IM Spam

from the it's-coming... dept

I'm not a violent person normally. However, reading about people who are creating programs to help people send IM spam makes me want to reconsider that. The article discusses how more and more spammers are targeting instant messaging programs. I stopped using ICQ a long time ago, but apparently, that one is the worst for receiving spam. In the article, they talk with someone from the company "MassMess" who has created software to spam users of Yahoo Messenger. What amazes me is that these guys seem to know it's wrong, but just don't care. They scrape IM names off of directories and put them into their list. Sooner or later they expect Yahoo to figure out how to block them, but in the meantime they don't see any other reason to stop.
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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2002 @ 10:53am

    ICQ

    I had just created an ICQ account when I received my first offer to join a erotic group or some crap like that. I mean this was within five minutes of creating the account! ICQ was off my PC in record time.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Phillip, 12 Mar 2002 @ 5:20pm

    Learn how to use the software

    I use ICQ but never get any spam. Simple: tick the "only accept messages from people in your contact list" box. It's also easy not to get email spam, just use ASK. Let me put it this way, if you put your phone number in every phone box you are going to get odd calls therefore make yourself ex-directory.

    Phillip.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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