Attack of the Spambots
This all started when I received invitations from several different people to a network called Quechup. They looked like this:
After the fourth one had arrived, sent in the name of someone with whom I had conversed in IM several times, I decided that it was time to investigate the site. I followed the link on the e-mail, and I filled out the online form to join.
After filling out the preliminaries, I reached a point where I was given the opportunity to see which of my contacts were already members of Quechup. I input my Yahoo password in order to give Quechup access to my Yahoo address book. I received a list of 5 names with check marks beside them. I decided to send these five people invitations to link up with me.
Above the list of 5 names was another box which could be checked off. I could not tell from the form whether or not you were supposed to check off this box. I thought that checking off this box might be necessary in order to send the invitations to the 5 people. I checked off the box before I sent the invitations. This was my downfall.
I didn't notice that anything was wrong, until several minutes had passed after I had completed sending off the invitations. By then, I was busy doing something completely unrelated to Quechup.
All of a sudden, it happened. Yahoo Messenger suddenly began to show that I was receiving a flurry of e-mail messages, despite the fact that it was 4:30 in the morning. They all seemed to be coming from mailer daemons, which normally tell you that some e-mails that you had sent had bounced. I investigated the messages from the mailer daemons. It turned out that I had sent e-mails to e-mail addresses which were “no reply” and had been set up to reject any incoming e-mail messages. Then it began to dawn on me what had happened. The computer at Quechup had sent invitations to every single entry in my address book. Some of the entries had been put in my address book just so that no messages from the sender would end up in my bulk (junk mail) folder. These messages were sometimes sent from “no reply” e-mail addresses. Invitations to join Quechup had been sent to these “no reply” addresses, and those invitations had been triggering the mailer daemons.
I was at a loss for what to do. There are about 700 entries in my Yahoo address book. I did not have the stamina to send out 700 apologies.
So I decided to do a blog entry to highlight the problem. It appears that some websites are set up in such a way that it is very difficult NOT to end up sending invitations to every one in your address book. So it's perhaps best to be careful about inviting people from your address book. You never can tell what might happen.