So last night I noticed way too many qmail-remotes running on what should have been an entirely idle machine. Poked through the logs.. Damnit! One lousy box that's been around since before my time gets left open, and some spammer finds it and starts relaying crap through me.

I shut down the daemon, and pulled a copy out of the queue:

Subject: Be Assured, This Is Legal And Lawful!
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 02:49:50

You are invited to CALL TOLL FREE! 1-800-264-6612

Where you will learn about:

An Honest, Ethical Home Based Business,
Not Multi-Level-Marketing:

* Committed Individuals Earn $10,000+ Monthly
in 30 to 90 Days:

* 80% Commission:

* Turn-Key Lead Generation System,
Prospects Call You:

* 2.4 Million-Dollar Teleconferencing System
Does The Selling For You:

* Daily Support and Training:

You must supply the Work Ethic and Committment.

We are not selling travel, lotions, potions, or vitamins.
We have an exclusive product/service attractive to anyone
with an income.

You owe it to yourself and your family to find out more.

This program is all about MONEY....
How to Make it, How to Keep it,
and How to make it Work for you.

CALL TOLL-FREE and listen to a 2 minute recorded message
for more information.

CALL NOW!!!!! 1-800-264-6612

****************************************************************
You have been carefully selected to receive the following
as a person obviously interested in this subject based upon
your previous Internet postings, or visits to one of our
affiliate web sites. If you have received this message in error,
hit Reply with the word un-subscribe in the subject.
****************************************************************

Hrmph, careful. No mention of a person's name, a company name, or any domain truly connected to them. The return address was an account with some small isp; not likely to lead anywhere. An 800 number that would take at least some minor effort to attach to anyone.

Well, may as well take the obvious start and call the number. Blah, six figure annual incomes, blah blah, no selling, blah blah, perfectly legal, blah blah blah. This guy blathered on for four solid minutes; without, of course, conveying the slightest information about who he was or what he was being magnanimous enough to offer to me.

Finally, the wrap-up is obviously approaching, and he's got to give me some way to reach him if he wants to bilk me any further, right? "So if you're interested in making at least ten thousand dollars a month, leave your name, your number, and a good time to call after the tone."

An answering machine!? I've been listening this long to a fucking answering machine, and he's still not going to give me any information?

I hang up, frustrated and disgusted. At least I'd been able to check all my other boxen while listening to his pap, to make sure that nothing else goes through me. But I'm still annoyed enough that it seems worthwhile to call back...

Thank god, hitting # skips the outgoing message and delivers me to the beep. I don't think I could have sat through that a second time. "Hi, I just got your message, and it sounds really interesting! Could you give me a call tomorrow, maybe around six or seven?" Surely no one who would fall for this knows there are multiple time zones, I thought, leaving it at that.

I was distracted enough that this wasn't the first thing that came to my mind when my phone rang this evening. 6:10; he must not have droves of takers to contact.

Quickly enough he reminded me of who he was; it was clearly the same voice as the voicemail gauntlet.

After a brief moment of small talk, he leads into, "Let me start by asking you a few questions about yourself." Hm. Even after all this, he still wants more information from me, without volunteering any about himself. Charming. "What are you currently doing?"

"Well, uh, I'm trying to get some web-related work, but, uh, currently not much." At least tangentially related to the truth, and it certainly wouldn't do to sound too bright; surely bright people don't call him back.

"Ah, okay. And this program would involve making at least about ten thousand dollars a month. Can you see yourself making that kind of money?"

"That would be great!" Actually, sir, that would suck rather hard. Haven't you heard of stock options? I haven't made that little in years.

"Well, you sound like you're qualified to me..." Jesus, I claim to be someone who can't get a job in the web industry, and this makes me qualified? Invertebrates can get web work; was this just a quick check to make sure that I'm multicellular?

He rambles for a few more minutes about what an exciting and lucrative opportunity this is, before giving me a different 800 number from which I can get more information. It takes about an hour to listen to it, he says; I promise to try to find the time tomorrow.

"One other question does come to mind," I interrupt his start at wrapping up the conversation. "Are you familiar with California's laws regarding unsolicited commercial email?"

"Um, well, yes, but I don't do any of that." He's still confused, not yet panicky.

"That's interesting. Either you do, or someone has chosen to do you a rather dubious favor. I'm the system administrator for a multibillion-dollar company, and I happened to notice last night that you were sending several thousand pieces of spam through one of my servers."

"Oh, well, give me your email address, and I'll see that you're taken off of that list." This line seemed very familiar to him.

"No, you didn't send any spam to me, you sent it through me, to several thousand other innocent victims. Leaving me rather obligated, you understand, to pursue this matter very aggressively. I'm very glad to hear that this program has been able to generate so much revenue for you, as I now plan on suing you for most of it."

"Well, I, uh, I'll have to talk to the guy who does that for me."

"Perhaps you should give me some contact information for him directly. California law currently provides for damages of two hundred dollars per piece of spam, and I have records of you sending at least twenty thousand messages. Conveniently, your seven-figure income should allow you to pay fines of four million dollars without too much trouble." Is two hundred even right? I certainly didn't check. And I've no clue how many messages he managed to get out, but this seemed like a nice handy number.

"I'll call him, and I'm sure that we can straighten this out. I'll call you back."

"As you're both involved in the commission of this crime, I'll probably need to pursue legal action against both of you. Please make sure that he's aware of that."

"I, uh, I'll call you back. Around this time tomorrow, okay, I'll try and reach you then?"

"Please do." I hung up. I should have pressed a little bit harder, and gotten him to admit that he was 'the guy' who handled his own spam. I'll be surprised if he calls me tomorrow, but fortunately, the decision is not exclusively his. Here's some of the information this gentlemen grudgingly or unwittingly provided me about himself: