X-Message-Number: 31220
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <>
Subject: Re: Cryonics Society is David Pascal/Rudy Matic
Date: Tue,  2 Dec 2008 21:05:31 -0500 (EST)

I can't believe this still has to be said in 2008, especially to
someone who has been online for at least nine years.

It is spamming to add someone to an email list without asking them
first.  That's the *definition* of spamming.

In fact, the norm for over ten years has been to request confirmation
when someone *asks* to be added to a list, in case the request was a
forgery.  This is partly because some people did "list bomb" others,
getting them subscribed to numerous lists they had no interest in, but
mostly because spammers almost invariably claimed that their victims
had all asked to be subscribed.

It's characteristic of spams to be long, poorly formatted, and in
HTML.  HTML mail should never be sent to anyone, except by their
request.  This is partly because many mail programs don't double as
web browsers and will render the email as a mad bloated tangle of
ampersands and angle brackets, partly because HTML from untrusted
sources can convey viruses, and partly because until recently nearly
all spams were HTML mail, which resulted in numerous people, perhaps
the majority, automatically discarding all such email unread.  If you
got few complaints, it's probably because most of your recipients
never even saw your spam.

It's characteristic of spams to ask for money.  Sure enough, yours did.

It's characteristic of spams to claim to provide a way to unsubscribe.
However, after unsubscribing from several tens of thousands (!) of
spam newsletters, and signing up on over a dozen "universal" or
"global" remove lists, I ceased doing so.  I ceased doing so partly
because it was causing me to get more spam than ever, but mostly
because it was eating up literally *all* of my free time.  I vowed
never to do so again.  Instead, I blacklisted whatever URL, contact
address, or phone numbers appeared in the spam, so that any further
spams mentioning any of those would go straight to the trash.

I eventually had to replace my blacklisting with whitelisting, due to
all the *new* spammer websites, etc., that appeared each day.  At one
point my killfile had over 40,000 entries, with dozens more added
every day.  So a few years ago I was reluctantly forced to stop
accepting all email I can't find a reason to reject, and started
rejecting all email I can't find a reason to accept.

Reasons to accept email include it being from someone I know, it being
sent to my current disposable address, or, as in the case of the spam
in question, it mentioning any of about 800 key words or phrases on the
subject line, in this case "cryonics."

Last year I added a blacklist on top of the whitelist, for things such
as this spam which would otherwise get through.  I have just added
constantcontact dot com, cryonicssociety dot org, and rs6 dot net to
it, ensuring that anything sent to me mentioning any of these domain
names will go straight to the trash, even if the subject line mentions
cryonics.  I've also submitted both sites to a couple blackhole lists,
so others can benefit from my experience.  (I am spelling out "dot" so
that *this* message, and the Cryonet digest it will appear in, won't
be trashed.)

It's characteristic of spammers to blindly siphon up email addresses.
The address this spam was sent to only ever appeared in one place,
http://KeithLynch.net/email.html, which said:

  This address is subject to change with 24 hours' notice.  So please
  don't add it to your address book if you don't intend to email me
  immediately.  Instead, bookmark this web page ... and return to it
  whenever you want to email me.

The address it was sent to hadn't appeared there in months.

That web page also says:

  I can get messages in HTML, though I strongly prefer plain text. ...
  In general, you should never send HTML email to anyone except by
  explicit pre-arrangement.

And yet this "newsletter" was sent as HTML.  My address was obviously
siphoned up by someone who either didn't read the page or didn't give
a damn about my preferences.  This too is typical of spammers.

It's also characteristic of spams to be sent from overseas, even if
the sender is in the US.  This one was.

The "newsletter" even mentions Paris Hilton.  (She is mentioned in
spams far more often than in legitimate email.)

Like 99%+ of people on the net, I maintain an email address in order
to engage in one-on-one conversations with people, and to subscribe
to a small number of email lists such as Cryonet that *I* choose to
subscribe to.  My email box is not a billboard for marketers to stuff
with their trash.

Have you noticed how it's been getting harder and harder to find
working email addresses on websites or anywhere else?  And even when
you do find one, it's increasingly unlikely that your email will
get through to it and be read?  Spammers have polluted the commons,
drowning out real conversations with gigabytes of garbage, most of
which is fraudulent attempts to get money.

Why am I wasting my time with this when I've already ensured I'll
never be bothered by it again?  Because I care about the reputation of
cryonics, and associating it with spam is the quickest and best way to
destroy that reputation and give cryonics a "market niche" alongside
pornography, pyramid schemes, penis enlargement, "phishing," and
Nigerians who claim they want to give you money.

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