just as a reminder, this has been posted at the Hybrid Elephant Contact Us form:

PLEASE NOTE: This contact form is solely for the use of Hybrid Elephant customers who need to get in contact with us. Every message that is sent with this form includes a unique IP address in the header, which identifies the computer from which the message was sent. If you use this form to spam us, all you will accomplish is to put your IP address on the list of IP addresses which are PERMANENTLY BANNED from accessing Hybrid Elephant for any reason. Please DO NOT USE THIS FORM to send us advertisements or solicitations. It WILL NOT WORK! You have been warned!

this morning, i got spam from my response form (big surprise).

the difference, this time, is that the following message was included at the end of the spam:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This message has been posted via a Contact Us form on your site. Contact forms are publicly accessible and they can be used for posting messages by anyone. We don’t use, hold or archive your e-mail addresses.

yes, contact forms can be used by anyone, but, particularly when an anti-spam message like the one previously posted is present, a concientious user of internet won’t use it unless that person is also a “Hybrid Elephant customers who need to get in contact with us”.

the message that you sent me was definitely NOT because of a need to contact me about something having to do with my business. 😒

and the fact that you say you “don’t use, hold or archive your e-mail addresses” is a moot point, because you ALREADY HAVE used my email address, and the fact that you have already used it means that, very likely, it is stored somewhere on your system, and probably gets backed up with everything else on your computer, which, for all intents and purposes, is “using, holding and archiving”… 🤬

so, the IP address from which this spam was sent is 85.203.22.215, which is part of the 85.203.22.208/28 range, located in monaco.

as of now, 85.203.22.208/28 (16 individual IP addresses) is no longer able to access my domains for any reason whatsoever.

thanks, spammer.

the message also contained references to wexxluxurycars dot com, which also goes on my block list.

thanks, spammer.

the IP address to which that domain name corresponds is 198.46.134.35, which is located in new york. because of the fact that it’s in new york, that IP address goes on my email block list, with today’s date, so that, in case i get an inquiry regarding it at some future point, i can state, unequivocally, that it was added to the list on that date, in case the person inquiring wants me to remove it…

which i will do ONLY if they can convince me that they are no longer associated with spam.

thanks, spammer.

and, of course, nobody is going to be seriously affected by all of this falderal (except, possibly, me), because the message was, doubtlessly, sent by a script that scans for “Contact Us” forms, and dumps meaningless spam into them automatically, without any one person having to do anything other than launch the script, which is why i’ve taken to blocking CIDR ranges outside of north america with no further warning. if people are going to be that careless with their own security, it’s up to people like me to take their security seriously, for them.

thanks, spammer. 🤬