WhyNot?

Follow links in SPAM mail

Category: Spam
Responses: 3 (1 in support, 0 neutral, 2 in opposition)
Number of views: 337
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Why not have your email software download your emails, then - in the background - scan the email for links or submit buttons. If there are links/buttons follow those links/buttons to the page they point to, and scan that page for keywords to determine whether the orginal email is SPAM.

For example, if an "innocent" email arrives which links to a porn-site even though there are no suggestive keywords in the email itself, the system would go to the porn-site and scan it for keywords - then flag the original email as SPAM.

ppk, Jun 24 2005

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Too much chance of setting off spyware or virus payload.

der-man, Jun 24 2005

<<Too much chance of setting off spyware or virus payload.>>

Not really. In fact, you can pull the linked page's content as plain text and treat it as such. You would NEVER use IE or IE controls to search that page, of course.

ppk, Jun 25 2005

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER click the links in a SPAM message. Many of those links are coded to let the spammer know which e-mail address the link was sent to and validate that e-mail. If you click a spam link, prepare for more spam.

whynot@my.st, Jun 25 2005