Yahoo and their mail filters..

Marshall Eubanks tme at multicasttech.com
Thu Feb 26 17:16:49 UTC 2009


On Feb 26, 2009, at 12:05 PM, Alexander Harrowell wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:28 PM, John R. Levine <johnl at iecc.com>  
> wrote:
>
>> This also pre-dates organized crime becoming heavily involved, and
>>> pre-dates the obsession with browser exploits.  Back then a lot of  
>>> spam was
>>> sent by semi-legitimate marketers from the US.  These days all the  
>>> bad guys
>>> are out to get you to click on a single link.
>>>
>>
>> Right.  Back in the 90s spammers were trying to build their lists,  
>> and used
>> fake opt outs to do so.  These days through a combination of web  
>> scraping
>> and dictionary attacks, they have more addresses than they know  
>> what to do
>> with.
>>
>> My advice to people these days is to unsub if a message is from  
>> someone
>> you've corresponded with before, or if it looks like someone who is  
>> legit
>> but clueless.  Then hit the spam button.
>
>

My advice is to always check the full email headers for anything you  
are the least bit suspicious of. Does it appear to come from whom it  
purports to come from ? Is the path likely ?
(Big US companies do not as a general rule forward their
email through small Eastern European ISPs, for example.) If it fails  
this test, treat it as radioactive and don't click, respond, etc.

If it passes, and if the sender is in your field, then use your  
judgement. (I unsubscribe to the "newsletters" that
keep popping up from Chinese ethernet switch makers, for example.)

Regards
Marshall


> Of course, the browsploit issue means that clicking on ANY links in  
> dubious
> e-mail is highly unwise.





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