Irish Spam

Seth Brundle

Just recieved spam from getagig.ie. This is my 2nd one in about a month.
I can swear that I didn't sign up to this and that my email must have been harvested somehow.
Who do I complain to?
Is it worth my while, i.e. what will happen them?
Killian

[CrimsonGhost]

Replying to spam is probably the worst thing you can do. It only serves to confirm to the spammer that your address is valid and actually used. Delete it, and get some anti-spam filtering software for you system. And then add the getagig domain to your blacklist so it will always be filtered out.

Seth Brundle

Thats not my point - I use spam filtering software (mailwasher) but I want to punish the irish webmaster that sent it!

mneylon

You can submit spam to RBLs such as http://www.spamcop.net or simply report them to their host/ISP
You should be able to see from the mail headers where it came from, but if you have problems interpreting it please feel free to send it to me via PM.

Sposs

Report them to there ISP.

Seth Brundle

The mail was sent via their Webhost (root@host101.ipowerweb.com )
However, I would prefer something like this:- http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5144533.html

buddy

If you want them to PAY, you'll have to sue - consult a solicitor to see what basis you have, can a case be made - you never know you could be the precedent case that gets legislation in on this.

Seth Brundle

I am not looking for financial reward.
Is there no govt. agency or dept whose job it is to prevent this and to punish those responsible for spamming?
Taken from the link I gave earlier:-
The consumer ombudsman brought the case against Aircom Erhverv ApS, saying the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails intended to market goods or services to the recipient was an infringement of Denmark's law on marketing practices.

Does this country not have someone with a similar responsibility?

mneylon

The data commissioner, comreg etc.

I would recommend that you contact their ISP / Host first.

dahamsta

Spam is illegal in this country now, but you'd need a few quid behind you to take a case, since the law is unproven thus far (although I think someone's taking a case at the moment). Anyway, it's good policy to try an sort it out with the spammer and/or their ISP first. Spammers are scum, but we shouldn't sink to their level.

And if all else fails, cricket bats are relatively inexpensive, and believe me, you'll find it very easy to stir up a mob. Should I wait by the car?

adam

Terminator

It doesn't sound like malicious spam to me. And you have their addy / webby. Why not just email them and request to be removed.

Give them a break - there's far worse spam out there.

mneylon

I would agree with dahamsta - ISP / host in the first instance
There is little to be gained by going directly past the ISP/host to anybody else. If the ISP/host do not take action then you can escalate, but to date you seem to have only got two emails from the domain in question.
I would disagree about the "worse spam out there" argument, as any UCE can be a pain in the neck, but as you do have their contact details an email to them could save you a lot of headaches and lead to a swift resolution.

Stark

I think getagig.ie seem reputable enough, for one thing they make so attempt to disguise themselves. They might have been a bit over-zealous in getting your e-mail address. Ask them to take you off their mailing list and then if they refuse call the hounds, but I'm sure they'll take you off no questions asked.

Seth Brundle

I have been in touch with the site owner who seems genuine enough. However, Im still surprised that our e-govt etc. still haven't appointed someone to control this.

mneylon

Originally posted by kbannon
I have been in touch with the site owner who seems genuine enough. However, Im still surprised that our e-govt etc. still haven't appointed someone to control this.

The government and the minister in question do not display any knowledge of email or SPAM/UCE. His last press release was full of meaningless buzzwords, but was very slim on hard facts.

Unless there can be a global agreement on spam there can be no solution, as the bulk of spam does not emanate from the EU. Have a look at the top list here:
http://www.spamhaus.org/

Senor_Fudge

i fcuking hate email spam i get the worse ****e under the sun including brazilian spam and enlarge ur member crap

they should all be dragged out and shot in the knees
anyone know where to ger a good program to stop this awful assault everyday on my 56k modem (100+ messages a day!!!!)

help

and i hope that irish spam doesnt take off

Philbert

I installed this on a client pc in my company. The individual in question was receiving easily 200+ spam emails a day. I put the program on full strength (ie: it uses all the internet spam blacklists) and tested it out for one week. It achieved a 90% filter rate with absolutely no genuine emails being filtered.
Best little program since sliced bread and its completely free and very easy to install with plenty of tutorials.
If you were to combine this with some well placed rules(outlook 2k/xp), I really think you could be spam free very quickly!

Senor_Fudge

thx

eoinm1

Here is a new one just in today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Return-Path: <affiliate@mypharmadirect.com>
Delivered-To: me@me.me
Received: (vpopmail 39173 invoked by uid 16); 27 Mar 2004 18:27:35 +0000
Received: (qmail 39143 messnum 135470 invoked from network[219.94.38.122/unknown]); 27 Mar 2004 18:27:34 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO 159.134.198.151) (219.94.38.122) by mail03.svc.cra.dublin.eircom.net (qp 39143) with SMTP; 27 Mar 2004 18:27:34 -0000
Received: from 3x3.f6l2oto.com [75.139.236.46] by 159.134.198.151 with ESMTP id 16828224; Sat, 27 Mar 2004 11:27:30 -0700
Message-ID: <532jt$ix-nt2l5@me3f0hi>
From: "My Pharma Affiliate" <affiliate@mypharmadirect.com>
To: <unknown@unknown.ie>, <unknown@unknown.ie>, <unknown@unknown.ie>, <unknown@unknown.ie>, <me@me.me>, <unknown@unknown.ie>, <unknown@unknown.ie>
Subject: Webmasters Needed xfoecflqmx lermz
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 04 11:27:30 GMT
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400
MIME-Version: 1.0
Status: U
X-UIDL: 1080412055.39173.mail03.svc.cra.dublin.eircom.net,S=9237
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Content:

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All the other names of people who got spamed i have taken out.

