en Passant

I just received the latest joke/hoax/chain-mail from a family/friend/co-worker regarding some new issue, scam or sentiment. When this person forwarded along the message, I had to skim through pages upon pages of valid e-mail addresses to get to the actual message, which ended with "forward to all your family and friends".

Thanks to this person, I made $$$ with very little work. How? I extracted out all 200+ (validated and real) e-mail addresses, then forwarded the file off to a website that collects e-mail addresses. (Spammers pay extra for validated e-mail address like these, you know!!)

With a little effort, the friend/family/co-worker could have avoided the pending spam.

1. Remove all extra mail headers. Open the embedded messages down to the one containing the content you are forwarding out.
2. Remove all other e-mail addresses Often chain-mail will include all the former recipients,
3. BCC all recipients. This hides the e-mail addresses of your inteded recipients. You can spoof the TO address using something you know won't work. "Eric@Example.com"

Working together we can help decrease the amount of spam that we all get. On the other hand, keep sending me your messages, and I'll keep making a few bucks in the process.