Spam

YOU can control spam
Get a new address and keep it private
If a friend sends the joke of the day with a hundred addressees, tell that person to remove you from their address book.
Get a product called Mailwasher (www.mailwasher.net)
Set up message rules in Outlook Express
Get a free @yahoo.com address for sites that require you to register, or provide a bogus address (not always a good idea as some sites require you to validate your address)
Never EVER respond to spam ESPECIALLY if they say "respond if you want us to remove your name from out mailing list"
The above is okay with legit sites, such as CNN, Home Depot, or other REPUTABLE sites

I do all this and more and I get one or two items of spam a month

YOU can control spam!!!

The battle isn't necessarily lost. My email address has been on my website for about seven years and my spam load is managable. My gross total incoming spam averages about 30/day.

My first line of defense is Spamcop http://www.spamcop.net . They generally stop about 90% of the spam.

For most of the rest, I use Popfile http://sourceforge.net/projects/popfile/ . That's currently running at over 96% accurate.

But, all that may become moot.

Just last week my webhost implemented something called greylisting http://www.greylisting.org . The short version is, whenever my host's email server sees a new To/From/IP-address triplet, it responds with a standard "I'm busy" error code. A properly configured email server should respond to that error and send the message again. After a delay, my host will accept the retry and send the message on to my mailbox, and also whitelist that triplet for immediate delivery in the future.

Dedicated spam software and zombie computers currently ignore all error messages. So they never even try to send the message again. So I never see those.

It's reported as currently 97% effective. And that's about what I'm seeing. I went from 30/day to less than 1/day.

The only false-positives I'm seeing are some newsletters, including from CNET, incidentally. But all of the greylisting implementations include the ability to whitelist sending domains and IP ranges associated with those domains. Also, if this becomes popular then the newsletter software will be changed to respond appropriately to a "busy" code.

Of course, spammers will change their software, too. Greylisting will not work by itself for very long. But, it will require the spammer to resend the message from the same IP address until the receiver decides to accept it. With a delay of about an hour, that will give spam blacklists a chance to recognize the spamming IP address and block it. Therefore, by the time the server is ready to let the message through, it then knows that it doesn't need to bother.

This is not something you can implement on your home computer. It's something you might want to suggest your ISP to look into, so they can decide if they want to put it on their mail servers. Personally, I think it's a pretty elegant layer in the defense against spam.

I love Mailwasher. It has saved me thousands of hours. Recent report tells me that in the past week alone I've deleted over 900 spam messages!!! (Automatically - thank God!). It allows you to set up a friends list, filter and blacklist that automatically flags each email. Works beautifully. You still have to deal with the cagier spammers but with regular tweaks to your blacklist you can stay one step ahead.

Check it out: http://entier.ecosm.com/system/redir.php?ad=6&aid=2190

if you get it, drop me a note and I'll send you my extensive blacklist (3000+ names) to get you started.

Good luck!
BB

I use "I hate spam" software which is very reasonably priced. It don't block everything, but does pretty good. You can find it on the web.
I dont work for them just use their software at work and home.
I get several 100's of spam everday and it sort it out for me. I get a chance to reveiw what it considers spam and then delete it. It remembers the spam and filters it out

After hearing about the new company that provides the Anti-Spam EMail service, which replys to questionable EMails with a "This mailbox does not receive SPAM Emails, if you are not a SPAMMER please reply and identify yourself to the recipient." I said to myself, well you can do this with Outlook. It is just like call screening and it only is bothersome once to the people you want to speak with.

So I set up rule, If a mail comes from someone NOT in the address book, Outlook replys to the mail with a note to write for another mailbox. If it is someone I wish to receive Email from, I add the name to my address book. Simple, clean and invisable to me.

The best solution I have found is to create a new email account, and use it only for email. Notify all of your correspondents, and give them 30 days to start using your new email address. Do not do any web surfing with your new internet account at all; that will prevent cookies from being installed on your machine, and also spam. Continue to use your old internet account for surfing.
Certain Internet providers (like AOL) give you the option of blocking all mail unless the sender is on a list that you have set up. If you have AOL, that's an easier way to handle spam. I don't have AOL - I think it's too expensive, and since you can get just about anything you want or need from other ISP's, like YAHOO for free, why spend the $$. Hope this helps.

i have a good idea, but i don't know how far it will help or work in controlling spam mails. Infact i use to get lot of spam mails and i really felt irritated and just created a new mail id.

coming to the point, if u can create a new filter/link as unsubscribe/block all the id's in the bulk folder, the user can just check all the id's in the bulk folder and if he feels that every mail is irrelevent to them, they can just click a button to unsubscribe. So it will be just a click away to avoid spam mails out.

Hope it's an useful idea. But i don't know much about technical advancement regarding mail accounts.

regards,

MANIKANTAN

Only one solution, change yur email address. Then religiously run spyware programs (I use Spyware Blaster and Adaware), and control your cookies.

Dear BossWork,

Thank you for your posting. I recently wrote an article called, "Seven ways to a Spam Free Life." Here is a brief from the article. I hope this helps.

