Don't Get Mad

Get Even! In a 24 hour period starting at 10: A.M. this past Tuesday, and ending at the same time on Wednesday, I received 1,734 pieces of spam email. Now these were all unique addresses, and some had 4 or 5 copies. I have had it with this nonsense. Looking at the email addresses, it was obvious that mine were being harvested from the web. There is software, similar to the protocol used by the search engines, that allows someone to enter keywords, and it will search the web for any web site that matches the keywords entered. It will then capture any email addresses it finds. An example of such software is "Atomic Harvester". I downloaded this software, which is fully functional in its search capabilities, and is free if that is all you want. You cannot however, save the addresses it finds unless you pay for it. Not wishing to harvest any addresses from the web, I chose the free version, as step one of my devious plan, so I could see what the spamsters would find when they harvest my site. Step two was a bit more work. Instead of simply deleting the spam, I created a filter with my email reader that automatically sends all spam identified to my trash bin. I use Eudora, which makes this a rather easy task, but was still time consuming. While this won't provide a "spam free" inbox, it will cut down on the junk one has to wade through. The rest I simply delete, which also goes to the trash bin. Now, I have all this spam in once place - my trash bin. But wait, I said get even. A good friend of mine is proficient in the "Perl" programming language. He wrote a program that goes into my trash bin, and extracts all of the "From" email addresses it finds. Now I have a file of all the return addresses of anyone who sends me spam. The majority of the professional spammers use a forged address, which if you respond to it, is returned as undeliverable. Some of the na