Spam

[bkaras]

05:21 11/30/2006

There is a problem. When I give out my e-mail address for various web and
subscription sites, my e-mail address gets "passed around" and then I am the
recipient of junk e-mail.

Giving a secondary e-mail address is not very helpful since I get about
90+% spam for it...and I think I must check that address' e-mail for
important messages.

Is there any way to give only my e-mail address and not get much/any spam?

Thank you,

Barry Karas

 

[Ayush]

Replied to [bkaras]s message :
-----------------------------------------------------------

05:21 11/30/2006

There is a problem. When I give out my e-mail address for various web and
subscription sites, my e-mail address gets "passed around" and then I am the
recipient of junk e-mail.

There can be two problems.
1) The site. Where are you giving your email id ?
2) Your computer. sCan with a good Anti-Spyware, Malware application.

Is there any way to give only my e-mail address and not get much/any spam?

Yes. If you are giving to a real person (not when signing to newsgroups or in
automated things) then use this kind of email id :
b_k_a_r_a_s [at] adelphia [dot] net (Remove underscore)
bkaras (at) adelphia (dot) net
bkaras(DONT SPAM)@adelphia.net (Remove (DONT SPAM))

AND,btw,Is this your real e-mail address ?????

 

[neil]

You can create disposable email addresses if you want to use them on
webpages. Personally I use hotmail, I'm not really bothered how much appears
at that address but generally it seems to get filtered out.

example of disposable email http://www.spamgourmet.com/
Neil

 

[Ayush]

Replied to [Ayush]s message :
-----------------------------------------------------------

Yes. If you are giving to a real person (not when signing to **newsgroups** or
in
automated things)

That should be newsletter

 

[Bruce Chambers]

05:21 11/30/2006

There is a problem. When I give out my e-mail address for various web
and subscription sites, my e-mail address gets "passed around" and then
I am the recipient of junk e-mail.

Yes, it's been like that for years. This is why one (who doesn't want
spam) gives out his address only to those sites that he knows won't sell
the address.

Giving a secondary e-mail address is not very helpful since I get about
90+% spam for it...and I think I must check that address' e-mail for
important messages.

Is there any way to give only my e-mail address and not get much/any spam?

No.


While it's not possible to completely eliminate spam (unsolicited
commercial email), there are some precautions and steps you can take to
minimize it's impact:

1) Never, ever post your real email address to publicly accessible
forums or newsgroups, such as this one, *and as you've just done*. For
years now, spammers have been using software utilities to scan such
places to harvest email addresses. It's a simple matter to disguise
your posted email address so that these software "bots" can't obtain
anything useful. For example, insert some obviously bogus characters or
words into your reply address, for example: "(e-mail address removed)."

2) Never, ever reply to any spam you receive, even to "unsubscribe" or
"remove" yourself from the spammers' address lists; you'll only compound
the problem. If spammers had any intention of honoring the your desire
not to receive spam, they wouldn't have become spammers in the first
place. When you reply to a spammer, all you're doing is confirming that
he/she has a valid, marketable email address.

3) Be especially leery of any offers from websites for free software,
services, information, etc, that require your email address, or that
require your email address so you can "login" to access the offered
service and/or information. Many such sites are supplementing their
income by collecting addresses to sell to the spammers. For instance,
subscribing to CNN.COM's Breaking News Service will garner you a lot of
additional spam. (Of course, not all such sites have under-handed
motives; it's a judgment call. If the offer seems "too good to be
true," it's most likely a scam.)

4) DO forward any and all spam, with complete headers, to the
originating ISP with a complaint. Not all ISPs will make an effort to
shut down the spammers, but many will. One tool that makes forwarding
such complaints fairly simple is SpamCop (http://spamcop.net).

4) Another useful tool is MailWasher (http://www.mailwasher.net). This
utility allows you to preview your email before downloading it from the
server. Spammers can even be blacklisted, so that any future emails
from them will be automatically deleted from the server.

5) Within Outlook Express, add any spammers to your Blocked Senders
list, so the their messages are automatically deleted from the server
without being downloaded to your PC.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Pop`]

Yes, it's been like that for years. This is why one (who doesn't want
spam) gives out his address only to those sites that he knows won't
sell the address.



No.


While it's not possible to completely eliminate spam (unsolicited
commercial email), there are some precautions and steps you can take
to minimize it's impact:

1) Never, ever post your real email address to publicly accessible
forums or newsgroups, such as this one, *and as you've just done*. For
years now, spammers have been using software utilities to scan
such places to harvest email addresses. It's a simple matter to
disguise your posted email address so that these software "bots"
can't obtain anything useful. For example, insert some obviously
bogus characters or words into your reply address, for example:
"(e-mail address removed)."
2) Never, ever reply to any spam you receive, even to "unsubscribe"
or "remove" yourself from the spammers' address lists; you'll only
compound the problem. If spammers had any intention of honoring the
your desire not to receive spam, they wouldn't have become spammers
in the first place. When you reply to a spammer, all you're doing is
confirming that he/she has a valid, marketable email address.

3) Be especially leery of any offers from websites for free software,
services, information, etc, that require your email address, or that
require your email address so you can "login" to access the offered
service and/or information. Many such sites are supplementing their
income by collecting addresses to sell to the spammers. For instance,
subscribing to CNN.COM's Breaking News Service will garner you a lot
of additional spam. (Of course, not all such sites have under-handed
motives; it's a judgment call. If the offer seems "too good to be
true," it's most likely a scam.)

4) DO forward any and all spam, with complete headers, to the
originating ISP with a complaint. Not all ISPs will make an effort to
shut down the spammers, but many will. One tool that makes forwarding
such complaints fairly simple is SpamCop (http://spamcop.net).

4) Another useful tool is MailWasher (http://www.mailwasher.net). This
utility allows you to preview your email before downloading it
from the server. Spammers can even be blacklisted, so that any
future emails from them will be automatically deleted from the server.

5) Within Outlook Express, add any spammers to your Blocked Senders
list, so the their messages are automatically deleted from the server
without being downloaded to your PC.

All good advice, but ... the OP will likely have to get a new or revised
e-mail address from his ISP to stop the spam in any reasonable way. Once an
address hits the CDs and big lists, it's there practically forever.
When formatting an email address, to prevent dictionary attack spam, it's
best to use both numbers and letters in it, preferably with the numbers
inside the usernams. For instance, My8real55name.tld or
myreal5589name.tld, and so forth.
That alone will cut down on a lot of spam. Numbers on the end of a
username don't help anything since spammers just tack on a counter and
create as many thousands of attempts as they want.

Alpha-numeric also makes passwords much stronger.

HTH
Pop`