(no subject)

[arib]

Responding to obvious phishing e-mails with bogus information:

good idea, or bad idea?

Comments

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Bad idea. One of the things they're trying to do is confirm that the address they used for you is valid. By responding, you validate the address.

[cellio]

Use mailinator or some similar service for sending mail under such circumstances. (I use it for web-site registrations and other entities I think might spam me.)

[sethg]

I get 150-250 spam messages a day, and I never respond to any of them.

If you have a good spam filter, 95%+ of spam won't get into your inbox, whether or not the spammers know your address is live.

[arib.livejournal.com]

My current spam filter (Cloudmark) is amazing.