Fight spam with spam

[Rick_EE]

http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,3959,920545,00.asp

 

[firephoto]

Sounds like a good idea.

[Steve Mehs]

I have been getting so much spam lately. Ever since I had Earthlink, I have hardly had any spam at all. Now, I'm getting 6-7 crap emails a day. Most of the porn, including pictures, so now it's taking me 5 minutes just to receive my e-mail, provided I get all the junk at once. I'm thinking about calling up Earthlink and having the account username changed. Then everything will get bounced back to them and I won't have to deal with it :)

[Mike123abc]

I moved my email address off of my ISP and went to yahoo just for the spam filter. I was getting 100+ spam mails on my old mail box (I have had the same email address for 8+ years so it just kept growing). I have been giving out the yahoo address for all net stuff for about 2 years, still the spam is pretty minimal. I am going to finally drop my ISP in about a month.

[thevoice]

I thought we all spammed the spammers already!

I noticed that within weeks after MSN purchsed Qwest online services, I went from 1 - 5 spams a week to over 15 a day!

Is it me, or is Micro$oft the devil?

[firephoto]

It's not you.
;)

[Mark]

I get 20 spams a day SOME ARE IN ITALIAN!!
How the hell did they get my email address??

[firephoto]

Have you been to Italy? :lol:

Friends sending you things/info via web forms is a good way for them to snag email addresses. They also scan the internet for any web pages that contain email addresses. (that's got one of my email addresses trashed) And if you tick somebody off on the internet that has your email then they promptly publish your email address to porn sites, public places, and all things spam related. (there's someone that I'm sure did this to me once. :( )


So don't put your email address on a web page in the clear. Put it in a graphic or something, or not at all.

Tell your friends to quit filling out those "refer a friend" forms.

Don't get any net friends mad at you if they have your email address.

Don't post to usenet with a actual email address.

Remember nothing is free when trying to "win" something.

Don't let MS put your new hotmail address in the online directory/address book/your personal page or whatever they are calling it this month.

Sign up a hotmail address just for the shady sites that require an email address.

Don't use your real email address with kazza, bonezy buddy, or any p2p service.

Use anti spy software so there isn't a program or cookie that is giving away your email address. Adaware is good.

Read every page carefully that needs your email address so you know if you need to check or uncheck the stupid box that says they'll share your info with their "partners" (ie spammers).

Don't sign up for anything that is espn, go.com, disney.com, go.abc.com, abc.com, etc..... If you do and discover their unsubscribing system sucks and doesn't work right, then go to the disney kids sight (yeah i know) regardless of which you signed up for and login in and you will magically find that the unsubscribe thing works there for the GO network. grrrrrr

As a general rule, never click the link to unsubscribe in a spam email because they sell your address as a good one and make a few bucks off of you. :(

I think you get the idea. ;)


:hi:

[Mike123abc]

You should also disable the automatic showing of pictures in your email. They put unique names on pictures that load and let them know you read your email and are a hot spam canidate. The picture points to www.spammer.com/example/12424 where 12424 is your unique number (just an example not real).

[firephoto]

ahhhh........ that's a new one to me about the pics.
Thanks !

I only get spam on my netscape.net address that I've had for...... well since about netscape 3 days. ;) I'm mostly at fault due to my email address was on my xoom.com website before msnbc decided to pull the plug with no notice! Actually I didn't start getting spam (porn, free free free, win win win) till about a year or so ago so maybe someone bought the old servers and scanned the old drives??? hmmmm
I've had a hotmail address for 9 months and haven't received even one spam message on it. I never check it on the web though, just with outlook express so maybe there's something to that.

[Mike123abc]

I now go through yahoo before bringing it to my computer via pop. Yahoo has the option of not automatically loading the pictures when you read the email to avoid the hidden reply. The spam controll is pretty good at yahoo, I have given out the yahoo address everywhere for 3 years now and I get very, very little spam.

[firephoto]

It should be pretty good at Yahoo considering all the ads they push at you. ;) At least it's that way at yahoo groups.

[Mike123abc]

Actually there is very a very minimal amount of adds in the mail section. I subscribe to the premium service which I think cuts out the ads.