This New Chatbot Replies to Spam Emails For You!

RE:SCAM

This automated chatbot is designed to fight scammers with a scam of its own.

There are few things more annoying than an inbox so crammed with junk mail that you begin losing valuable correspondence inside a tidal wave of spam.

So New Zealand cybersecurity firm Netsafe has unveiled a creative solution to combat automated spam emails—automated spam responses. Called Re:scam, a chatbot will reply to spam emails for you, taking up the spammer's time so they don't bother you or someone else.

If you receive a spam email, you can forward it to the address me@rescam.org, and the chatbot will take over from there. It will reply to the initial email with an automated response from a proxy address, and keep replying to additional emails until the scammer gets frustrated and quits. It'll even send you a transcript of the conversation.

If lots of people start using Re:scam, it could take up enough of the scammers' time to keep them from bothering real people, which would make the emailing world a much better place.

SOURCE:THE VERGE