Warmest regards,

Bronson Tang

1) Make sure your Internet Service Provider (ISP) has a spam policy. Your ISP
is an important line of defense in the battle against spam. Ask your ISP about
what policies and procedures they have in place to combat spam.
? Do they filter spam? This is a must for any ISP.
? Do they host Web sites that are known to advertise using spam
("spamvertise")? If so, find a new ISP that doesn't host spamvertisers.
? Are they proactive? Spammers constantly change their techniques and
your ISP needs to stay aware of these changes. Find out how they guard
against these sneaky techniques.
2) Don't open or reply to spam. When scrolling through e-mail messages, avoid
opening and/or replying to spam. Opening or answering any spam tells
spammers your account is active, ultimately resulting in more spam.
3) Don't "unsubscribe" to spam. Many spam-related e-mails contain an
"unsubscribe option." You would think that responding to this option should be
enough to remove your name and e-mail address from future mailings and
advertisements; however, spammers often use this mechanism to confirm that
your account is active, thereby resulting in more spam.
4) Report spammers. This is an easy and effective way to reduce spam. Once you
suspect you're a victim, contact your local ISP and forward them a copy of the
spam. Most ISPs can take the necessary measures to "blacklist" the message
sender. If your ISP is ineffective, you can take other steps to report spammers,
including contacting any one of the following non-profit organizations that
generate and maintain spam "blacklists:"

? SpamHaus Project (www.spamhaus.org)
? Spamcon Foundation (www.spamcon.org)
? Privacy (www.privacy.org)
? Junkbusters (www.junkbusters.com)
? TRAC (Telecommunications Research and Action Center)
(www.trac.org/banspam)
? CAUCE (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial e-mail)
(www.cauce.org)
? Fight Spam on the Internet (www.spam.abuse.net)
5) Use a disposable e-mail address. Create an e-mail address specifically
designed for online purchases, subscriptions and discussions forums. Never use
your primary e-mail address. Establishing a disposable e-mail address can be
done through your ISP, an e-mail provider, or through a variety of companies that
exclusively cater to disposable e-mail addresses, including:
? SpamMotel (www.spammotel.com)
? SpamGourmet (www.spamgourmet.com)
? Spamex (www.spamex.com)
6) Invest in a solid anti-spam program or service. Depending on your individual
and/or company needs, the cost and benefits of an anti-spam program or service
will vary. Regardless of the method you choose, ensure that your program or
service includes the following:
? Blacklisting: Lists Web sites and e-mail addresses from which you do not
wish to receive e-mail.
? White listing: In contrast to blacklist, this list provides Web sites and email
addresses from which you do wish to receive e-mail.
? Attribute/Policy Filtering: This is a list of certain criteria that spam e-mail
contains such as specific subject lines, keywords, coding etc. Your
program or service also will use this list of criteria to filter spam.
7) Know your rights. As much as we hate it, spam is legal in the U.S. However,
Congress, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and individual states across the
country are taking steps to control the amount of spam received. Recent
measures include:
? Anti-spam legislation (many argue it has been ineffective).
? A proposed bill in Congress would require companies to provide a valid
return address on e-mail, so that consumers can legitimately request to
be removed from mailing lists without being subject to more spam.
? Greater FTC responsibility in fighting spam, including selectively cracking
down on bogus business promotions.
To learn more about laws pertaining to spam, visit www.spamlaws.com -- an educational
resource containing a compilation of national and international laws concerning spam.
If you think you've been the victim of e-mail fraud, contact the FTC at uce@ftc.gov.

Mail cleaning programs are fine for a while, but the spammers soon find their ways around them.

I prefer to take a more pro-active and less expensive approach to spam. I mentally accept I will get it and create mail folders for my friends, families, and mailing lists to separate my wanted mail from unwanted mail as well as separating my various levels of wanted mail from each other.

This necessitates my looking for unexpected wanted messages in my Inbox, but there aren't very many, and all my known wanted mail goes into the other mail folders, I have created with mail rules/filters.

I am a listowner and forum webmaster which puts a lot of mail into my main mailbox, but filtering in this way keeps the Inbox relatively free of the load, and a quick look is usually all I need to check for NON-spam in the Inbox. In other words, I give the spammers my Inbox and create other folders for my real mail. It's easy to keep the Inbox clean with that method. I click Edit/Select all, then click Mark as read, then I delete it. I prefer to have only unread mail in the Deleted Items folder.

First of all, i'd like to point out the fact that some of those parties responsible for the spam floods are kind enough to post a small link on their messages that really works and really removes you from their subscribtion lists.

Second, my suggestion to effectively stop spam all over the world is not something that a simple user can do, but one that email-hosting companies can; which is simply requiring a password for everybody to send an email to a particular address:
for example, if i want to send John Smith an email, i'll have to fill in his email address, and a password that he has already specified for those who want to email him, and that i should naturally know if i'm allowed to bug him and on the same time it's a piece of info that's not available for spammers.
And still the password can be changed anytime by John Smith (just like his own account passowrd), if he feels it fell into spammers hands, this should buy him ages before spammers reach him again.

As someone else suggested - what would be a big help is password protected email. NO - not the password that you use to access your email but a password that anyone sending you email would need to send with their messages to you in order for their message to be accepted by your email.

Any email sent to you without the password would be immediately deleted.

Until such a program becomes available you could try this. Set up an email filter that would require a password in the subject line of every email message sent to you. For instance, lets say you select "tulip" as the passwood. Your email filter would set this rule: "If the subject does NOT contain tulip move the message to trash (or whatever folder you select)" Better yet if this option if available: "If the subject does NOT contain tulip delete the message" -- This second option is NOT available in Yahoo mail however.

Once you've done this send an email to everyone you wish to receive email from that they MUST include "tulip" in the subject line of every message they send to you.

Of course the problem with this is that there are bound to be times when you will want to receive messages from other parties that will not be equipped to add "tulip" to their subject lines. For them you would have to use a second email address or possibly set up other filters that would take precedence allowing such mail to go into other specified folders.

If you started getting unwanted mail simply change the designated word and let everyone you wish to receive mail from know the new word that replaces "tulip"