Spam
Like many people, I spend too much time fighting spam.
Unlike many people, I fight it for 350 other folks at the same time.
Our mailserver receives thousands of spam messages every day. I constantly train our filters to keep up with the changes the spammers make to get their messages through.
Today I decided to try a new tactic. I created a new email account which has only one purpose: attracting spam. If I can draw spammers to it, I can use those spams to keep the filters trained in a very up-to-date fashion.
The address is published NO WHERE. First thing I've done is to have my spamtrap address "unsubcribe" to a bunch of the spammers whose messages are in our "recent spam" collection that I use for training the system. Many of the spams seem to go back to the same points of origin, so I probably unsubscribed from no more than six or eight discreet spammers. If they're good to their words, my spamtrap won't receive any spam. If the unsubscribe buttons are (as I believe) just a method of verifying your address to send even MORE SPAM, then my spamtrap should start getting hit within the next few days. Stay tuned...
Update: the mailbox began receiving spam 2 days after I set it up. It's low-level, but definitely coming. At least one spammer has already begun using the address from the "unsub" command.