Spam Spam Spam

[Mantrid]

Just got back from a two week holiday and thought I'd check my NTL e-mail.

11 e-mails for me

816 spam e-mails :(

Hmm.

[Russ]

Ahh ok, I wasn't sure if you'd get all of them.

Took me bluddy ages to get them all out, i can tell you :spin:

[eddie00001]

I had the same when I went away for 2 weeks. Dread to think what Feb will bring as 'll be in Oz for 4 weeks!!!

[Chris]

I only once had problems with Spam, and that was when, in the days the internet was young(ish) I built a Tripod homepage and put my hotmail addy on it (and I had actually managed to get firstname.surname as my hotmail addy, that's how long ago it was). Within a couple of days my hotmail inbox was so inundated with p0rn I had no choice but to abandon it and allow it to expire and get deleted by MSN.

These days I am extremely careful where I put my email address. Our homepage is built with Apple dotmac tools so that the 'Mail Me' link never reveals my addy to the sender. You won't find my email address anywhere on this site (PM is great for first contact anyway). When I sign up for anything online I always check the 'don't pass on my details' box and if there isn't one, I think very hard about whether to complete the reservation/subscription.

Result: Virtually no spam.

[Mantrid]

I only once had problems with Spam, and that was when, in the days the internet was young(ish) I built a Tripod homepage and put my hotmail addy on it (and I had actually managed to get firstname.surname as my hotmail addy, that's how long ago it was). Within a couple of days my hotmail inbox was so inundated with p0rn I had no choice but to abandon it and allow it to expire and get deleted by MSN.

These days I am extremely careful where I put my email address. Our homepage is built with Apple dotmac tools so that the 'Mail Me' link never reveals my addy to the sender. You won't find my email address anywhere on this site (PM is great for first contact anyway). When I sign up for anything online I always check the 'don't pass on my details' box and if there isn't one, I think very hard about whether to complete the reservation/subscription.

Result: Virtually no spam.

Thanks and good ideas there.

[Nidge]

Just got back from a two week holiday and thought I'd check my NTL e-mail.

11 e-mails for me

816 spam e-mails :(

Hmm.

Try this it's free for 20 days then you can buy it at £19 it's a good bit of kit stops the lot in it's tracks. I've had it for the last 2 months and it rocks, sits at the top of outlook express and scans all the spam and bounces it straight back.

http://www.antispam-software.net/download.htm

[timewarrior2001]

Just got back from a two week holiday and thought I'd check my NTL e-mail.

11 e-mails for me

816 spam e-mails :(

Hmm.
I get this a lot, was away for 3 days, 405 emails, 398 of them were spam.
I have actually now set up several email accounts and I am being spammed on an address I have yet to use!!!!!!. It isnt an addy you would easily figure out either.
Someone somewhere MUST be selling email addresses.

[Ramrod]

I don't get any spam, ever. Very careful with my addy.

[Dooby]

if you have your own domain name registered, you can do something to at least allow you to trace the origin of the 'leak' of your email...
whenever I sign up to anything, i use an email address that is descriptive of teh thing i am signing up for ( i.e. nthellworld.co.uk@<my domain>)
it doesnt stop the spam, but if I then get some pr0n spam to my nthellworld.co.uk@ address, I know whos arse to kick LOL
you can do something similar if you dont have your own domain by using temporary hotmail etc accounts when you are suspicious of the thing you are signing up for...but the domain thing is easier...
if you get a load of spam to a particular email you can just 'disable' the user account for that email address too, so it all bounces...

[Jon M]

in addition to towny's advice on avoiding spam..

if you own a domain and can set up a few email forwards for it, then you can set up addresses that allow you to pinpoint where the spammer has harvested your address.. eg: my email for this site is: nthellworld@*domain* so i know that anything sent to that address has been found by looking at this site.

i also set up an address where i sign up to things that i know would never send me anything i want which i name: spam@*domain*.

all this setting up is worthwhile when you set inbox rules on your email client.. you can automatically delete anything that comes in for the spam@ address... or forward the nthellworld@ ones to a folder called "nthellworld"... you get the idea.

also, for website authors.. there are lots of useful javascript solutions to making your address invisible to automated bots that harvest addresses if anyone is interested in those i can send you details.

lastly, the most common tactic is to shove the words no spam into a valid address with the assumption that whoever uses it has the sense to remove the added text before using it.. eg: nthellworld@*domain* becomes nthellworldNOSPAM@*domain*

hope those help someone out there

*edit: sorry dooby .. didn't mean to repeat what you've put.. it took me a while to write it all out, yours wasn't there when i started me= :dunce: /edit*

[timewarrior2001]

if you have your own domain name registered, you can do something to at least allow you to trace the origin of the 'leak' of your email...
whenever I sign up to anything, i use an email address that is descriptive of teh thing i am signing up for ( i.e. nthellworld.co.uk@<my domain>)
it doesnt stop the spam, but if I then get some pr0n spam to my nthellworld.co.uk@ address, I know whos arse to kick LOL
you can do something similar if you dont have your own domain by using temporary hotmail etc accounts when you are suspicious of the thing you are signing up for...but the domain thing is easier...
if you get a load of spam to a particular email you can just 'disable' the user account for that email address too, so it all bounces...
Thats what i had to do, I now have my firstnamelastname@ntlworld.com addy and several that are descriptive of what I use them for.
If I find anymore unused email addies with spam I shall be seaking an explanation form NTL.

[MetaWraith]

Yep, alway go by the golden rules.
1) dont include a robot readable email address in webpages, break it up in some fashion, eg javascript
2) dont include a robot readable email address in usenet and newsgroup posts, add some gibberish indicating it should be manually removed.
3) Use a prog to inspect mail headers and delete them straight off the server before downloading the rest. I use mailwasher pro.

[birchyboy]

MetaWraith - you might like to try another e-mail client. I have Mailwasher, but I recently installed Thunderbird, Opera and Mozilla just to check their anti-spam out. They all seem to work OK.

I collect my mail now with Thunderbird, which is removing all of the spam as far as I know - I never even see it. It goes straight into the "Junk" folder.

I got back from a week in France recently, and only saw real mail. Thunderbird said I had 70+ messages but only 8 real mails appeard in the In-Box. The rest were in the Junk folder. To see if it had put any wanted mails in the Junk folder, I went through all the messages to check for wanted senders - none. Not bad.

[MadGamer]

Is it from actual e mail addresses that the spam is coming from? The reason is becaise i used to get a lot of spam on my Demon account.

These were the addresses:

Postlog@nicka.demon.co.uk
Home@nicka.demon.co.uk
Postmaster@nicka.demon.co.uk
Undisclosed Recipiants

BTW - Not my e mail but they were still reaching my inbox.

Now i don't get any spam.

[poolking]

I'm getting those pain MS internet patch virus e-mails in my main yahoo account of all places.

[Scarlett]

I'm getting those pain MS internet patch virus e-mails in my main yahoo account of all places.

I'm getting those pain MS internet patch virus e-mails _FROM_ yahoo accounts of all places.

I've gone as far as to classify everything from Hotmail and yahoo as spam in Opera just for the peace and quiet...