Artwork title: Writing to Spammers
The work is about:
- intervening the spam system
- understanding the techno-materiality of spam system e.g server, coding and mail library
- understanding the cultural logic of reading and writing spam
- criticizing the massive cultural spam industry
- counter suggesting to response to spam rather than filter it in the mailbox
How it works:
1/ Display of the animated spam address
- A program is written to extract a spammer list for every 24 hours
- getting latest zip file, unzip and put on web server again
- a screen displays with fade in/out or running text of a spammer email address, one follows the other
2/ Writing a poem to spammers
- A program is written to keep sending out a spam poem to each of the spammer
- random selection of one of my spam poems
- need to know which one has been sent and which one hasn't
- need to display the sending process e.g which email address, which poem to send, status such as start sending, successfully delivered etc.
- auto scroll/process to display the next spam poem, logic repeats
- * specify sender email address, subject, content, to-address
3/ Reading spammer' email
- A python script is written to keep listening to the email server and see if any auto reply or bounce back email
- continuous check (poll) request to mail server
- download the email content, email address, timestamp, subject etc and able to mark read/delete the email on server
- Display the email content on screen
Technical equipment and architecture:
1/ Dedicated IP server
2/ A web domain e.g www.writingtospammers.com
3/ a email address such as reply@writingtospammers.com
4/ #1> display email address } a web page (html, jquery, php) or python with UI framework
5/ #2> writing spam email } either php or a python script
6/ #3> reading spam email } either php or a python script
Next actions:
1/ test script1: python ftp and get zip file, unzip and then display the text on terminal; then check UI, adjust font color, text size, animated effect and full screen
2/ test script2: python sending dummy email (smtp) and check delay/sleep syntax
3/ test script3: python receiving dummy email (pop3)
