Salon - - Junk Landslide

chris h · #1 04-21-2002, 04:09 AM

Its becoming a battle to fight my way through junk mail in order to find the stuff I want to read i.e. orders, payment confirmations and sycophantic fan mail etc. I was wondering how much junk mail site users have to cope with in an average 24 hour period. Lets put aside online services such as Hotmail and count the junk mail arriving on your personal/business ISP. I have various filters but like the kamikaze pilot some still manage to get through !

Ed_L · #2 04-21-2002, 04:30 AM

I think that's the price we pay for the priveledge of using the www. If we could just find a way to charge the senders of these things 5 cents for each piece of unwanted mail, we might never have to worry about where our next meal is coming from.

Ed

Doug Nelson · #3 04-21-2002, 04:53 AM

I'm well aware of the junk email epidemic. What I don't know is why I don't get much junk (not that I'm ungrateful). I get less than one a day. Maybe as few as a couple per week.

My only guess is that since I'm so involved in production that I take it as second-nature to keep my address off suspect sites, and never (ever) leave the "send me more information" box checked.

CJ Swartz · #4 04-21-2002, 08:30 AM

Doug, I think you have a big part of the answer! My newest email address has brought only 1-2 junk ads in about 4 months. My old address and my Yahoo address get many daily -- because I would use them in places that spammers lurk or send their little bots to pick up.

thomasgeorge · #5 04-21-2002, 08:36 AM

Most of the stuff I get is related to clearance type sales of used Scientific equipment like Electron Microscopes, gene sequencers, and such...mildly interesting, but as my better half refuses to let me have a 2000 lb. scanning electron microscope in the living room, it just gets dumped..you might try going to the Lavasoft web site and downloading Adaware, a spyware removal program...there's a thread buried somewhere around here with details on it. Tom

DJ Dubovsky · #6 04-21-2002, 08:46 AM

It's an advertising resource and a huge one at that. I think it's going to be harder to control than all those telemarketers you have calling everyday.

So far since our new server took over our old one and we got a new e-mail address, I get very few and I don't count the ones coming on the tail ends of my old address which will run out soon.

I've gotten cautious also with websites I go to and usually don't check that send me info box except for this site, Adobe, NNAP and sites where I actually want updates from, which is extremely selective. I've been lucky so far. We don't have a spam guard going because I know they will cancel out some stuff I do want to get. I'd rather delete stuff myself than have some indescriminate program do it for me.

I expect this situation will get alot worse before it get's better especially if they try putting controls on telemarketers. There's big money to be made here so don't expect it to stop anytime soon.
DJ

Doug Nelson · #7 04-21-2002, 11:53 AM

Oh, c'mon Tom, you know you want it. Go for the 2000 lb. scanning microscope. When you're not using it, add a few cushions and it could double as a couch.

jerry · #8 04-21-2002, 12:46 PM

Hi Chris

You raise an interesting question. While on aol I was bombed with spam 8 to 15 per day. I have been on a cable modem set-up for 3 weeks. I have not got one spam.. Retouchpro emails and others that I expect are arriving OK.. I am currently running a evaluation copy of the Blackice firewall. One of the settings that I use on the firewall is "block most unsolicited inbound traffic". I wonder if this limits spam..

Anyone know???

Jerry

chris h · #9 04-21-2002, 01:42 PM

I run the ad-aware prog Tom and it seems to flush Mr Doubleclick and his cronies. My personal e-mail address is approx 6 years old so its fairly well used. I'd recommend the Tiny software personal firewall which is free for holding some of the rubbish at bay.

http://www.tinysoftware.com/home/tin...A0&pg=download

and this for checking your online PC protection.............

https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

Sanda · #10 04-21-2002, 04:12 PM

I've been getting regular junk mail from porno sites, I have no idea how they got my email address. They are certainly not the type of sites ai visit. I've tried they "take me off your lists" option but I have a feeling that only puts me on more lists, so I'm resigned to deleting them daily.

d_kendal · #11 04-21-2002, 04:18 PM

I usually get somewhere around 0 to 2 spam emails per day, and I'm pretty carefull about who I give my email address to. I have a hotmail account that I use if there's somebody I don't really trust that i have to give my email out to.
I run AdAware too and it works great for me.
for firewall I was using ZoneAlarm which worked great until they released an update which I was having problems with on my computer (and I couldn't go back to the old version because I got an error message saying it was outdated and wouldn't let me install it) so I switched to Tiny personal firewall and it works just fine.
the GRC link that Chris gave is a great site. they have some really nice little freeware utilities (here)

Jerry - There's a program on there called LeakTest that I'd suggest trying out on BlackIce, because it's known to have security holes (it doesn't catch the program trying to call out) It tells about Blackice in the help section of leaktest. I tested it on Tiny personal firewall and it cought it.

- David

chris h · #12 04-21-2002, 04:53 PM

I'd certainly avoid any of the 'remove me' links they are just hooks.

d_kendal · #13 04-21-2002, 05:05 PM

yep I used to try them but they usually never work (and you're also giving them you're email address again when you do it)

- David

T Paul · #14 04-21-2002, 05:11 PM

Spam is indeed a very pesky thing, but luckily so far for me telemarketers bother me more. I report any spam mail that I do receive to their host domain and try to get them removed. I basically forward the spam email with full headers to the host domain with the following statement:

The following COMMERCIAL UNSOLICITED E-MAIL was received by myself. Please educate your users that this spam and can clog people's mailboxes and subject them to criminal prosecution.
In some states, it falls under the definition of illegal faxing without the recipient's permission. (Device having a computer, modem, and printer and capable of printing images. USC 47.5.II.227. Fine: $500 per recipient.)

In some countries, it falls under the Criminal Statutes regarding unauthorized alteration of computer data or theft of computer resources. (Theft of access time and disk space.)

It seems to work...that is until the spammers get a new email address.

For more info go to:
Spam Abuse

I also use the following site to trace spam:

Combat Spam

jeaniesa · #15 04-21-2002, 06:20 PM

Chris - THANKS for the pointer to that GRC site. I have a vague memory that you've mentioned it before, but for some reason this time it really caught my eye. I tested my system security and found I was "STEALTH" - i.e. in good shape. Yeah!

Also, T - Thanks for the pointers to spam abuse. I'm going to start doing what you do!! (Of course, I'm frantically changing my e-mail now to get off of yahoo since they will start charging for POP service come this Wed. That should help reduce my spam drastically, since it's the address I get most of my spam on.)

Jeanie