We all dream of finding a way to strike back at the scammers and scumbags who stuff our inboxes with unwanted solicitations for porn, pyramid schemes, penis enlargement pills, and other junk. In Bruce Schneier’s Counterpane this week, I read about one spam artist who got a taste of his own medicine, big time.
Seems the notorious “spam king” Alan Ralsky gave a newspaper interview in which he bragged about his luxurious new home in West Bloomfield, Michigan. The details found their way onto Slashdot, where the readership tracked down his mailing address and organized themselves into an impromptu digital posse that began signing him up for catalogs, mailing lists, and the like. “Within weeks,” according to Schneier, “[Ralsky] was getting hundreds of pounds of junk mail per day and was unable to find his real mail amongst the deluge.”
Doesn’t it just warm your heart?