SpamTrap Art
May 16 2007
“Spamtrap” is an interactive installation piece the prints, shreds and blacklists spam email. It interacts with spammers by monitoring several email addresses the artist has created specifically to lure in spam. He does not use these email addresses for any other communication. He posts individual email addresses on websites and online bulletin boards that cause them to be harvested by spambots and then to start receiving spam.
Because he knows that all email sent to these email addresses are spam, he has set the installation to print and then shred each email as it arrives. Simultaneously the installation is feeding spam blacklists on the web with information gathered from all the received spam. This in turn helps to feed spam filtering systems across the web that are working to reduce the amount of spam we all receive.
The installation uses a Pentium II computer connected to a wireless network, personal printer, personal shredder, aluminum rails, Spamtrap email addresses, automatic printing software, email client software, antivirus software, and a SpamCop user account. The paper is recycled after the spam email has been shredded.
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May 16th, 2007 at 6:15 am
You’re like the McGyver of Email Marketing.
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Just give me a pen knife, a rock and 2 strands of twine and stand back…
May 17th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Dylan, you should build a mobile version and take it on tour. Get Postini or someone to sponsor it. It’s genius.
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Seems people think that I built this. So I re-read it, it is from an artist that did it. Hell I wish I had that much free time on my hands.
No back to the lab…
May 17th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Why do you have to print out each email? I’d think some LED monitor showing the title & then getting x-ed out would be the greener way to go. Great visual, though, very effective.
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I agree , but it is art. My cousin in SF builds these type of contraptions all the time for shows using recycled computer parts and screens. He did an amzing installation for the Jane Goodall World Museum last fall by building a digital photo booth from “found” parts.
I would not use paper myself as it would be punishable by death in Oregon, really. But the physical act shows the point of the amount in real world terms you can understand.