TOXIC WASTE DUMP for Webmasters

Download Program & Instructions right here (55 kb.-v.1.1)

--What it is--

Toxic Waste Dump is a standalone MS-DOS app for generating loads of bogus HTML pages containing phony email addresses. Why would anyone possibly want to do this? To make things difficult for greedy idiot SPAMMERS, of course...

--How it works--

Spammers use various automated "harvester" programs to dig their way through the Internet sucking up email addresses they find, and put them in a big list. Then SPAM is sent to every address on the list! The lists are also traded and sold among spammers, meaning if one has your address, many more can get it. But what if, instead of YOUR email address, the harvester program finds hundreds and hundreds of completely bogus, invalid addresses and adds them to the list instead? Toxic Waste Dump allows a virtually infinite number of bogus pages to be created (limited essentially by the amount of space you want to use for them in your Web account).

--How to use it--

This program comes with the following files:
TOXIC.EXE - The program itself
TOXIC.DIC - A "dictionary file" containing a list of random words
TOXIC.BAS - The source code (you don't need it)
REBUILD.BAT - A simple batch file that you can use to automatically freshen-up your spambait
TOXIC.TXT - You're reading it now

In your web account, make a directory for all the phony address pages, eg /spambait, and make a link to this directory somewhere else on your site (preferably the index.html page). This link can be a nearly invisible "." linked to the directory, or a "this link is for spammers", etc...the point is that humans should mostly ignore it but computerized harvesters should have no trouble finding the link.

Now run TOXIC.EXE. The first time you run the program it will ask you a few questions:

How many bogus pages: - This tells the program how many bogus pages to write. This can be any number between 1 and... some really, really high number. Since many harvesters will only dig so many pages deep, setting this to 5,000,000 isn't really necessary. (Besides, creating 5,000,000 bogus pages will take a long time and eat your entire hard drive!) 10 or 30 pages is plenty ;)

Minimum and maximum addresses per page: - Pretty self-explanatory. This is here because if every copy of Toxic Waste Dump created the same # of addresses on every page, harvesters would catch onto this very quickly, and begin rejecting pages of exactly that many addresses! Also, some newer harvesters can be set to reject a page if it contains over a certain number of addresses, typically about 30.
Note: You *can* set these numbers to 0, but this may have unpredictable results. In particular, because of the way the counter works you may still get 1 or 2 addresses before it quits.

Address density: - Tells the program how densely to pack addresses onto each bogus page. The following may sound a little bass-ackwards, so everybody READ THE NEXT SENTENCE CAREFULLY ;) Here it goes...
A *lower number* means more addresses crammed into a smaller page, and a *higher number* means more bogus text between addresses. Higher "density" settings make the page seem more natural, which *may* make a difference with some harvesters. About the highest "density" setting you'd really want is about 100, but you can set it higher. Feel free to experiment with this and see what value strikes your fancy.

Use Robots (noindex) meta-tag: - Tells the program whether to include the "robots" meta-tag to keep search engines from listing your spambait pages in their results. Use of this tag is highly recommended.

UPPERCASE or lowercase files: - TOXIC is an MS-DOS program, so all the files it generates are in DOS's UPPERCASE, 8.3 format. Some server platforms (Unix/Linux/*BSD/etc.) are case sensitive and will plague you with 404s if the case of the link does not exactly match the case of the filename, e.g. having a link to spambait.htm is no good if the file was uploaded as SpAmBaIt.HtM. Other platforms (Windows) may not care. Complicating matters further, some FTP programs (but not all) have an option to force all your filenames to lowercase when you upload them. Depending on whether you use such an option when uploading your spambait, you will want the links leading your spammers through all the spambait pages to point to either UPPERCASE or lowercase files. Naturally, if you are using a Windows-based server (shame on you :-) it does not matter and you can pick one randomly.

Once the setup is complete, the program will read in the dictionary file (full of random words) and spit out the specified number of address-packed HTML files. The first will always be named "index.htm", and the ones following will have a random name. Each file will be linked to the next, and the last file will link back to the first (index.htm). Copy these pages into the directory you created (and linked to) earlier, and you're all set! If you get a lot of harvester traffic, you might even want to "refresh" these pages from time to time: Just delete all those pages from their directory, run TOXIC again, and copy the new ones in. Or, use the enclosed batch file which automates some of this (double-click on it to make a fresh batch of phony addresses).

