How I Minize Spam

jereece · Joined: Dec 06, 2002 Posts: 567

I have never had much of a problem with SPAM and really could not understand why so many people did....that is until now.

In the past (and even now), I have used 3rd party email addresses from small, not well known providers. However, recently I took the plunge and got broadband through Earthlink. Along with my account came free email. So I took it and set it up as one of my email accounts. I think I have about 6 now. I have never used my Earthlink email address, but thought I may use it for something one day. Well it was not long I began receiving SPAM to my Earthlink email address. Now it's a dozen a day. So the SPAMers are using tools to guess at email addresses to target the big dogs. So the moral to the story is, don't use well known ISP email addresses and you will cut out a lot of SPAM to start with. Another option is to set up your own domain name and email.

The other thing I do is set up a junk email address. Hotmail or Mail.com are good for this. When I sign up for something and they require an email address, I give them my junk email address. I log into my junk email address once every 60 days and without looking at any of them delete everything. That takes only a couple minutes. So anyone harvesting emails off of the internet will take the one I never check.

Doing these two things alone (no anit-SPAM software), SPAM is usually less than 1% of my email.

Jim

goretsky · Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2006 4:06 am Post subject:

Hello,

Did you select a username which was highly-resistant to guessing (dictionary-type attacks)? If not, that might account for why you received the spam.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Debora · Joined: Mar 28, 2004 Posts: 1769 Location: Iowa

One problem with that, Aryeh, is that noone can remember the actual email address either. LOL a catch 22 so to speak. I tried that, thinking I was being creative, and no one can remember how to "spell" the misspelled word correctly so instead of stopping the spam and getting the mail I wanted, just the opposite happened.

I too use a junk mail address, except it's one I make up on the fly. I never have one to check because unless someone has anybody DeleteThis @hotmail.com the spam goes no where!!! Or, maybe we should all gang up and use THAT same email as our junk mail address!!!

WOOT!!

jereece · Joined: Dec 06, 2002 Posts: 567

I do not use names resistent to spam for the reason Debora gave. I normally just use "jereece" or "jreece" @ whatever. My point is that just by using small less known email providers or your own domain name will go a long way to stop spam. However I do have a real junk email address because when I sign up for forums or a web site that requires registration in order to access, they send a confirmation email. At those times I jump over to my junk email account, reply to the confirmation, then go ahead and delete all the junk while I am there. Then I am good for another 2-3 months.

Jim

Rons · Joined: Dec 07, 2002 Posts: 5667

Webb · Joined: Feb 17, 2003 Posts: 4271

My 2¢.

Earthlink webmail offers a whitelist option. If you really want to use an Earthlink address as your primary address you can turn it on for maximum protection.

You can get a permanent POP3 email address from Bluebottle.com. Unlike Earthlink or other ISP-based mail you can keep the address if/when you change ISP's. It also offers a whitelist option.

Use temporary Jetable addresses for expected junk mail. If I reply to an offer to send me a free sample of something I give a Jetable address that will last for a week, long enough to respond to any requests to verify it. There is even an extension for Firefox that will generate addresses on the fly.

The only email that gets to my computer is from senders on my whitelists. I go through the accounts once a week or so and delete 99.9% of what's in there in a few seconds. Add a few filters to keep this junk to a minimum.