I know it might seem odd, but we get so much spam, day in, day out – Howcome we never speak to anyone who’s job it is to create this spam? Granted a lot of it is automated, but certainly, someone’s looking at the new ways spam filters are catching their emails and deciding how to develop the next batch?

I want to get into the head of a spammer. Understand what they’re doing, how and why. Figure out how they introduce themselves at their wives’ work Christmas party. Maybe “I work in accounting” is actually code word for “I send millions of spam emails a day”?

Might sound completely random but as someone who works in (fully legitimate, I might add) email marketing, it’s a Dark Side that we are taught to consider as the scum of the Earth, but I’m hopelessly curious. I mean, where do you find job ads for spam authors? “Spam author wanted for v1@gra sales – minimum 1 million emails sent a day” Seriously, I’d completely respect the anonymity of a spammer if they contacted me and let me pick their brains a bit.

[Disclaimer: No, I’m not looking to move to the Dark Side, mom. And no, I’m not looking to use spam techniques for our newsletters, boss. It’s sheer curiosity of a hidden side of the Internet.]

3 responses to “I want to meet a spammer”

  1. Jimena Avatar

    I can fwd you Nigerian spam where they DO reply if you send them a reply. I tried it haha

  2. pa Avatar
    pa

    I keep checking off spams as junk, on my hotmail account, but many show up again through the hotmail spam filter…Is that normal?

    Wanted: Geek who can crash all spammers’ web sites..

  3. Peps Avatar
    Peps

    JF, you may want to look at a scheme which Lycos tried

    http://makelovenotspam.com/

    It was basically a DDOS Attack (distributed denial of service) on spammers but after crashing a number of spammers websites, they legally had to stop.

Leave a comment