Sun Microsystems = spamming scum.

[theweaselking]

I now hate Sun, for spamming.

A long, long time ago, I signed up for the Sun Developer's Network, which is a way to log into Sun's site and contact other coders in a forum to find solutions to your problems. One of the things that happens when you sign up is that they give you many "offers" of what kind of spam you'd like to receive, and you can't proceed unless you choose one. So, I chose a low-traffic Sun Informational list, signed up, and immediately edited my preferences to remove it.

And I haven't had a problem for years, until today.

Today, they eBayed my preferences to sign me up for multiple spam lists, and now you can't change it back to "send me nothing", the "get me the fuck off the lists entirely, close my account if you want to" address bounces and says it's invalid, and the option to "Add yourself to Sun's Do Not Email list" takes you to a page where not only is there no such option, but you can't proceed without signing up for more email from Sun and their "valued commercial partners".

Sun Microsystems have gone black-hat, and are spammers. They will now be treated as such.

Comments

[kali-kali.livejournal.com]

In the past week, I've gotten so much spam, that I have no idea where it is coming from. It started very suddenly, and I get at least fifteen pieces a day. They come from different domains, but I know it is all the same spammer, since the email subject lines follow the same pattern.

Is there any way to find out where they got the address from? I haven't signed up for anything recently, so someone had to have changed their policy. But I don't think I have Sun Microsystems.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Unlikely, since Sun are trying to sell me Sun products and Sun seminars and Sun hardware. They're also not trying, at all, to conceal that it's Sun.

> I haven't signed up for anything recently, so someone had to have changed
> their policy.

Not true. It's entirely possible that someone grabbed your address off a website, or from the address book of a person who got a virus or worm or spyware infestation, or even just randomly generated your address and then got it confirmed when you opened a web bug or clicked a link.

As for where they got your address? That's hard. Where the spam is coming from? That's *easy*. You just need the headers. If you post a copy of the full headers (included all those "Received: " lines) I'll show you how to read the spam and track it back to the source.

[dolston.livejournal.com]

You going to tell the US authorities?

[fortysevenbteg.livejournal.com]

I was just telling a friend of mine about a sharp sudden increase in spam on GMail in the last week or so. For a couple days it wasn't being caught by the spam filter, but now it seems to be kicking in, thankfully.

[kali-kali.livejournal.com]

I Googled the email address, and it doesn't come up, so I don't know if it could've gotten it that way. I don't click on any links in spam (if I even open it), and images are set not to appear.

Is it safe to open a piece of spam to open the headers? I accidentally opened one of them once, but that one is long deleted.

[kali-kali.livejournal.com]

I use Yahoo, which is generally really really good about spam, especially about outside spam.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

As long as your mail client doesn't allow remote images and doesn't run scripts in the HTML when you open it, it's safe.

Most competent mail clients do that as a matter of course. I have no idea if Yahoo qualifies, but I assume it probably does.

[mcfnord.livejournal.com]

once i approached TrustE.org about a company with a similar problem and they did resolve the problem.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm going to give them one chance to correct the problem, and then I'm going to start reporting them. Sun are normally a relatively good company.

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

I noticed that too. All mine gets filtered out, but it's obvious that it's just two spammers that've managed to break in judging from the subjects.

Sigh. And I don't list my gmail anywhere. At all. Which means they're being more invasive than your usual webspidering.