Community Newsletter: Q&A: What can I do to stop spam?
- 10/11/07 12:57 PM
get a good spamicide program
by plusaf - 9/28/07 10:18 PM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
first, never click "unsubscribe," as everyone else should warn you! that just tells the spammer that your email address is valid. it's like hanging a sign on your car that says "I <heart> To Break Laws" and then wondering why you're meeting so many new Highway Patrol officers all of a sudden....
i bought SpamBayes and run it as an Outlook Add-on. I've also logged on to my ISP's email portal and taught their spam killer programs to look for dozens, if not hundreds, of spammers' addresses.
since then, my email downloads, which easily number several hundred a day, get most all of the spam tossed into a junk folder, where i can quickly scan it for messages that i didn't want put there, and rather than take ten minutes or so to look at all of the messages, my new process is: open junk mail folder, scroll page by page for "false positives" then ctrl-a to select them all and hit the delete key.
then a quick click on the deleted files folder and another "select all" and "delete", and they're gone. takes one minute, and life is nice.
and be very careful when you sign up for "free downloads of games and such. i once had a "free download" that i could not delete from my pc at all! it took some serious google searching to find out how to remove a very nasty little "reloader" from my pc.... it was about three years ago, and here's what i had to say about it....
http://www.plusaf.com/soapbox/buddylinks.htm
all the best!
+af
Spam
by phil75 - 9/28/07 10:23 PM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
You could try Spamato. There are two versions ons for Thunderbird and Outlook.
http://www.spamato.net/
How to deal with spam
by shimshai - 9/28/07 10:31 PM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
First of all - NEVER open it and especially NEVER click on any links or try to unsubscribe. Doing this only informs the spammer that they have a real address and will probably cause more spam.
Also I would not change email addresses because it is a hassle for you and doesn't hurt the spammers. Spam is a fact of life and the best way to deal with it is the same way you deal with any problem or challenge - preparation and maintenance.
The best thing to do is to set up your email account(s) correctly.
You probably already have a junk mail folder and, hopefully, a lot of your junk mail already goes there.
Here is what I find works best for me for dealing with junk mail that makes it to my inbox(es):
Set up 2 sub-folders under your inbox:
Call folder #1 Contacts (or something similar) - this folder is for email from real people you know (people in your address book).
Call folder #2 SafeList (or something similar) - this folder is for other emails that you want but are not from friends such as newsletters you subscribe to like CNET, etc...
Then set up some filters/rules based on the from address in your email account(s) that direct incoming emails to the appropriate folder.
This way all emails in your contacts folder are personal and kept separate. All other good (expected) emails are in your Safelist folder.
You expect your good email to be in your special folders.
The emails left in the inbox are then expected to be spam.
It may take you an hour or more to set up your email account correctly but it is well worth it. Once inital setup is done then maintenance is the key. A few minutes a week to add new addresses to your filters. After a few weeks then maintenance is practically nothing because you have all the email addresses in your filters/rules.
Once set up correctly this will save lots of time going through emails. You expect the emails left in the inbox to be junk. You can quickly scan them (without opening them) and, usually, just delete them all. If one catches your eye as a good email then you just add them to your safelist filter or contacts filter.
I have had the same email accounts - hotmail and gmail - for years and I have very little spam to deal with because I seperate my other emails. Remember preparation and maintenance!
Spam
by vgraybeard - 9/28/07 10:41 PM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
When you "unsubscribe" from spam, you are letting them know that they have a "good" address. Delete without opening seems to be the best policy. If you are corresponding with people who forward rather than cut and paste, find more savvy people to contact. Signing on-line petitions is another great way to to give your e-mail address to spammers. Educate yourself on the ways spammers get your info and avoid those situations. I have forwards, right now, with hundreds of e-mail addresses on them; some from a heart surgeon, some from a lawyer ans one from an engineer. It isn't that they are stupid, it is that they just don't know or understand. "Unsubscribe" is contact and is the "ping" that lets them know they have connected.
Gettng rid of unwanted e-mail!
by samlopez - 9/28/07 11:00 PM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Check with your ISP they usually have tools to help.
Spam Assasin is good they also might have a black list.
You can add the persistant e-mails to the list.
