Re: LYNX-DEV Your Web Site's Findability

[Robert Bonomi]

+ Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 08:25:35 +0400 (GMT-4)
+ From: Duncan Hill <address@hidden>
+ Subject: Re: LYNX-DEV Your Web Site's Findability 
+ Sender: address@hidden
+ 
+ On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Jonathan Sergent wrote:
+ 
+ >  ] Spam time -- Where did all this spam come from all of a sudden?
+ 
+ > Does anyone know if the iemmc.org thing is for real?  At least
+ > one of the messages I've seen was from CyberPromo.
+ 
+ Iemmc.org seems to be for real.  I got some spam over another list
+ from someone else who used their list for "ethical use of direct
+ email" (its on their web site).  Went to iemmc, pasted in the mail
+ list addy, verification came back to the list, sent iemmc the list +
+ verification, and bang, gone.  Since then though, their form seems to
+ have stopped working.

the IEMMC _is_ a real organization.

They are, however, a *sham*, to put it charitably.

It has been *proven* that 'registering' with their "remove list"
gets you _on_ spammer's mailing lists.

Not surprising, considering the following well-documented facts:
   1)  the IEMMC was founded by a bunch of the _hard-core_ junk e-mailers,
          to give an 'aura' of legitimacy to their *ineffective* 'opt-out' 
system.
   2)  *EVERY*ONE* of the IEMMC's _founding_members_ has engaged in activities,
          _since_ founding the organization, that under the rules of that org.,
          are grounds for _mandatory_expulsion_ from the organization.
   3) Not one 'member' member of the organization _has_ been disciplined.

See the newsgroup "news.admin.net-abuse.email" -- there are fairly regular
blasts at the IEMMC, documentation of junk e-mail originating to e-mail
addresses that existed *ONLY* for the purpose of registering with their
'remove' service  (question:  _how_ did the spammer get it, then? <wry grin>),
documentation of violation of IEMMC rules, _by_ IEMMC members, etc.,
ad nauseum.

I have procmail *automatically* trashcan _anything_ that has IEMMC headers
in it.

+ 
+ As for filtering it.  If it can't be filtered at the list end, and you
+ have access to procmmail, install it, and use a rule something like:
+ :0
+ * ^X-Advertisement: Visit http://www.iemmc.org for name removal \
+ information
+ >/dev/null  (or to a spam folder for furhgter anlysis.)
+ 
+ Theres a procmail archive somewhere that has a bunch of these recipies, and
+ there are several spam filter collections, most notably SpamBouncer at
+ ariel.com (somewhere in there, don't have url to hand).
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