My ISP's spam filter catches 200 spams a week. An additional 50 get through to my e-mail program - where 25 get deleted by my own spam filters. I'm ready to change my address. I'm most worried about the legitimate e-mails that get snagged. I don't have the time to weed through the mess, and so the legit e-mails just never get seen.

Posted by: on June 6, 2002 10:38 PM

 

I've had the same email address for about 5 years, so I'm on quite a few spam lists. Add to that the spam I get to the accounts I use on eBay and other places, and I've got quite a truckload.

I got so tired of spam that I set up a mail server and filter all the mail at the server with SpamAssassin.

Think about that. Spam was a significant enough problem in my life that I spent money on hardware, took time to configure the software, and continue to spend the time required to maintain a mail server, just to reduce the influx of junk.

Posted by: Adam Kalsey on June 7, 2002 01:45 AM

 

John, oh John...

Haven't you learnt yet? Why on earth do you hyperlink your main email address john@webword.com so liberally all over the site? Don't you know it will be picked up by spambots? Try putting something like comments@webword.com instead. Or set up a feedback form on the site using a CGI script that doesn't reveal your email address. (BTW, this has a usability bonus too. People who check webword from other PCs, cybercafes, etc. and don't have an email client configured can still send you email.)

Sign up at www.sneakemail.com and create as many random addresses as you want. Use those to sign up for dodgy sites, newsletters, etc. If they start spamming you, can just kill the address.

Want to weed out your 90% spam more effectively? Create a filter in Outlook Express for messages that have the word "John" in them and highlight them in red. These are more likely to be legitimate email.

Also use a program like Mailwasher that downloads just the headers and lets you delete spam direct from the server. Save heaps of time and bandwidth.

Hope this helps.

MadMan
(managing email since 1994)

Posted by: MadMan on June 7, 2002 04:56 AM

 

Adam, that is a real shame. Not only are the spammers making money, you are losing money. That's just not cool.

MadMan, thanks for the advice. I love the Mailwasher link by the way; nice tag at the end.

Posted by: John S. Rhodes on June 7, 2002 07:29 AM

 

I have multiple email addresses, one of which is at least 8 years old...

There are plenty of good guides online on how to prevent spam. Ignore them at your peril.

Email software that can filter based upon message contents is essential. I filter out most spam by searching for words such as "spam"...

When using an email client (non web-based of course) I close my internet connection before reading anything that may have nasty html code in it (easy to do with a good personal firewall)...

I have not found a web-based email program that has good anti-spam capabilities (filtering based upon message contents and the ability to read an html message without triggering anything nasty). Anyone?

Posted by: Ron Zeno on June 7, 2002 10:03 AM

 

I question whether spammers would give up if everyone or nearly everyone stopped clicking on the ads. E-mail spam is an imitation of broadcast marketing.

There is evidence that TV advertising is not effective--or only moderately so--in product promotion. Yet TV is still the holy grail of advertising.

Short of another option, I think spamming would continue despite poor click-through rates.

p.s. Making my e-mail address a simple 'mailto' on this posting would only invite more spam to my box.

Posted by: Bob Robertson-Boyd on June 7, 2002 10:18 AM

 

Hey John, can I charge you $10 for the advice I gave? Unlike a certain other 35-page report on email, mine is short, sweet, and solves some of your problems. :P

Posted by: MadMan on June 7, 2002 11:50 AM

 

The mail link encryptor at www.hivelogic.com ...good, bad?

Posted by: (the other)JS on June 7, 2002 02:07 PM

 

(the other) JS,

Good idea. Practically spambot-proof, but not such a good implementation. Because it uses JS (pardon the pun), people who have Javascript turned off can't use it.

The solution is simple. Just include the HTML entities in the code directly. Putting "hivelogic.com" in your HTML will give you "hivelogic.com" (without quotes, of course.)

A little more effort will yeild the HTML for a mailto link, but spambots won't be able to process it.

Posted by: MadMan on June 7, 2002 03:17 PM

 

Ah, I'm a moron. I won't bother explaining, but let me rephrase:

Putting hivelogic.com in your HTML will give you "hivelogic.com" (without quotes, of course.)

Posted by: MadMan on June 7, 2002 03:20 PM

 

This discussion got me to thinking about some of the spam-filtering services and products out there and why I don't like them. That in turn prompted me to describe what I find to be the ideal spam filtering service.

You can find my ideas at http://kalsey.com/rant/archives/i/000435.stm

I'm curious to know what others think of this concept. Maybe something like this already exists that I'm not aware of.

Posted by: Adam Kalsey on June 7, 2002 06:10 PM

 

Apparently John doesn't have Movable Type configured to convert URLs to links. Here it is as a link:

http://kalsey.com/rant/archives/i/000435.stm

Posted by: Adam Kalsey on June 7, 2002 06:11 PM

 

Personally, I don't think anyone responds to spammers...There are just stupid "companies" out there that are selling software that picks up e-mail addresses, and sad to say I wouldn't be surprised if they made a fortune. I'm fairly sure that the spammers would have a pretty bad response rate and the cost of the software far exceeds the "profits" they will make from whatever junk items they're selling. There's just more and more "companies" telling more and more people how great and easy and profitable spamming is, and when they finally learn, there's a whole nother generation who haven't been warned about this software..(I'm still convinced that buying "opt-in" e-mail addresses is spam)..

Posted by: Matt Rhodes on June 8, 2002 12:32 AM