Some have a custom setup for users:
You can setup one to delete e-mails with blank subjects
or always permit e-mails that are in your address book.
There are many possibilties thay also have popup blockers.
Most All of Us have been in your SHOES JO B.
by Fiftysumthin - 9/28/07 11:02 PM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
First order of business for me in checking email inbox is to check any message that appears to be spam and I hit the junk button and NEVER open them. Opening spam confirms your address is operative and that is what they want.
Surely your email provider has a "black list" or BLOCK feature. Unless you paid the top $$ to get their top of the line features it may not allow for 300 or so listings but it is worth using it for as many as you can and after a couple of months delete those entered and "restock" your spam senders.
Others likely will provide far greater insight for you but I have shared what I most likely would see as my first optionsl.
World's greatest spammer
by Lars Johansson - 9/28/07 11:12 PM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The "real people" are fiction, messages come via hijacked servers, from Canadian Pharmacy and FreeLotto (seems there's one legal and one criminal FreeLotto site).
To find the real story about Canadian Pharmacy, you have to find one among a couple of anti-spam identities among 59 pages of Google entries - all others describing and praising Canadian Pharmacy, a mail-order company selling drugs for self-medication (cheaper in Canada than in the US). So the truth has practically been blocked off - how could Google permit this to happen?
The FreeLotto site looks much more professional than its African equivalent, the Nigerian Letter, but the purpose is the same, to get
your credit card number. You're promised a million dollars as a free win, receive nothing, and then your credit card account is drained. But they forget about you after you have neglected to fill in the form for collecting the winnings, in spite of frequent reminders and an extended time for reply.
One source claims Canadian Pharmacy also sells its customers' credit card numbers to criminals, possibly the New York Mafia.
What to do about it? I don't know. Canadian authorities apparently do not investigate, those who regulate the Net so far haven't taken action. It seems there are at least links between Canadian Pharmacy and FreeLotto(crim).
If you happen to find Usama Bin Laden's Email address, give it to Canadian Pharmacy, or tell Al-Quaeda it's owned by President Bush/Henry Kissinger/Salman Rushdie/etc, then wait and see.
Lars J, Sydney
Don't Open Spam!
by iogt007 - 9/28/07 11:39 PM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
How did you get all this spam? You probably opened an email that promised you a free laptop or big screen TV and you filled out a survey that went on forever. The best thing to do is select each one and click the Junk button on the web page of your mail server. Once it is in the junk folder, delete it if it hasn't already been deleted. As the days go on you will see less and less spam. Trust me, you will never see that laptop or big screen they promised you no matter how many surveys you completed. Never open the email as it will notify the sender that he has a good email address and you will see even more spam. Another thing you can do is check the message source and copy the (return to:)IP server address @(viagra.com), go to internet options, click privacy tab, click sites, and paste the address into the web address blank and click block. If the return to address is hotmail or yahoo or one that you visit normally, you won't want to do this. Depending who your mail server is, there are ways to block the sender. If you have Yahoo, you can just click the spam button to identify that sender as spam. Outlook also offers a block sender option. Most of the time these adresses are spoofed so blocking won't help, they'll just use another address as the sender. Another option is you can filter your mail to receive only from your contacts. Check out your mail filter options on your mail server page. Send all unwanted email to the junk folder and delete! Do not open any! you might just open up a can of worms and trojans if you do.
A RELEASE FROM COMPUTERS İRRELEVANT PROBLEMS DUE TO TROUBLE
by ergün erbay - 9/29/07 12:05 AM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Dear friendsthrough this letter İam writing you a letter ,and greet all of you ,but the main attitude of this letter is an answer to a letter from Jo B.who claims and complains about the problems with his computer exactly with his MSN NewsLetters service ,which is very easy by making a contact with appropriate service to inform them about whether they want to have more newsletters or not ,they are always kindly and in a friendly way asked to submit,either onthe other way ,our friend could have a very serious technical problem with his computer ,he must be in a contact with appropriate technical service for computers.Many greetings to all of you.
SPAM SPAM SPAM
by beachbog - 9/29/07 12:07 AM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
350 in a month you say: lucky you; I see that in about a day - but my problem later.
