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  • From: David Minton <dminton AT mindspring.com>
  • To: InterNetWorkers <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Baiting Spamtraps
  • Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 21:40:54 -0400

Hmm, you and I have a different take on spamtraps. I am using Communigate
Pro, and they have the following take on spamtraps:

> Spam Traps
>
> You can protect your site from incoming spam by creating and advertising one
> or several "spam-trap" E-mail addresses. The CommuniGate Pro Router detects
> a
> special local address, spamtrap. If your server receives a message, and at
> least one of its recipients is spamtrap@yourhost or at least one of its
> recipients is routed to spamtrap, the Server rejects the entire message.
>
> Many bulk mailing lists are sorted by the domain name, and as a result many
> spam messages come to your site addressed to several recipients. These
> recipients are the E-mail addresses in your domain(s) that became known to
> spammers. When the fictitious, "spam-trap" addresses make it to those
> databases, most of spam messages will have these addresses among the message
> recipients. This will allow the Server to reject the entire messages, and
> they
> will not be delivered to any real recipient on your site.

Based on this definition of a spamtrap, I would think it would be
advantageous (except for the bandwidth used) to get my spamtrap addresses
into the spammer databases.

David

On 6/14/03 1:55 PM, "Steven Champeon" <schampeo AT hesketh.com> wrote:

> on Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 10:17:12AM -0400, David Minton wrote:
>> Is it ethical to bait Spamtraps? I figure, why wait for the
>> harvesters, why not get the Spamtrap addresses into circulation
>> faster. Are there any really good lists to subscribe to to make sure
>> you get tons of spam?
>
> Ethical? Who cares? The bottom line is whether you actually /want/ more
> spam. I have 1546 spamtraps total, and I used to keep all the spam I got
> to those addresses, as well as using them as sure indicators that it was
> okay to block the sender, etc. But I've started rejecting the mail
> instead, because it simply takes too much time to analyze all the spam.
>
> Last month, one of our servers received 3456 messages sent directly to
> spamtraps. (That's compared to some 2832 sent from commonly forged
> domains, 4312 sent through my low priority MX, and 13515 caught via
> other means, such as domain blacklists and other checks). So far this
> month, I've already bounced 5200 messages sent to spamtraps.
>
> On the one hand, it might help you figure out where the spam is coming
> from and what it is advertising, on the other, it's just more spam.





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