I remember the days when there really wasn't much spam at all. Those where the days when you didn't have to cloak your email address to read newsgroups.

But those days are gone, and I do get a LOT of spam. There's a particular one that I've been getting for a very long time. Same subject line, different forged email address for the reply field. Some days I get 10 of these same exact titled emails! And I've tried looking at the headers to find the real address, but they were just too clever to reveal anything there. Even when they gave a "send email here to unsubscribe" line, I'd do it, and it wouldn't stop. A co-worker of mine once told me that doing that usually just puts your entered email onto some other mailing list.

However, one thing they did always leave in these emails was a 1-800 number. I called once before, and got a 2 minute recording with a spot to leave my name & number. Yesterday, I was so fed up that I decided to call again, and this time leave my number. I was so tempted to leave a screaming message of "Stop spamming me, you fucking cocksucker vermin!" But I left my name and number. My wrathful tone still came through a little, unfortunately.

Somebody called back today! I answered some of her questions "What type of work are you doing now?" "Have you ever owned your own business?" But then I finally interrupted to add "No, I'm not acutally interested. I'm just looking for some answers. Why do you spam people using a forged email address? Is this the kind of company I'd want to be associated with?" In hopes of answering my questions, she gave me the website address, and a "contact person" who would handle all the email stuff, because she obviously didn't. She gave her own name and phone number (which did match with my Caller ID box), but when it came to the lady who was supposed to handle the email, she didn't give out more than her name. It kept coming back to "...but I'll give her your name and number and SHE can go contact YOU." Within a minute I was hanging up.

OK, off to the website. It had a couple of slashes in it, and although it took me to a page, I decided to try the domain itself. But I only got a page explaining that I had to go to where my contact person sent me. I noticed a pattern in the URL though, so maybe sometime I can hack through to a couple of other locations. Anonymous FTP didn't work. And the website itself didn't even turn up anywhere in a search engine.

I did, however, see an email address AND phone number for the mysterious email woman the other lady was trying so hard not to reveal. Was that just a trick to get me to visit the site? Fucking weird. After doing some searches on the domain name registration, I come up with a name. It matched hers. So did the phone number. I also got a second number and a postal address.

Heh heh. You have been revealed, spammer! Time to fight fire with fire.

So what did I do next? I wrote down the email address -- the email address of the woman most likely behind all this spam I've been getting for almost a year. All those hundreds of letters with the same address. All those letters that I have to wade through everyday.

I did a search on the web for "free stuff", and using that email addresss, I signed up for a SHITLOAD of stuff. Contests, newsletters, reports, religious freak literature...anything that let me enter in an email address (and in many cases, a postal address and phone number). I clicked link after link, holding back my compulsive impulse to close a pop-up banner. I even read some informative pages on Spam Bots and how to create a bait page.

All in all, it was an hour of great vengeful glee.

And I haven't even gotten to the X-rated sites.