Maybe you are not so lucky; if your ISP gives you a very small mailbox, it might have filled up and you could have lost other important mail.
Right, that horse has gone. You're gonna have to live with spam. Your address has doubtless been sold on. But do bolt the door not to lose any more horses. First, make sure you have a good anti-virus (e.g. AVG) scanning your email on arrival. Make sure you have a good firewall (e g ZoneAlarm, not Windows) operating all the time. Scan regularly for spyware (e g both AdAware and Spybot). Set one spyware guard to run in the background - (I use Spyware Terminator). It might be a good idea to do some research on Trojan and Rootkit hunters; you could already have been caught.
Now, set up a POP email address only for trusted correspondents - and 'friends' who forward witty things they picked up from untrustworthy sources are not to be trusted. Don't accept email/attachments from other sources except in plain text or RTF. Instruct your ISP only to accept mail for this address.
Now, set up a webmail address or two - Yahoo, Hotmail, whatever, and keep these addresses for different classes of correspondent. Do you have a web site with a 'Contact' option. Give that a special webmail address. Do you download or register software? use another webmail adress. Maybe keep another webmail address for people you don't know well enough to guarantee as trusted.
Now, travelling: away for a month and didn't check you emails? Open a Googlemail account and instruct it to poll your pop mailbox, and any others that might have important mail. Now when you are away try to check your Gmail account, and any webmail accounts that are important at least once a week, on a friend's computer, at a library, an internet cafe.
Security bolts: there are also programs to vet your mail before downloading it (eg mailwasher; I use MailboxDispatcher 2). That way the spam never reaches your computer, but belt and braces, your email client (eg Thunderbird) has junk filters which learn to reject spam. Study and use them.
Should you open a spam email? No, no, no. Should you click to unsubscribe? Never. That's just like opening the doors and saying anybody can come in.
I hope you will get more and better advice. I haven't solved all my own problems, mainly because I have a web site that has to be accessible to the visually impaired, and is free from any clent side scripting - open door.
Good luck!
beachbog
McAfee Site Advisor
by irishbob - 10/6/07 10:34 AM In reply to: SPAM SPAM SPAM by beachbog***** I have found McAfee Site Advisor (freeware) to help me cut down on spam. When you make a search engine query it comes back with a green, yellow or red indicator as to how much email and spam you can expect from a given site. There is also a grey circle with a ? as that site has not been fully tested.
They personally test each site they rate so they are working with real time information.
***** Another thing that has helped me cut down on spam is to manually manage my cookies. I go to Tools - Internet Options - Privacy - Advanced and check off "OVERRIDE AUTOMATIC COOKIE HANDLING". Then I checked off PROMPT for both my First Party Cookies and Third Party Cookies.
Thereafter, each time you go to a new website any cookies that want to be placed in your system must get your permission first. You will learn that certain cookies like online banking, Amazon, Yahoo and other legit sites that need to store your information need to be approve. Anything that has the words "ad or ads or click or survey and the like are ones you want to block.
You can make them permanent blocks or allow by clicking on the box beside "Apply this to all future cookies from this website.
***** What if you discover you blocked a cookie that you really need to allow at some point? Good Question! 
You go to Tools - Internet Options - Privacy - Sites. This has a list of all the sites you have blocked or allowed. Go down the list to find the name of the site you want to unblock and allow, double click on it and click on ALLOW, press OK and you are back to the Privacy Screen.
***** While you are there you can also click on MS free feature to block pop-ups. I also use Google Pop Up Blocking feature on thier tool bar.
***** Bottom line, I have no pop ups at all. I have a spam hit my inbox maybe 1 every two months or so. Then with those I mark them as SPAM or Junk so any future ones coming from that address go into those folders and are deleted.
***** It is a good thing to check your SPAM and JUNK folders weekly to make sure that any legit email have not been automatically sent to those folders. Then you click on the email and click on either THIS IS NOT SPAM" or THIS IS NOT JUNK" if you find misdirected emails. I use OUTLOOK for most of my mail, so when I redirect misdirected emails to my INBOX, there is a click on box that allows you to note to always treat that particular address as legit.
