Fighting Spam

[Jack Evers]

I've never seen quite as much spam as I've been getting lately. Half of the e-mails I get are junk..porn site solicitations, viagra prescriptions at a discount, penis enlargement pills, ink jet refills, DVD copiers, etc...etc.

I've got Fire Trust Mail Washer Pro which sorts out possible spam and when I reject an e-mail it sends the originator back an email saying that my e-mail address is invalid. I guess the idea is that these spammers will purge my e-mail address from their mailing list if an e-mail is returned showing an invalid address. Doesn't work. I continue to get spam from the same senders that I've been bouncing for months now.

The only other option available to me is the "block sender" option in Outlook Express 6. This automatically deletes the incoming spam and sends the sender an e-mail telling them that messages from them have been blocked by the intended recipient. The downside of this approach is that the spammers know that they've got a valid e-mail address and come back with a different sender name and the same junk mail.

Has anyone got a better solution to this problem.

 

[granatl]

Most of my suggestions are preventive measures, so unless you're willing to change e-mail addresses they won't help.
1. Create e-mail account names that aren't dictionary words, or dictionary words with numbers appended to the end. The more difficult your combination, the less likely that some spambot will get lucky and figure it out.
2. Create multiple accounts. Use your primary one with your friends, etc. but use something like a HOTMAIL account for all e-commerce, etc.
3. Ask your friends to avoid sending you ANYTHING from a website (e-cards, news stories, etc.)
4. NEVER reply to an UNSUBSCRIBE request, or go to the website.

I personally use McAfee to block my spam. I've been happy with it.

As a side note, there was a classified ad in our newspaper recently, offering to pay >$100k a year for people to track down e-mail addresses and then spam those people. I can't remember the numbers, but it was something like you had to find >100 addresses per hour. So if that person were to find TurboBuick.COM, they could work their way down the member's list, adding new addresses. So it's a good idea not to use your primary account for bulletin boards either.

 

[TR Custom Parts]

The only foolproof way not to get spam is to not turn on your computer! I use Macafee Spam Killer but lots of stuff still get thru. I wonder if anyone actually ever buys anything from one of these spams???

 

[granatl]

About 6-7 years ago, I head that snail mail direct mailings typically scored about 3-5% hits. I think e-mail/banners/etc. were less than 1%; since people have become wiser I know it's dropped significantly (at least online, I don't know about direct mailing). Even so, if it was only .01% (.0001), on 5 million e-mails going out, that's still 500 hits. So it's just them playing the numbers game.
If our government wasn't "influenced" by big business, do you think there would be spam, telemarketing, etc.?