[SURBL-Discuss] 20050615 embedded image spam

[Sean Sowell]

Paul kindly followed up on Friday, June 17, 2005 1129:

> I went back through old archives, and...  I found a case of affiliate
> abuse involving inphonic.  The email came to a non-existant account, not the
> one I use with inphonic and it was very similar to the one you got (i.e. links
> to inphonic pages, but redirects to the affiliate).
>
> This is old (Aug. 2003), but after I had been a customer, and the
> domains are all still valid (and look bad).  Only one is currently listed
> in SURBLs (noted alongside of it).  The involved domains were:
> myobdeals.com
> greatoffers.us
> homebasedbusinessclub.com [jp]
> imarketoffers.com
>
> I also check, all "real" inphonic emails have come from servers in
> their own domain with working rDNS and FCrDNS.
>
> I had never noticed this one, because it was to an obvious "bad"
> account (a misspelling of an account which I sometime post with, so it had
> both been "scraped" and typo'd - It got on a CD over a year ago, and now is
> one of the few accounts I outright refuse, instead of just piping down the
> automatic spam-reporting machinery - too much "mom&pop" operation spam to it).
>
> Anyway, it was two years ago, and I got just one - but it shows they
> have had past problem (but with just one vs. your > 10, my case was probably
> cleared up quickly).

To note, in my case only _one_ of the 18 spams from 'Clearcut' involves
InPhonic.  The other 17 promote other companies.

Going forward, I'll make best efforts to section off my submissions to note the
'probable spammers' first, then the 'apparent affiliates'.  Also I noticed
Paul's [jp] notation above, so I'll likewise make best efforts to append similar
info to each domain offered in future posts.

FYI, Tripp Donnelly at InPhonic has already briefly replied to my inquiry, and
has sent it along to appropriate folks there for follow-up.  I made six specific
requests and asked for a reply by 1700 EST Monday the 20th.  Will keep you
posted ...

Thanks again,

Sean S.