MacTech: Inviting Spamtraps to a Conference
MacTech Magazine, a long-time and well-known magazine that covers Apple Macintosh issues, is sending bulk email to two email addresses that were last live in the early and mid-2000s. MacTech may be emailing a list that has not been emailed for years or might have ignored bounces for some years in the early and mid-2000s. One of these two email addresses belonged to an avid Macintosh user who almost certainly was a subscriber at some point, so a purchased list although possible is less likely in this case. The ESP is Benchmark Email.
Sending IP: 38.107.205.4
Spam Sample:
Actual Headers:
Received: from benchmarkmails4.com (benchmarkmails4.com [38.107.205.4])
by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
for <xxx>; Wed, 9 Nov 2011 00:xx:xx -0600 (CST)
Received: from benchmarkmails4.com (benchmarkmails4.com [127.0.0.1])
by benchmarkmails4.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
for <xxx>; Tue, 8 Nov 2011 19:xx:xx -0600 (CST)
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
DomainKey-Signature: <xxx>
Reply-To: announce@mactech.com
X-Identify: <<xxx>@benchmarkemail.com>
X-Mailer: <xxx>
X-campaignid: <xxx>
MimeOLE: <Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE <xxx>>
RemoveEmail: unsubscribe.asp?<xxx>
SentFromServer: <xxx>
Message-Info: <xxx>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://www.benchmarkemail.com/c/u?<xxx>>
From: "MacTech InDepth" <announce@mactech.com>
Sender: <xxx>
To: <xxx>
Subject: Gear up for MacTech InDepth: Mobile Device Management
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 00:xx:xx -0600
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_<xxx>"
Readable Email:
From: MacTech InDepth <announce@mactech.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: Gear up for MacTech InDepth: Mobile Device Management
You are receiving this email because of your relationship with MacTech Magazine, MacNews, AppleCentral, MacForge or other Xplain Corp. brands. If you do not wish to receive any more emails, you can unsubscribe here
Confirm URL :http://www.benchmarkemail.com/c/opt?<xxx>
December 7, 2011
Argonaut Hotel
San Francisco
MacTech InDepth is on its way.
Are you ready?
It’s less than a month away, have you registered yet?
What is MacTech InDepth?
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References:
1. http://www.mactech.com/indepth/mdm
2. https://forms.mactech.com/fillsurvey.php?sid=270&rid=MainSite
3. http://www.mactech.com/indepth/mdm/about
4. https://forms.mactech.com/fillsurvey.php?sid=270&rid=MainSite
5. https://forms.mactech.com/fillsurvey.php?sid=270&rid=MainSite
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Email Marketing
BenchmarkEmail.com
[http://www.benchmarkemail.com]
Address: 705 Lakefield Road, Suite I, Westlake Village, CA, 91361
To the best of our knowledge, your assumptions are not true. We’ve now asked repeatedly for more information to investigate, but you’ve been unwilling to provide the information.
It’s a shame — because if there IS a problem we need to know about, we WANT to know about it.
Specifically, the mailing you are speaking of is going to a list that we have had in place for many years, gets mailed to regularly, and only contains people that we have a direct relationship with in one of a variety of ways. The addresses are not harvested in any way, and we do not acquire lists. We only use addresses given to us by our customers.
Short of never mailing to the list again — which is obviously a ridiculous suggestion — you’ve given us no method to pursue.
I again, ask, please send us some additional information so that we, as a responsible company, can investigate and either find the answers to show you the error in your assumptions, or give us the details we need to resolve the problem not just for you, but anyone.
What additional information? I can’t divulge the identities of my spamtraps. Your own ESP can explain why to you if you really don’t know. However, the spamtraps consist of email addresses that have not had a live user in many years. One of them was closed in 2003, the other in 2006.
Both rejected all email at SMTP time with a 500-level rejection for a period of at least twelve consecutive months before being re-enabled and added to my spamtrap collection. That is standard best practice for managing domains and email addresses that might have been in use at some point prior to acquiring them. That is to allow owners of legitimate mailing lists to see the bounces and remove the nonvalid email addresses from their list.
In other words, even if the owners of both of these email addresses originally subscribed to your list back when the email addresses were live, they would not be on that list any longer unless the list ignored bounces.
I see two reasonable possibilities: either you mailed a list that you had not mailed for years, or during some fairly lengthy period in the early and mid-2000s your company ignored bounces and allowed old and dead email addresses to accumulate. There are known, specific means of dealing with both of these issues. Your ESP should be quite familiar with them, and you should avail yourself of their expertise: that’s what you are paying them for. None of those means of dealing with the deadwood email addresses requires more information from me.
I understand what spamtraps are. I understand why you would normally not give this info out.
I believe that your information may still be incorrect. The only way for me to know for sure is to investigate it — but I cannot do that without the email address to find the source, the problem, and the solution (which btw, does not mean just unsubscribing you — it means REALLY finding the solution).
Because of the structure, there’s nothing the ESP can provide us to help.
All of the practices you are talking about SHOULD have already been done. If that’s not the case, we need to deal with it — but without even one of the addresses from you, we won’t be able to track this down.
If you would like me to sign a non-disclosure agreement on the spamtrap address(es) in question, I’m more than happy to do so. If you would prefer, drop me a note and we can do this offline.
I’m asking you, as a human being, to help identify whether:
a) you’ve made a mistake
b) we’ve made a mistake
In either case, I’m sure that both of us would want to fix the problem.
Neil
Not “not normally”. I don’t provide spamtrap identities, period. (Well, except if subpoenaed by a court, which has never been an issue.) If I did, I couldn’t use that spamtrap again, NDA or not, and unfortunately would risk exposing other information about my setup and therefore other spamtraps. Tainted spamtraps (spamtraps whose identities are known and which have been mishandled) are not of any use.
Under the circumstances, I wouldn’t feel justified in blowing the identity of a spamtrap and risking other information. Two spamtrap hits on old email addresses of this sort is pretty conclusive evidence that your list has email addresses on it that did not ask for the email that they are getting. Two spamtrap hits on those particular spamtraps is also not enough evidence to demonstrate with any degree of certainty why this is the case.
You know your setup, but as far as I can tell, knowing the identities of my spamtraps would not allow you to do anything but listwash.
Any ESP representative can tell you how to clean a list that has some non-opted-in email addresses on it without needing to know which ones they are in advance. First, you drop email addresses that haven’t responded in over a year. (You’d get rid of my spamtraps that way for sure.) As for doing a really good job of cleaning a list — ever heard of repermissioning? Re-engagement? These things *work*. Why not use them?
I’m sorry — what you are saying is not correct on several levels. If your goal is to help, then help. If not, then don’t.
But despite what you think is the case, your suggestions are not realistic. I’m happy to explain why, but I’m not going to do this through comment blocks.
But, to be clear, you are factually incorrect that you have “conclusive evidence.” And, it’s libel to say otherwise unless you are willing to produce it, and allow it to be responded to. It’s the nature of our justice system, after all.
I would suggest you call me, or let’s talk in some other way. As the publisher of a 27 year old print magazine, I’m not at all hard to find contact information for and I would welcome a conversation offline about this — and WILL fix the issue once identified.
The evidence is pretty conclusive to me. You think otherwise. That’s fine. Since there’s no consequences to being named on this blog other than the fact that you’re named on the blog, those sorts of ambiguities can be lived with.
I won’t discuss this with you, or anybody, in private. That’s not the point of the blog. The blog is here to report publicly incidents of mainsleaze spam – unsolicited bulk email sent by legitimate companies using legitimate methods. That’s stated in the “About” section of the blog, and elsewhere. We’re here to tell what we know.
As is the case with *anything* human, what we know is to some degree tentative, of course. But it is not libel to say that email was sent to two spamtraps, and under the conditions that those spamtraps have been managed it is not possible that they should have been on that list. So I am saying that. You are sending email to email addresses that would not be on your list if you’d managed the list according to those processes and expectations that I stated, and that as far as I know are held by the majority of people involved in sending and receiving email.
That doesn’t make you a spammer, any more than making a false statement in the mistaken belief that it was true would make you a liar. It *does* make what you are doing problematic from my point of view, and I think from that of a lot of email receivers. And to the extent that the bulk email you sent went to email addresses that did not request it, that email was spam. A lot of spam is sent by people and organizations that didn’t intend to spam.
At this point, I have no idea why you object to the very idea that you might have some deadwood on your list. I have no idea why you object to repermissioning your list or cleaning it by dropping old/non-responding email addresses. Since you won’t discuss your objections in public, and I’m leery about discussing anything in private because I don’t know you or what your real motives are, it appears to me that we’re at a standstill.
For the record, I’ve reconfirmed:
a) the only emails on the list are those given to us
b) we remove all bounces not just at the time, but EVERY time we mail.
Again, if you want to help, help. If not, that’s up to you, but that’s not what good people do.
I’m available to track this down and figure out where the problem is either in your setup or ours, but it will require you be helpful to do that. I’m ready to. Are you?
For the record, after the reconfirmation, you have continued to hit the same spamtraps, up to today’s mailing. :/ I don’t believe you, Mr. Ticktin. And if Benchmark Email contacts me for evidence, I will provide it to them.