Re the obnoxious Tempting Tearouts spam

[John Johnson]

On Mon, 10 Feb 1997, Kurt Cockrum wrote:

> [....]
> Moreover, we aren't talking about random spewage from
> some anonymous mail-server or random vandal; these are advertising
> messages that, for them to work, and do the originator some good, require
> an accurate address to respond to, whether snailmail, e-mail, or phone.
> It's a *business* doing this, and they can't conduct a business without
> leaving tracks.  So it's fair to assume that the reply addresses in
> a piece of unsolicited e-mail are authentic.
> 

Unfortunately, no.  

1) How do we know that a given spamage is not some malicious vandal
_appearing_ as a legitimate (though egregiously stupid) business, in order
to provoke retaliation? 

2) Recall that the "Tear outs" spam had a line about "sorry, our e-mail
can't accept return responses"(!).  They want their responses via phone or
snail mail. Some of these offers use fictitiouse-mail addresses.  (A very
recent example:  Media.Brokers at scn.org.  Huh?!)

=== JJ =================================================================

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