Now maybe if we only have to put a keyword in the BODY of the message, that was good for ANY IP address/source, it might work. E.G.
To: James@...
Subject: about making money fast

yourpassword

This is a note that you'll see because I have included your password in the body, and no spam list would do that. And you just put the PW into your signature file so we'll know to use it.

Sorta like PGP sigs.

KISS!

Yes, spam is EVIL, but I don't know of any effective way to stop them. That's why I have a disposable account (hotmail) for Usenet posts (and ONE post netted me 40 spam a day for the last 8 months).

What REALLY ticks me off is that my @home accounts, which have NEVER posted ANYTHING to the web, have been collecting junk e-mail. My 8 year old son signed on to his dormant e-mail account to find 190 pieces of JUNK, some of it pornographic. Same for my spouses account and my yet to be used company account.

Of course abuse@home.com has NOT replied to my several attempts to complain about their shoddy security. They've got you by the short and curlies (WRT high speed connectivity), and they know it.

I just use the usual spam filters and make a cursory scan through the trash file for possible missfiltering, and then block delete it all. Takes all of 3 minutes a week.

I also have a 3 keystroke macro that generates a reply forwarding the spam to abuse@host.domain & root@host.domain with a complaint. Unfortunately that has become ineffective as most accounts are nuked by the time the first complaints roll in.

You can take revenge if the spam has a toll free reply phone number. I just send a complaint fax to the number with my faxmodem, and set it to retry 999 times. They get a wopper of a phone bill since there is no fax to answer the call and the human gets an earful of CHNG tone. If they complain to my phone company I can plead ignorance. "I thought it was their fax number and I really wanted them to get my message..". Let it dial all night if they have an answering machine on the number. Fills up the tape/voicemail box so that can't get any orders.

BTW I do the same thing to telemarketers. You can get their phone number ('Last number dialed'for a small fee (.50c)) by dialing *69 in most north american exchanges, and then you just hammer their outing line with incoming calls (set a short connect timeout. 10 seconds is good, and if your modem supports 'fast busy detect [old supra's]' you can get 15 tries/minute.)

Another good countermeasure is 'Please tell me all you can about your service/product' and then gently place the phone on the table. The seller will waste valuable time reading the pitch, only to discover that they're talking to air. I pissed off one telemarketer so badly that she called me back repeatedly at 6AM weekend mornings. I dialed *69 and filed a complaint with telephone security. They nuked her phone line for harassment.

Ask for the managers name, call them at home (if you can find it) and confirm that they manages XYZ corp, and then call they at 4 AM and read them their pitch. It's not harassment if you only do it once or twice. After all THEY"RE harrassing YOU! (and I'm usually up at 4AM for a 'stroll').

In the US you can order them to place you on their 'do not call' list and they are compelled by law to comply. If you have call display you can get a record of a second call and can pursue criminal charges against them for violation of article 52??

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