http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/03/they_told_you_not_to_reply.html
They Told You Not To Reply
When businesses want to communicate with their customers via e-mail, many send messages with a bogus return address, e.g. "somethinghere@donotreply.com." The practice is meant to communicate to recipients that any replies will go unread.
But when those messages are sent to an inactive e-mail address or the recipient ignores the instruction and replies anyway, the missives don't just disappear into the digital ether.
Instead, they land in Chet Faliszek's e-mail box.
As owner of www.donotreply.com, the Seattle-based programmer receives millions of wayward e-mails each week, including a great many missives destined for executives at Fortune 500 companies or bank customers, even sensitive messages sent by government personnel and contractors.
The majority of the e-mails naturally are from spammers, who also are quite fond of using Faliszek's domain name in the "From" field of their junk e-mails. Some of the non-spam bounce-backs are fairly harmless, like the ones he gets every so often from desperate, hungry people who bought a CharBroil brand grill but can't get the thing to work properly.
"Instead of letting people just hit reply to these support mails, they make the customer click on a link," Faliszek said. "It's sad, too, because I'll get these e-mails from people and they're like 'Oh, man, I really wanted to grill, but it's not working.' Sometimes they'll even send pictures of their grill, too."
[More on link, including him receiving emails from Haliburton subsidiaries in Iraq on support movements]
They Told You Not To Reply
When businesses want to communicate with their customers via e-mail, many send messages with a bogus return address, e.g. "somethinghere@donotreply.com." The practice is meant to communicate to recipients that any replies will go unread.
But when those messages are sent to an inactive e-mail address or the recipient ignores the instruction and replies anyway, the missives don't just disappear into the digital ether.
Instead, they land in Chet Faliszek's e-mail box.
As owner of www.donotreply.com, the Seattle-based programmer receives millions of wayward e-mails each week, including a great many missives destined for executives at Fortune 500 companies or bank customers, even sensitive messages sent by government personnel and contractors.
The majority of the e-mails naturally are from spammers, who also are quite fond of using Faliszek's domain name in the "From" field of their junk e-mails. Some of the non-spam bounce-backs are fairly harmless, like the ones he gets every so often from desperate, hungry people who bought a CharBroil brand grill but can't get the thing to work properly.
"Instead of letting people just hit reply to these support mails, they make the customer click on a link," Faliszek said. "It's sad, too, because I'll get these e-mails from people and they're like 'Oh, man, I really wanted to grill, but it's not working.' Sometimes they'll even send pictures of their grill, too."
[More on link, including him receiving emails from Haliburton subsidiaries in Iraq on support movements]
