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Ask HN: How to quit website serving malware on their unsubscribe page?
7 points by bsenftner on April 14, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments
My wife recently started receiving a lot of unsolicited email from The Patriots Exchange - some Trump gun fanatic web site filled with pure fear anti-liberal drivel. The emails claim she's a web site member and claim she's been donating money to them. All that is false. Being Liberals ourselves, attempting to unsubscribe via phone or computer, anti-virus alerts warn to get off the page. She's receiving several emails a day from them, and says she never actually been to the site. I tend to believe she has never visited the site - she's more liberal than I, and I'm a Democratic Socialist, Bernie thru and thru. So, how to get rid of these scumbags?


Mark as spam.

The email application should include an option to mark the messages as spam.

For phonecalls and SMS texts, the phone should include an option to block the phone number.

You could notify the FCC about the offending spammer, too.


Disable remote content loading on all your email clients. Remote content loading tells spammers 1) that you received the mail and are looking at it and 2) your IP address.

Don’t bother trying to unsubscribe. It leaks the same information as above, plus you may get infected. They won’t stop spamming.

Train yourself and your spam filter to catch spam. Never engage.


Did you consider someone is messing with you? Just mark it as spam and continue on with your life.

Also the way email lists work, you may get removed from one, but still end up on a different distribution list from the same organization so you can remove yourself but still get them.

I also don't see anything about actual malware, you are just receiving undesired solicitation. Without the error from the antivirus, there is no telling why it's suggesting you leave. It could be serving something, it could also not be using a valid cert.




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