Community Newsletter: Q&A: What can I do to stop spam?
- 10/11/07 12:57 PM
Spam Bumph
by lesarmstrong1 - 10/6/07 4:47 PM In reply to: Not having to eat SPAM by goldgrahamI find that www.SPAMJAB.com is GREAT! They give you the list, but its not on your machine till you request it. Les.
filters in Outlook work
by sharee100 - 12/24/07 11:06 AM In reply to: Spam Bumph by lesarmstrong1I set up filters in Outlook. I enter keywords such as Mortgage, Viagra, Valium,singles, debt and Outlook automatically moves emails with those words into my junk mail file or automatically deletes them. I get 50-100 junk emails per day. And as new junk/spam makes its way into my in folder, I add more keywords to the filter.
Spam (compressed meat!)
by mrlemarquis - 9/29/07 1:00 AM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hello!
Yes, I agree with you,in the last few weeks/months, the spam content has been rising.Annoying, because it CAN happen that a "non-spam" mail can be diverted to the spam box, so it means a quick look at the titles/sender names of those spams. Doesn't take long, but too long!
Depending on your mail server, there are a few things you can do. Firstly make sure your mail server has an adequate spam filter.
Secondly check whether you can create filters, or ban certain addresses from sending mail/refusing mail from certain addresses. Problem there is that many companies use sending addresses for all sorts, some of which you may want, others you don't! If you refuse mail from one of those addresses, then you won't get any mail from it!
Other mail servers, like "Incredimail" offer a service where you can send a "fake" reply to spam, saying that the recipient address does not exist, and ar the same time putting a block onto messages from the sender of a particular message. Problem there is that you can spend all your time using these drtvices, and STILL receive them! Beleive me, the creators of Spam have more addresses than you can possibly beleive, and can think up new ones quicker than you can ban/send fake replies!
I use uniquely Gmail, and I find the Spam filter works very well. It doesn't stop 100% getting through to my inbox, but nearly! Of course, there are programmes, both free and payable which have a larger capability of detecting spam, but I've found that generally the more criteria you give to Spam blockers, the more chance there is that certain "regular" mails will end up in the spam Box, making it even more imperative to check through all the garbage!
A simpler way of trying to do it, is to ask all the people who send you regularly mail to try and format their mail in such a manner that it would be impossible for it to end up in the spam! Difficult, but possible to do.
Apart from these few things, I think we're all open to regular time wasting with spam, and just as during the WW2 and after, Spam and Corned Beef will conquer the World!
Antispam and common sense.
by flashmx2004 - 9/29/07 1:25 AM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
From what you say, it seems that there is a lot of spam. First of all is, check those spam, and delete. If you're willing to sacrifice, check the tickbox at the top and delete the whole row, possibly with your precoius emails with it. A word of caution: do not open any of the emails. To block spam, try using Windows Live Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail, as these offer antispam and antimalware for free. Or, you can download free antispam tools like CyberDefenderFREE, Comodo Antispam Desktop, Cactus Spam Filter, or ChoiceMail Free. Prevention is better than cure, so try free programs like McAfee's SiteAdvisor, LinkScanner Lite, or Dr.Web's plugin for scanning links. Don't click on any ads that you see, and when signing up for something [e.g. email account, antivirus], be cautious about giving your email address. The last resort is of course, changing to a new mailbox.
Antispam Prevention
by Philscbx - 10/9/07 2:41 AM In reply to: Antispam and common sense. by flashmx20041. Only Use Yahoo Mail, (Lowest Level E Mail Service) for sites you want to take chances with until they are verified. Once verified, then reply to vendor through a first level E Mail such as MSN, or MAC Mail.
2. Only Yahoo, regardless of what you may think, allows Scammers from Africa, Russia, ETC. Doesn't matter what preventive means used, it will come in and flood your Yahoo account.
3. Not once in 3 years have I ever had a Spam email in my MAC mail.
Free Email, expect trouble.
If you open African email offers, then you deserve what You get.
Trouble is, you could be passing along the virus to all your friends.
That's their intent to use one person out of a million to help their cause.
