capoccia's Journal: FTC is flooded with spam

Right now, the FTC is flooded with spam. Maybe they're just trying to protect against SoBig, but all of my messages to [e-mail] are bouncing back with a message like this:

Your message has encountered delivery problems
to the following recipient(s):

[e-mail]
Delivery failed
452 4.4.5 Insufficient disk space; try again later

Failed to deliver to domain ftc.gov after 50 tries.
Last error was:
Sent: MAIL FROM: SIZE=3189
Received:452 4.4.5 Insufficient disk space; try again later

In their Consumer Complaint Form, the FTC continues to request spam be forwarded them at [e-mail].

I go in spurts of actually doing something about my spam levels. I use a Bayesian-filter-equipped email system, but every so often I get sick of just deleting spam and decide to send copies to the ftc and the spammer's/open relay's ISP.

Right now, I am in one of those spurts. I have been forwarding my mail for about 2 weeks and have not noticed any sustained decline in my spam yet (about 15/day).

What do you do with your spam? In Paul Graham's latest essay, he outlines various things you can do with spam.

just ignore it

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

and delete it. I figure as long as I don't give them my business, I'm doing my part in removing their revenue stream.

removing the revenue stream

[capoccia]

revenue stream is the wrong way to look at spam. the spammer didn't have a revenue stream before he sent you the spam. even if you never buy anything, you are not removing anything from their revenue stream.

the best you can do from a profitability standpoint is add to their costs. the cost of sending spam is essentially zero, so you cannot add to their costs merely by ignoring the spam. spamming does cost money, but big spammers will send out millions of emails a day, so the per spam cost is nearly zer

most of mine haven't bounced

[SolemnDragon]

i forward my spam to them, too. maybe i'd better try forwarding some today and see what happens... thanks for the heads-up!!!