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.
- Remove all extra mail headers. Open the embedded messages down to the one containing the content you are forwarding out.
- Remove all other e-mail addresses Often chain-mail will include all the former recipients,
- 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.