4. Pay Attention!
Re Read the TITLE and SUBJECT lines.
4a. Do You Really need to know how to make your body parts altered for special Effects?
4b. Do You Really think some Idiot from Africa with a Million wants to share it with you? Then You have TOO much time on your hands, and the curse should just pluck out your eyes instead.
4c. Just so you know, they have now moved into a new direction to make you think they are a soldier in Iraq in need of help. Yea Right!
Forwarded emails are a Godsend to spammers!!!
by robert.bev - 10/10/07 11:25 AM In reply to: Antispam and common sense. by flashmx2004Hi everybody
We get spam because our email addresses are forwarded willy nilly by the 50% of people who do not know how to forward an email correctly.
Its nice to receive a funny from friends, although occasionally I get emails that have been forwarded and re-forwared many times and some with about 200 addresses on them, most people do not want their address publicizing in this manner, these emails with all the amassed active email addresses are a godsend to spammers.
Rule 1 wipe off (delete, blitz) all other email addresses before forwarding any email.
Rule 2 Always use the BCC tab (Blind Corbon Copy)when sending a mail to more than one person.
Rule 3 Do not put your email address on a petition no mater how worthy.
Rule 4 Do not open any mail if you don't know who sent it.
It is up to us all to educate our fellow PC users on how to prevent our email addresses from getting into the hands of "SPAMMERS!!!"
Regards to all Robert.
Dealing with SPAM...
by Wolfie2k5 - 9/29/07 1:51 AM In reply to: What can I do to stop spam? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Jo,
DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, UNDER PAIN OF DEATH, NEVER, EVER, EVER SEND A REPLY TO SPAM!!!!!!! Not even if you think your life depends on it.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I'll tell you why. Spammers sometimes send out an email with a destination that's "close" to your email address. For instance, your email might be job@somewhere.com. The spammer might send one out to jobS@somewhere.com - note the extra S. Many email servers, thinking they're doing you a favor, will automatically forward such emails your way, thinking the sender may have misspelled your email address by mistake. It happens.
So what happens when you open spam and worse yet, send a reply? You're doing something that puts a smile on the spammer's face. You're VALIDATING your email address. Even if that spammer is "honest" enough to not send anything your way, they WILL sell their list to others and now they can actually TARGET you for far more spam than you can shake a stick at.
And if you think that's bad enough, it gets worse. MANY bits of spam have nasty payloads attached to them in the form of viruses and other crapware that can infect and slow down your system. All you have to do is open them and due to vulnerabilities in Windows, IE, Firefox, etc..., you can get infected - even if your AV is up to date.
Third, they may also contain tracking elements - tiny 1 pixel x 1 pixel graphic images that log your opening and downloading of the email. More often than not, they log your IPA address.
Even if the email itself is "harmless", more often than not you won't find any "unsubscribe" links - just a link that WILL more often than not lead to very dangerous web sites that can infect your system with some sort of downloader or other nasty malware.
Changing your email address is not a long term solution either. Ok... You will, no doubt, in the short term, make your inbox seem quite empty. But as you pass out the new email address to the sites you normally visit, and if any of those sites are unscrupulous and desperate enough to SELL their email lists to other people, odds are, you'll be back to square ONE - namely the vast volume of spam in the inbox. This, btw, is more often than not how the whole spam cycle starts. You visit a site, you sign up for a newsletter, and they sell your email address as a part of their list to one of their "affiliates" who in turn may sell it to someone less scrupulous. And that person will sell it to even lower forms of human scum and so forth.
Sadly, there's no easy way to stop spam. As long as even 1 in a million people actually open and out of desperation, stupidity, or by way of some other brain fart, click on the link and god help them spend money on the spammer's sites, the spam will keep on multiplying.
As PT Barnum once wisely spake, "There's a sucker born every minute." Unfortunately, this is still true. If it weren't true, spam wouldn't be an issue. Spammers, like anyone else in business, do it because there's money in it for them.
The bottom line - it's best to delete spam wholesale, sight unseen, punitively, without mercy or giving it a second thought. It's a fact of modern life like getting up in the morning and going to work. And done right, you never have to get past the sender's name and the subject of the email. Just highlight the whole batch, look through it and find and unmark those that are legit and send the rest of the spam where it belongs - oblivion.