But they all share the same domain name.
I do not know any of the other people and i also know nothing about the sender.

Eoin

Karoma

well then obviously they were just chanced (generated) or there's a long list of email addy's out there and they've been harvested... just delete. :rolleyes:

Stark

The irony is that they tested half of these spam messages and you can't even buy the products, and there's no option for handing your money over, so it really seems like people are just investing **** loads of time into pissing people off. I mean ffs, when a guy has every kind of spam filter imaginable installed what makes you think he's going to want to look at a spam message?

Capt'n Midnight

Don't forget http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/windows.html
(for Outlook 2000/XP/2003 only) too.

Someone said some spammers work on returns as low as one sale per million junk emails... so they won't be put off by filters etc..

Is there any bayesian filtering linked to a spell checker - possibly linked to a grammer checker too - this would cut down on a lot of viruses too.

mneylon

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight

Is there any bayesian filtering linked to a spell checker - possibly linked to a grammer checker too - this would cut down on a lot of viruses too.

There are a lot of corpus based rule checks that can be run against email server-side. It has nothing to do with Bayes. Bayesian filtering is a different element entirely.

Tivoli

Someone said some spammers work on returns as low as one sale per million junk emails... so they won't be put off by filters etc..

surly no one is dumb enough to buy herbal viagra /that mini webcam or any of the shyte they are pushing,if so i wanna move to another planet!

musician.ie

Another issue here is people (I use the word loosely) who send virus attachments and spoof the 'from' address, so it looks like it comes from a reputable Irish site. I've had my domain name used for these attacks recently. I only found out because a few of them bounced. Thankfully, the recipients seem to be strangers who would be unlikely to open an unsolicited e-mail attachment. Any ideas on tracking down this scumbag?

mneylon

Originally posted by musician.ie
Another issue here is people (I use the word loosely) who send virus attachments and spoof the 'from' address, so it looks like it comes from a reputable Irish site. I've had my domain name used for these attacks recently. I only found out because a few of them bounced. Thankfully, the recipients seem to be strangers who would be unlikely to open an unsolicited e-mail attachment. Any ideas on tracking down this scumbag?

You would need to find the virus writer .......... Not an easy one

Seth Brundle

and it continues...
An Irish Web design / development agency spammed me, offering to re-develop my site (which is a web design / development / training site).
Anyone else get this?
[and I wouldn't mind but their own site, whilst attractive, does not comply with the W3C guidelines]

---

Dear Sir /Madam

We recently visited your website using the " browseireland.com " search
engine and I would like to offer our services and experience to your
business.

We are a professional web design and development studio located in
Dundalk, Co. Louth.
Our designers have attained awards in web design competitions in Toronto
Canada, Berlin Germany and Odessa Ukraine.

We would like to offer you our professional web design skills for your
company site.

Our prices are very competitive. We beat anyone in Ireland for the
quality, price and delivery of our work...
We are recognized members of web design guild and can undertake any kind
of projects from SME to Corporate websites, intranet and extranet.

Please review our portfolio of recent projects:
http://alomind.com/portfolio.php

We guarantee that your project will be done fast with 100% satisfaction or
your money back.
Please contact us at any time.



Thank you,

Best Regards
Alexander Alo
Mb. 087 97 11114
Email: info@alomind.com
Web: http://alomind.com

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by blacknight
There are a lot of corpus based rule checks that can be run against email server-side. It has nothing to do with Bayes. Bayesian filtering is a different element entirely.

understood
The idea behind the spell checker is than many emails with bad spelling and grammer are ones you don't want.
But simple things like getting a distribution of word lengths would remove many dictionary list emails - since they tend to use longer words (would work for about week till they started using smaller words.)
Bayesian filtering could be divided into three word lists - commonly used words, rarely used words, and words not in the dictionary.
Emails with lots of correctly spelt but rare words might indicate a dictionary dump. Emails with more common words would be easier to verify in a grammer check ?

Of course spammers can test their emails agains their own filters too...

mneylon

If you are doing it server-side you can implement a lot of custom rules for SA that are aimed at catching the "munge". We have been using a number of these over the last few months and the resultant decrease in false positives has been encouraging.

Capt'n Midnight

No option to unsubscribe etc.
If there any way to get a mention on TV3 about their quasi legal marketing ??



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mneylon

I know this an old post, but I hate starting new threads if existing ones are relevant.

Are people still having issues with spam/UCE coming from Irish companies?
Or have people finally realised that is not acceptable behaviour?

rsynnott

Terminator wrote:

Give them a break - there's far worse spam out there.

Don't be silly. They're spammers. Burn them.

rsynnott

Tivoli wrote:

surly no one is dumb enough to buy herbal viagra /that mini webcam or any of the shyte they are pushing,if so i wanna move to another planet!

http://www.zug.com/pranks/penis/ (Probably NSFW)

And as for the web designer's site; urgh! You'd want to be mad to PAY them to design a website for you...

jmcc

blacknight wrote:

Are people still having issues with spam/UCE coming from Irish companies?
Or have people finally realised that is not acceptable behaviour?

Well some of my accounts still get the odd Irish spam. Very odd actually. The contact e-mail for the Irish search engine /directory got an e-mail from an individual in Galway claiming to run "Ireland's only dedicated search engine" notifying the spider that it had been included in his "search engine".

Spam from Irish companies has fallen off drastically compared to this time four years ago. However viruses have filled the gap. The risks associated with spamming have become too high for mainstream businesses. However I don't think that this will mean the end of spam from Irish companies.

Regards...jmcc