March 8, 2007: Artful Spamtrap

This work of one Bill Shackelford is documented at this page of his web site.

As an artistic statement, I love it. However, taking an electronic abomination and using it to generate more physical waste seems a bit silly. I mean, what's he going to build when he decides he doesn't like air pollution? A big smokestack?

I love it. This reminds me of a certain debate style: a question is "created specifically to lure in" a predictable reponse, that is "detected" and "automatically" quoted, then "slides down a track into the shredder that analyzes it." The master debater has vanquished another foe!

More pretentious crap posing as art.

How nice.

cahk sukker

That's why he never got my email

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Originally Posted by Emrikol That's why he never got my email

I like me a master debator

If that thing had my address it'd hafta be fed a ream every hour.

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Originally Posted by wolf More pretentious crap posing as art. How nice.

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Originally Posted by barefoot serpent If that thing had my address it'd hafta be fed a ream every hour.

d-ream on fella

somehow I misread the title as "Artful Supertramp" and I was thinking a bunch of the band members were now hawking shitty expressionist paintings.

somewhat of a let down.

It reminds me of the youtube clip of Opie or Anthony "installing" Windows Vista on his shredder.

Loading it wit a roll of toilet paper would make it perfect.
I found by transcribing the addresses of every spam email, faithfully, every day. Then forwarding them to the Federal Trade Commission's special email address (spam@uce.gov), after a few months, spam was down 90%. Can't hurt.

xo; Are you serious? My filter of email addresses from spam that I have methodically declared as spam is 9.8MB of just addresses!!! Can I hack this out and send it in to them?

What do they do with it?

Worked for me. I saw a snippet on the web somewhere, giving that email address and suggesting what I did. I have no idea what goes on at the other end, they don't acknowledge or anything. Maybe that address is attached to a machine like Bill Shackelford's.

But slowly, over months and months, the spam tapered off.
Thinking more about it, I was wrong. I was sending the whole header of each email, after removing the body, so they could possibly mine hidden(from me anyway) information. Sorry to mislead you.

Since I don't know what was going on at their end, there's no way of knowing exactly what they want. But by passing them on every day, they see frequency as well, I guess.

They might work on bulk, like having a chat with the biggest offenders.....not on the administrations donor list.
It could also just be coincidence like 24 beers in a case. But, it was strangely satisfying to do something, anything, and like a wise man once said.....can't hurt.

My spam level dropped tremendously a couple of weeks back, for a couple of weeks, but has now returned to its usual level. Based on the nonsensical subjects and initial content, plus the fact that they are virtually *all* touting stocks lately, I surmise that they are from the same source ultimately.

I average 50-70 spams a day. I only get one or two that actually make it into my inbox, however. The rest go into a folder descriptively labeled "spam".
Spamassassin and Razor are my heros.

As I mentioned in another thread, I transitioned the Dallas family email service over to Google Apps for Your Domain, primarily on the strength of the spam filtering as compared to other low-cost options.

Recently Miss Dallas commented that she didn't like it.. she preferred the older system. When I asked why, she said, "The spam filter isn't that good. There are 75 messages in my spam mailbox." At this point Mrs. Dallas and I both started laughing, and after we explained that the spam was SUPPOSED to be there, we showed her ours. (I forget how many she had, but mine is regularly over 2,000.)

I get about one spam message a week. If that. And it always ends up inthe spam box.

Elspode, I went though a stock cycle, too. In addition to the normal penny stocks. Spampal rarely lets one through, but I've found stuff in the spam folder that I was cursing people for not sending.

Most of my spam comes, I'm sure, from one @sshole. Because I will get like 35 a day with a bunch of random first names with little or no subject or the same exact subjects, often all in a row. I'd like to find this SOB.. Maybe I could cut back my 250 a day. Spam filters don't work because inevitably some business item ends up 'filtered' and I feel like an idiot not responding.

I'm in a male enhancement and anxiety drugs trend lately.

Clarification

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Originally Posted by Elspode As an artistic statement, I love it. However, taking an electronic abomination and using it to generate more physical waste seems a bit silly. I mean, what's he going to build when he decides he doesn't like air pollution? A big smokestack?

What annoys me is these 'we are confirming your free .....' offers that will not disappear. They keep on popping up in Thunderbird. I keep on using the junk button but new ones keep coming in. I keep on meaning to flag them as spam online in Comcast mail in the hopes that it's filter will be smarter, but I keep forgetting.

What I would like is a way for an e-mail client to retroactively flag a message as spam to the server.

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Originally Posted by bshack Please note that all the paper processed by Spamtrap is recycled. Please visit here for more information: http://billshackelford.com/home/blog...0318101829_856

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Originally Posted by bshack Please note that all the paper processed by Spamtrap is recycled. Please visit here for more information: http://billshackelford.com/home/blog...0318101829_856 Thanks, - Bill Shackelford

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Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce Hi Bill, welcome. As I understand it, this is an art installation and not a recommended method of spam disposal, right? You state you bought two reams of recycled paper for this. I assume that will probably be all you use. Using recycled paper is commendable, but really, this installation isn't going to rape any forests.......maybe a couple limbs. Yeah, I know, every little bit helps, good habit to cultivate, set an example..... but two reams of paper wouldn't wrap 5 minutes production of chewing gum. I'm just saying you shouldn't feel it's necessary to defend wasting paper on an art installation.

Thanks Undertoad

Hey, you can still recycle the shredded paper.

How often does an IotD subject end up joining The Cellar? Welcome, bshack. I love your Spamtrap.

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Originally Posted by Flint How often does an IotD subject end up joining The Cellar?

Wasn't there someone that was related to the hanger foam deal, too?

Yup, there's been a few.