I thought the question was
by lucky76 - 10/5/07 7:38 PM In reply to: Dealing with SPAM... by Wolfie2k5I thought the question was what he could about spam, no tell him how stupid he is to open emails from people he doesn't know.
Stupidity? - how so?
by traveler273 - 10/5/07 8:49 PM In reply to: I thought the question was by lucky76Well, he is telling him what to do as well, plus warning. What is wrong with that?
An ounce of prevention...
by mattd241 - 10/6/07 4:40 AM In reply to: I thought the question was by lucky76I think it was a good answer, as no program will prevent every piece of spam from reaching your mailbox. If people understand WHY and HOW they get on spam lists they will not have a problem to solve.
SPAM...and the tone of your reply...
by RMANTHEY56 - 10/6/07 7:51 PM In reply to: I thought the question was by lucky76...where in all of the email that you're referring to did Wolfie2k5 refer to anyone as being stupid? Assuming Wolfie2k5 is a man, all he did was tell this person why you don't want to open a spam email, all in an extremely polite manner.
That said, in less than 30 days I have received over 3600 emails delivered to my BULK/SPAM folder. 99.9% of them are legitimate SPAM, the other .1% should have gone to my regular Inbox. That's 3600 in less than a month EXCLUSIVE of the SPAM that still slips through and finds it's way into my regular Inbox. I gave in a long time ago. The only way I'm going to truly, noticeably reduce the amount of SPAM mail that I receive is to stop visiting websites...and that ain't gonna happen.
If you receive very important mail electronically, then all it takes is a few moments to quickly scan the subject lines or the "From" column to determine if any legitimate mail has been mistakenly sent to your SPAM folder, and then delete the rest. If you don't receive any email that, if lost, would create a catastrophic, life or death situation, them simply do a mass delete of the SPAM folder however frequently you find necessary. I can't speak for all web-based mailboxes, but with Yahoo, even if you have a free account that I believe is limited to 200MB's or more, it doesn't count toward your quota so nothing to worry about there.
My personal opinion about SPAM? It's not going away, and with the amount of keystrokes I make in the course of a day, a simple click of the delete button next to the SPAM folder is an inconsequential amount of time out of my life that I will never get back, unlike the time I just spent attempting to help you understand that your reply,
"I thought the question was what he could about spam, no tell him how stupid he is to open emails from people he doesn't know." was completely uncalled for.
As for "stupid", well, reread your sentence and count the grammatical errors.
Luckily...
by herbs_22 - 10/5/07 9:30 PM In reply to: Dealing with SPAM... by Wolfie2k5Nowadays, some e-mail services have an anti-spam filter that lets you put some sorting automatically. I, most of the time just open my outbox, and there they are... the nasty spam messages. But not all of times that these spams would automatically land-ho at my outbox. Prevention is better than cure.
Dealing with SPAM...by Wolfie2k5
by mnmidnight - 10/5/07 9:31 PM In reply to: Dealing with SPAM... by Wolfie2k5wolfie2k5
She asked what time it is ( how to stop spam) not how to build a watch ( not why spam exists, who creats it, why she gets more & more of it etc)
Did you read what Wolfie2k5 said?
by reidbird - 10/6/07 7:08 AM In reply to: Dealing with SPAM...by Wolfie2k5 by mnmidnightRe-read the message. YOU CAN'T STOP SPAM.
Queston: "What do I do about it?"
Answer: "Delete it?"
Question: "How do I stop it?"
Answer: "You can't"
Question: "How do I get less spam?"
Answer: "Don't ever click on or respond to a spam message. Be careful to whom you give your email address"
Question: "I don't like spam. Whine, whine, whine."
Answer: "Life isn't fair"
C'mon people...
by charmorin - 10/6/07 9:05 AM In reply to: Dealing with SPAM...by Wolfie2k5 by mnmidnightThis was a very good answer as you can't know how to stop something if you didn't know how it started in the first place!
Thank you for your great answer, Wolfie2k5! Keep 'em coming!
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