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February 8, 2005

Profits by proxy

All this talk about proxy lock and the impending spam crisis has apparently stirred up interest among spammers. Overheard on the Send-Safe.com discussion list Tuesday, the company's tech support manager provides advice on how to use the proxy lock feature successfully:

1) Turn off "Add random to FROM"
2) Use some very common names in the left part of the FROMs, like
john@..., johnb@, johnc@, bobby@..., etc. These names should exist in most domains in
order ProxyLock could successfully log on to the proxy's MX server.
But never use admin, root, postmaster, and so on.

Speaking of Send-Safe, doesn't it seem a little odd that Steve Lee, a member of the Shareware Hall of Fame, should be getting paid a commission for selling spamware?

Lee's firm, Atlantic Coast PLC, a public UK company, provides shopping-cart services for the Send-Safe site. See for yourself. (Click the "order" link. In Send-Safe jargon, "credits" equals the number of spams you send using Send-Safe's proxies.)

Looks like MCI isn't the only company getting a cut from the spam trade.

Posted by brian at February 8, 2005 9:09 AM