********** As far as anyone being "an idiot for clicking on spam" I say to them judge not or you will be judged. There are people new to the internet all the time and have no idea about the dangers of opening spam or clicking on pop ups, thier children may use the computer and have a habit of getting excited about the marketing the spammers use and think they are going to get some great deal for free or any other reason for that happening.
Any fool can take shots at strangers from behind your computer screen. It takes a real man or woman to respond with what you believe to be value added information in a positive manner.
Enuf said **********
Bald Bob from Bristol
JoB------Spam
by Oldmentor - 9/29/07 12:16 AM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Never respond to spam. If you do, you are telling them that they have an active address.
I know all of us have a spam problem. I purchased SpamFighter & use it all the time. It doesn't catch all the spam; but gets most of it. The program is the best one that I have tried.
The only way to cut down on Spam is to arrest more of the spammers and sentence them to stiffer jail time.
To download SpamFighter go to www.spamfighter.com
SPAM
by doncapo2007 - 9/29/07 12:17 AM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Often SPAN is sent from an address that is not the address from which it is sent. Email can be sent to an undisclosed recipient or from a fake address. Essentially this is no different than what can happen in the overland mail.
Opening mail can sometimes increase the risk of virus attacks, even if just to search for an unsubscribe link.
It is best to divert the email to your junk or spam folder rather than delete it. This way software such as outlook or aol will recall the type of mail either by words int he email or otherwise, and autmoatically block it.
There are the odd SPAM mails that will get through, but your situation should improve.
The problem often arises when you put your email address on a website or some forum and spiders collect this information which is then used by the spammers.
Most spam is just annoying junk mail, but you should always be cautious of malicious mailers and keep your antivirus up to date.
Patience will do the trick, Jo.
by Rog Patterson - 9/29/07 12:38 AM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I got myself into a similar fix about six months ago, Jo. The ultimate solution is to just delete all of these incoming entreaties and DO NOT attempt to unsubscribe. I tried using their unsubscribe options and realized I was getting even more unwanted garbage. Just delete, delete, delete and they WILL give up after a few months. And, in the future, don't respond to any offer of a free dSLR digicam, a free week in the Bahamas or a free trip to the moon. They trigger problems like yours.
Not having to eat SPAM
by goldgraham - 9/29/07 12:45 AM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
You don't say who your email provider is; the features offered by your provider are key to managing junk mail (spam).
Most email providers provide a junk filter, so first of all turn this on. Any difficulty with doing this use the help on your email providers website. The junk mail handler moves all the suspicious mail to a separate folder. Check this for genuine emails and move them back to the inbox then delete everything else in one operation - takes seconds.
Try and get rid of all the spam using your web email service before you bring it down to your computer. If you only 'pop' your email at the moment, that means you use a PC based email client like Outlook Express or Eudora, you can still pre-process the email on the web before you fire-up your email client.
If you prefer to handle everything at the PC. Your email client will have junk mail handlers, make sure you have the latest version, download it if not, and turn on the junk mail features. Again it will move the suspicious email to the junk mail folder. You still have to check. Googlemail classifies emails from one of banks as junk (it's usually correct I have to say!) this is easily rectified by adding the friendly junk's email address to your addressbook.
If your email provider really can't help, then you will have to think about changing provider. You can normally set up automatic forwarding to a new email address from you old one. That will take care of old contacts. All of the major email providers, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft have pretty effective junk mail handlers.
Tips:
Never reply or try to unsubscribe from junk mail unless it is a genuine organisation but you no longer want their information (you ticked a box or forgot to untick it at some stage). Responding to the real junk just makes your email address more valuable because you have confirmed it is genuine and in use. It will just encourage more spam.
Set up a spare email address with a strange name, set up autoforwarding to your genuine email address and let the email provider's spam filter do the rest. Use this email when you give your email to people or web sites you are not absolutely sure of. Mine is goldnotspam@gmail.com - I am quite happy to quote it because it filters junk very effectively and my 'friends' would use my real address.
Have an email address that is independent of your internet provider, employer or club. That way when you change any of these your email doesn't change. Protect your email address, think about who you are giving it to. But we all make mistakes I reckon I am an experienced user but I let Facebook raid my address book last month and contact everyone it.
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