[Spambayes] RoboVisitor

[Kenny Pitt]

Dean Lamper wrote:
> I am sure you all heard about recent Lycos initiative to fight
> spammers by kind of DDoS act. [snip]
> 
> I have rather similar idea and I am sure I'm not the only one nor the
> first. 
> 
> [snip]
> 
> What needs to be done is make their bussines nonprofitable and they
> will cease to spam. This is very easy to do, just extend spam filter
> with an optional 'RoboVisitor', an addon that will visit all links
> contained in a recognized spam email a few times. It should be as
> unobtrusive to user as it can be.    

Check out "Filters that Fight Back" by Paul Graham, who also popularized the
idea of using Bayesian techniques to filter spam:

http://www.paulgraham.com/ffb.html

The only problem with this, of course, is that by visiting the URL links in
a spam message you are triggering any "web bugs" attached to the links and
probably setting yourself up to receive even more spam.

-- 
Kenny Pitt