Overview of spam from Special-fx.com

26 Oct 2007

Note: Automated spam monitoring stopped several years ago. These web pages are maintained for historical reasons. Some may be updated from time to time as news about the individual sites becomes available.

General information about Special-fx.com

Added 4 Sept 1997. Special-FX.com was a major porn spammer. Special-FX was the same as, or closely associated with Escort Guide.

No spam has been seen from May, 1998 to March 1999. In late March 1999, porn spam for Adultage.com and Knotwork.com began again. No spam has been seen since 1999.

Sfx has adopted an anti-spam policy. This file exists for purely historical reasons.

Adultage was hosted by Special-FX and Knotwork was closely associated with Special-FX. I am informed that there is no longer an association with adultage.com, Escort Guide, or Mark Graham Metson

I am informed by Peter Stuczynski that he has not been associated with Andrew Chandler for years.

Special-FX.com, kesl, Escort Guide, knotwork.com and so on were probably all part of the same "spamglomerate" often referred to as AdultAge. See their web page at http://www.adultage.com for more information. AdultAge is another "adult verification service" which drums up business by spamming.

• Ownership & Contact Info
• Site history
• Sample Spam
• More Info

Special FX Communications SPECIAL-FX-DOM
   PO Box 415
   Grafton, MA 01519

   Domain Name: SPECIAL-FX.COM

   Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
      Stuczynski, Gayle spfx@SPECIAL-FX.COM
      (800)357-1810
   Technical Contact:
       Hostmaster  (HO1376-ORG)  hostmaster@SPECIAL-FX.COM
       Special FX Communications
       PO Box 415
       Grafton , MA 01519
       US
       (508)839-5947
       Fax- - (XXX)XXX-XXXX

    Record last updated on 06-Dec-2000.
    Record expires on 06-Nov-2001.
    Record created on 05-Nov-1996.
    Database last updated on 21-Aug-2001 04:42:00 EDT.

    Domain servers in listed order:

    NS.SJS.COM                   199.245.191.2

Special-FX.com is also known as, or closely connected to:

• ADULT-GUIDE.COM
• SPECIAL-FX.COM
• XXXFREE.COM
• CELEBRITY-NUDE.COM
• UNLIMITEDVIDEOSEX.COM
• VIDEOSEXUNLIMITED.COM
• TEENSCHOOLGIRLS.COM
• ALL-SEX.COM
• XXXPOSE.COM
• ADULTAGE.COM

Here are some assorted contacts:

• Administrative Contact: Hecox, Gayle, gayle@MAILHERE.COM, (508)839-5947
• Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Metson, Mark, aa332@CHEBUCTO.NS.CA, (902) 454-1615 or (902) 453-1615
• Stuczynski, Peter, aeg@ADULT-GUIDE.COM, spfx@ZIPLINK.NET Advanced Computer Services, P.O. Box 415, Grafton, MA 01519, (800)357-1810, Fax: 1-800-311-9990
• Hoyt, David, dhoyt@OEM.NET, (617) 204-0200, Fax: (617) 204-0210

• 4 Sept 1997: Added to tracking list.
• 8 Sept 1997: Special-FX now seems to be hosted by UUNet
• 16 April 1998: Now spamming through MCI
• 18 May 1998: Now spamming through AT&T. This is the last recorded spam from SFX.
• 13 Feb 1999: SFX sent me a letter demanding that I remove this web page. They claim to have adopted a "0% spam tolerance policy"
• 24 Feb 1999: SFX is now threatening to sue me.
• 21 Aug 2001: SFX has written to inform me that:

  ... this information is about as old as the begining of time. We have no association with adultage.com, Escort Guide, or Mark Graham Metson. THis information on your page is completely worthless.

See netnews thread "I Am A 'Computer Hippy' and an 'Immature Nerd'" for an extended discussion of Special-FX. I especially liked Lysander Spooner's response.

To report spam, contact one or more of

• postmaster@abac.com
• abuse-news@uu.net
• postmaster@special-fx.com

A complete history may also be available.

General notes:

• Only a small subset of usenet (261 groups) was sampled. Only articles that hadn't been cancelled yet were counted. Actual spam may have been much greater.
• Heuristics that detect single-posted articles are, by their very nature, somewhat shaky. Innocent articles may be tagged as spam because they share certain characteristics or keywords with actual spam. In particular, a posted spam complaint that includes the spam in its entirety will very often be identified as spam.
• Some posts may be forgeries intended to look like they came from Special-fx.com.
• The first entry in the history file is not used to compute peak or average spam counts, as this entry covers an unknown number of days. This may cause an apparent disreprency between spam totals and spam averages.

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The opinions expressed on this page are solely those of Ed Falk and do not necessarily represent those of any other organization, (although I hope they do). I wish to thank Rahul.net for hosting this web page.

This page maintained by Ed Falk