{"id":13333,"date":"2018-09-11T08:10:09","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T16:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2018\/09\/11\/news-7100\/"},"modified":"2018-09-11T08:10:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T16:10:09","slug":"news-7100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2018\/09\/11\/news-7100\/","title":{"rendered":"5 safe ways to get back at spammers: a guide to wasting time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2018 15:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everyone hates spam<\/a> (apart from the people who send it). While many people simply report spam and delete, a few look for ways to get back at the spammers wasting their time. In fact, a common question we\u2019re asked is, \u201cHow can we waste their\u00a0<\/i>time?\u201d<\/p>\n

My own opinion on this is a little loaded with caution; simply striking up conversations with spammers and scammers with no prior experience is a good way to get yourself into trouble.<\/p>\n

Maybe you replied from your work mail, and now they\u2019re sending missives to your boss. Perhaps you used a mail service revealing your IP address, and now they\u2019re making empty yet terrifying-sounding threats about hacking you. How about responding to their request for ID and accidentally sending them the real thing, instead of a humorously-constructed image built from MS paint?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to think about before embarking on this path, but if you still want to waste some spammer\u2019s time (and in a much safer fashion), read on.<\/p>\n

The basics<\/h3>\n

1)\u00a0NO GENUINE INFORMATION EVER<\/strong>. Yes, I realize all caps is a bit shouty but it\u2019s important enough information to warrant shouting. No matter what you do, or which method you use to waste a scammer\u2019s time, revealing things about you and yours is always a bad idea.<\/p>\n

2) Use an anonymous email address.<\/strong>\u00a0And don\u2019t tie it to something you use daily. Avoid work email, personal email, email tied to anything \u201cbusiness critical\u201d (websites\/domain registrations, or other sensitive logins).<\/p>\n

Worried that a spammer won\u2019t reply if you reply to them with your new-fangled anonymous\/throwaway account instead of the one they sent it to? Don\u2019t be. They don\u2019t care, they\u2019ll reply to anything. Mail, voicemail, love letter painted on the side of a cow, anything at all. One common spammer trick is to direct you to alternate email addresses to reply to because their main one is liable to be shut down at any moment anyway, so they really won\u2019t care where your time-wasting antics come from.<\/p>\n

3) Don\u2019t tell people to do dangerous things.<\/strong> There is a popular form of 419 scam-baiting called \u201cGoing on safari,\u201d where the pretend victim manipulates the scammer into a long, potentially dangerous trek into parts unknown. While some of these tales are humorous in an \u201cOh no, you did what?\u201d fashion, you really don\u2019t want to get yourself involved in any situation where somebody falls off a cliff and they have a printout in their pants with your \u201cThere\u2019s buried treasure 500 miles this way, honest\u201d mail in them.<\/p>\n

Outside of that, how you waste their time is really up to you. One word answers to all of their missives tend to aggravate them in spectacular fashion, if that helps. If you’re not comfortable with the direct approach, there’s more than a few ways to keep your hands clean (so to speak) while gobbling up more of their precious time.<\/p>\n

Let someone else do the dirty work<\/h3>\n

As it turns out, a little automation goes a long way. There\u2019s a variety of tools online for you to make use of in the fight against spammers, and the best part is they won’t have any idea about your involvement.<\/p>\n

4) Use a chatbot app, such as Spamnesty,<\/a> to automate email spam exchanges.<\/strong>\u00a0All you must do here is strip out any personal information of your own from any email exchange, forward the spam on to the Spamnesty email address, and then sit back and giggle a lot as a chatbot pretending to be a CEO endlessly frustrates a scammer. Bonus: you can read through some of the conversations. Everyone can enjoy that.<\/p>\n

Re:Scam<\/a> gets an honorable mention because although currently offline, it has the promise of eventually coming back to life. Another chatbot, it cycles through various personalities to get the job done and has (according to their stats) replied to more than a million emails and wasted roughly five years of their time in total, which is spectacular.<\/p>\n

5) Use a spam blocker app with automated responses for telemarketers.\u00a0<\/strong>Not all spam is email-based, and significant volumes continue to land on our mobile devices in the form of phone calls. If you\u2019re really unlucky, it\u2019s a nonstop barrage of missed calls, unknown callers, and premium rate call-back scams just waiting to get their teeth into your cash. Several apps exist that will block cold callers and add them to spam lists (which isn\u2019t always straightforward to figure out on a vanilla phone), but there\u2019s not many wasting the time of the scammers with chatbots.<\/p>\n

Robokiller<\/a> is one of the first to deploy a variety of (hopefully?) humorous chatbots to choose from, then set them loose in calls with unwanted telemarketers. As with the mail-based equivalents, wasting time is the name of the game because wasted time equals wasted money on the part of the spammer. While I don\u2019t believe this approach is ever going to prevent phone spammers from giving up their day job<\/a>, one wasted call is another person not losing a ton of money or personal information to a con artist. That can only be a good thing.<\/p>\n

The future of time wasting<\/h3>\n

Burning out scammers isn\u2019t just an occasional pastime for forum goers anymore. You can turn it into an actual occupation with a little bit of outlay and hard work. The future is YouTube scam baiting gone mainstream<\/a>. Just remember before you start punking your next scammer that (depending on the method of outreach and how much of your information might be lurking in breach dumps), they could well have your real information. It\u2019s really not pleasant to hear \u201cWe\u2019ll have our people at your home address, watch your back.\u201d<\/p>\n

If in doubt, stick to non-identifiable automation or leave things to the professionals. It\u2019s generally a lot safer that way, and you’ll probably get to watch a humorous YouTube video in the bargain. That’s a win for everybody\u2014except perhaps for the spammer on the receiving end.<\/p>\n

The post 5 safe ways to get back at spammers: a guide to wasting time<\/a> appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2018 15:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
We take a look at some of the safe ways to waste a spammer’s time, whether by email or telephone.<\/p>\n

Categories: <\/p>\n