm working in another design for the poetry corner. I'm almost done.

??????????????????????????????

Mt Dude, ehhh. Giving away real email addresses in a spam trap is self-defeating.

Hmmmm -- Well I have no idea what your e-mail address is/was but it was my understanding that the addresses were random, computer generated addresses. If he hit your e-mail address I would have to believe it was a fluke.

I have never had any communication with iomfats and am only expressing my own opinion. You said yourself he is a friend to you. I have a great deal of respect for his website also -- after all, 'Grasshopper' is family to him!

Him. Don't like that name -- want to think his name is David -- but not sure if that is correct.

As for the-----"I was looking at the packages and thinking . . . why would i want to spend more than 250-thousand-dollars if his ass is gonna get kicked? " That was just drama Did you just drew me into a sucker punch????

Take a deep breath and slowly back away

Hugs,

Mountain Dude

[JamesSavik]

Mountain Dude-

IMOFATS has been a long time bad actor in the community. This sort of behavior on his part is not unexpected.

If it were only Gabe's address in the spam trap, it might be a coincidence. As a number of them are people who have current or past disputes with Mr. FATS himself the probability of accident approaches zero.

Why Grasshopper stays with him is a mystery because they seem to be such different people.

Few people would have anything to do with Mr. FATS were Grasshopper not posted there.

[Mountain Dude]

Mountain Dude-

IMOFATS has been a long time bad actor in the community. This sort of behavior on his part is not unexpected.

If it were only Gabe's address in the spam trap, it might be a coincidence. As a number of them are people who have current or past disputes with Mr. FATS himself the probability of accident approaches zero.

Why Grasshopper stays with him is a mystery because they seem to be such different people.

Few people would have anything to do with Mr. FATS were Grasshopper not posted there.

I had no clue there were problems with Mr. Fats. I also have never taken a look that this file of his. Me thinks that maybe I am the person that needs to take a step back!!

Consider me re-educated and silent

[Guest Rustic Monk]

I had no clue there were problems with Mr. Fats. I also have never taken a look that this file of his. Me thinks that maybe I am the person that needs to take a step back!!

Consider me re-educated and silent

Yeah... His name is Tim. And we used to be friends. He burnt a lot of bridges for being more than an asshole. If you google "IOMFATS" and other related keywords, you can find more forum discussions about him.

Thanks, Jamessavik. You handled that reply better than I would have.

But, seriously, Mountain Dude, if you had actually looked at what I posted, it would have been painfully obviously to you exactly what I was talking about. I was gonna write a really big paragraph debasing your obvious lack of research. But in the course of being an asshole, I figured I'd be sucker punching myself . . . just like you did. O.O

Yeah, that was a sucker punch.

Besides, that was interesting, Mountain Dude, that you said "hit your email", like he was hitting other people's. That's just a wee bit suspicious. Especially since he's illustrated his super l33t h4x0r skills by successfully publishing a dictionary attack on a web page. That's not super leet h4x0r, by the way, it's just uber n00b. Like doing a WHOIS on someone who said something inflammatory on a forum and posting it.

And the pickle jar thing. That's waaaay more impressive than just getting someone's pickled balls in the mail. Probably better tasting, too. Speaking of macabre foods, has anyone ever tried balut? It's a "fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. They are considered delicacies of Asia and especially the Philippines, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac and considered a high-protein, hearty snack, baluts are mostly sold by street vendors at night in the regions where they are available. They are often served with beer. The Filipino and Malay word balut(balot) roughly translates to mean 'wrapped'."--Dictionary.com

Very weird.

[Guest Rustic Monk]

I had no clue there were problems with Mr. Fats. I also have never taken a look that this file of his. Me thinks that maybe I am the person that needs to take a step back!!

Consider me re-educated and silent

Yeah... His name is RAAAAWR!!! I just said this.

[blue]

Um, I saw the file. Rustic Monk's actual, non-random email address was in there. That's not coincidence, especially as a lot of others did have the domains replaced with bogus domains.

I was rather glad to see that my email and a few others were not in that list. But it's not nice to find someone else IS, or to have a respectable author ask if his email was in that list.

-----

Grasshopper is a good writer and a fine guy. I have no reason to think otherwise. I really wish he was at other sites, and I wish he'd get back to writing. -- "Just Hit Send" is one of the finest stories anywhere.

[Guest Rustic Monk]

In other news, Tim joined today. So we might have some incoming comments by the man himself.

[Mountain Dude]

Um, I saw the file. Rustic Monk's actual, non-random email address was in there. That's not coincidence, especially as a lot of others did have the domains replaced with bogus domains.

I was rather glad to see that my email and a few others were not in that list. But it's not nice to find someone else IS, or to have a respectable author ask if his email was in that list.

-----

Grasshopper is a good writer and a fine guy. I have no reason to think otherwise. I really wish he was at other sites, and I wish he'd get back to writing. -- "Just Hit Send" is one of the finest stories anywhere.

I agree with your comment!!!

Grasshopper is amazing -- what he has to say at such a young age ~~~~~~ I don't have the words to express the feelings he can develope in a story -- "Just Hit Return" was written while he was just 16, 17 or 18. Such insight for a person of that age.

A remarkable story!

Hugs to you Grasshopper!

I do love you buddy-------------

[IOMfAtS]

Sorry for the delay in replying. There were some technical challenges before I was approved to post.

Gabriel, I have emailed this to you personally, I also wanted to post it here.

The Spam Trap page has been, as you correctly surmised, taken down. The rationale for creating it is years old. Spammers no longer bother to use email gathering bots, they just clone email addresses and domains and send spam out by the gazillion. It was, in the end, a waste of disk space. There is a brief message to that effect in the page now.

That doesn't answer how an email address of yours got on it. The answer is banal. Spam originating from that email address, presumably cloned or forged, must have arrived. While I used that page actively I added that email to the list. I would have responded favorably to a quiet email, you know. There was no need for the crucifiction. I appreciate your annoyance, and I hope you will appreciate my apology, freely given.