Bayespam

Richard,

The concept is NOT to reply to the spam email.... for all the reasons you lay out. Rather, the concept is to do as they ask and respond to the ad itself... but use program-generated bogus info. For example, if I get a spam email for body part enlargement, rather than hit reply to the email, click on the link to the web site and respond to that. If 1,000 people had the program and if each sent 100 such responses, then the company paying for the spam email and who operated the web site would be overwhelmed... either by a denial of service, or by thousands and thousands of responses that need to be waded through by backroom staff. Pretty soon the company that operates the web site, which wants to sell its product and which paid to send out millions of spam emails, will decide that it is not worth it. Forget the spam, go to the advertised web site and attack that.