--What Questions May Come--

I didn't call this the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), mostly because nobody's asked any questions yet! (Usually, you write the readme file before you release the program ;) But, I can guess at some questions people may have, and try to answer them:

Q. What's the difference between this program and others (such as WPOISON)?
A. Not much, really. This is by no means the first program to generate bogus email addresses for spammers. The main difference is this is a standalone program, while most others are CGIs or Perl scripts intended to be run everytime a spammer requests a link. CGI programs typically require you to run your own CGI-capable server, or use a server which provides CGI. Many Web accounts (especially on "free" servers) don't allow this. (Besides, why waste CPU power creating a new page for every spammer?) The other main difference is that Toxic Waste Dump uses a slightly more complicated process than some to generate its pages. Some of the CGI programs I've seen create very "standard" pages whose format are identical, making them easier for a harvester to recognize. TOXIC's pages are designed with more natural language and random formatting nuances (fonts, underlines, etc.) which will hopefully make its pages harder to harvester software to detect. This may of course all be a moot point, since most harvester software is pretty stupid.

Q. I'm running UNIX/Linux/OS2/Mac/etc. Can I still use this?
A. Maybe. The program is a good old-fashioned 16-bit DOS app. Windows 9x and similar should run it without any complaining. If you're using UNIX or another OS, it will *probably* run under a DOS emulator. Whip open your DOSEMU, etc. and give it a shot. (If you don't have a DOS emulator, search on the web. Most Linux distros come with it built in. Don't ask me where to get one!)

Q. Can I edit the dictionary file used by TOXIC?
A. Yes. It's just a plaintext list of words, one per line. Just be warned that if you make it too long, it will no longer fit into TOXIC's memory (which may not be much, depending on your system) and you will get a memory error. See the next question...

Q. Why am I getting a memory error?
A. This means the dictionary file is too large to fit into TOXIC's memory. Delete some stuff from the TOXIC.DIC file.

Q. If I add my own words, do they have to be in alphabetical order like the original dictionary file?
A. NO. Since they're chosen randomly, the order makes no difference. The dictionary that comes with the program is alphabetized because that's just how it was when I swiped it from another program's spell-check :) (BTW, due to the overabundance of Lawyers in this country, you should not swipe ANY files from ANY program ;) Bad for you, and such.

Q. What is TOXIC.BAS? Do I need it?
A. TOXIC.BAS is the source code for the program. It's written in good old Microsoft Basic, because I'm lazy. You don't need this file--it's there in case you're a propeller-head and want to make changes to the program.

Q. What is REBUILD.BAT? Why is it not working?
A. REBUILD is a batch file that will delete all your old spambait pages (from a previous TOXIC run) and replace them with new ones. You have to edit the first line to point to where your spambait pages are. If your spambait pages are in the same directory as TOXIC, you can just delete this line. Note that the batch file just refreshes the old files on YOUR hard disk, it does not update the stuff on your Web site or delete the stale files from your FTP directory. You have to do this yourself, you lazy bum!

Q. How come when I browse through my spambait directory I get a 404 File Not Found?
A. Did you remember to upload the spambait to your Web account? (Okay, just checking!) Did you remember to use your FTP client's "Force Lowercase Remote Names" option when uploading them, and/or answer the UPPERCASE/lowercase question correctly?

Q. This program is really, truly free? No hidden strings, advertising windows, nag screens, porno links, or pyramid schemes embedded in this program somehow?
A. Really, truly free. Your "payment" to me is pissing off a few spammers here and there, or clogging up their mail long enough that I can go for three entire days without a single Viagra offer in my inbox :) Another antispam program has a similar line in it, and I thought it sounded really good:

" 'How do I support Spam Bait Creator?'
You can support Spam Bait Creator by using it!"

Knowing that spammers all across the 'net are being clogged up with bogus addresses is the perfect payment! If you want to be really generous, give Toxic Waste Dump to a friend with a Web site. Chances are they're receiving Viagra ads too (or worse)!