Spam and how to squash it...

johnd · Unread post by **johnd** » Sun Apr 13, 2003 8:49 pm

Ok, the amount of spam in my email is becoming ridiculous, particularly the Arab ones that I can't even read! Not to mention the current spam fad for breast enlargement!

I'm currently using McAfee Spamkiller, which is better than the last program I used (mailwasher).

How are people controlling this? And please, none of the "don't give out your email address" rubbish.

Kegsta · Unread post by **Kegsta** » Sun Apr 13, 2003 10:00 pm

hotmail junk filter works for me, and if you dont want spam, dont give out your e-mail, proven fact

Anach · Unread post by **Anach** » Sun Apr 13, 2003 10:29 pm

i have shared mailwasher pro 3

use it, its awesome.

johnd · Unread post by **johnd** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 12:20 am

Kegsta wrote:if you dont want spam, dont give out your e-mail, proven fact

Not a viable option for me, nor for most people. It's roughly along the lines of "don't want junk mail, then pry the street number off your house, steal the street signs, and hide your letter box."

Email addresses should be distributed as feely as possible, not hidden.

johnd · Unread post by **johnd** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 12:22 am

Anach wrote:i have shared mailwasher pro 3

use it, its awesome.

Tried that for a while, and it is better than most, but found McAfee Spamkiller better, and more accurate.

r0lf · Unread post by **r0lf** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 1:58 am

johnd wrote:
Kegsta wrote:if you dont want spam, dont give out your e-mail, proven fact

Not a viable option for me, nor for most people. It's roughly along the lines of "don't want junk mail, then pry the street number off your house, steal the street signs, and hide your letter box."

Email addresses should be distributed as feely as possible, not hidden.

I couldn't agree more. Spam is one of those things that gets me really anrgy. :mad:

But, i have two email addresses that get zero spams a day, both would be 2+ years old by now. They don't receive spam because I only give them out to people I know or need to get in touch with. Conversly I have an email that I use sparingly in the public, and it scores about 2 spams a day.

The sad thing about spam, is that it actually works... for every thousand emails a spammer sends they easily get back enough suckers to pay for their efforts.

In the past, prolly like alot of people, I've had to close perfectly good email accounts because no amount filtering would stop the daily onslaught. I would guess the people most effected by spam are those who have to publically list email addresses they use for business.

In the long run filtering can never work. To add your analogy, filtering spam is just like having a customs officer at the letter box. While we'd like to think most of the smugglers get busted, the sneaky ones will still through. Don't think the chump pedaling printer refills will mind, there will still be enough turkeys out there to keep him rich.

If you wanna rid the world of spam the best way, at the moment, is to get the arsewipes in trouble. Email them, the relays isp, and a net-abuse newsgroup.

Did I mention i really hate spam?

just my unsolicited 20cents worth.

johnd · Unread post by **johnd** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 2:09 am

r0lf wrote:If you wanna rid the world of spam the best way, at the moment, is to get the arsewipes in trouble. Email them, the relays isp, and a net-abuse newsgroup.

Did I mention i really hate spam?

just my unsolicited 20cents worth.

Which is why I like Spamkiller. You can set it to automatically email complaints to the ISP's and upstream providers. Works well.

BTW, I've had this email address for about 7 years, ever since Netspace moved into the Tas area by buying up a little ISP called ice.net.au. SO I do not intend to give it up just because a bunch of fucking idiots are trying to sell me crap. I WILL fight back!

Psycho · Unread post by **Psycho** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 8:31 am

hah, yea. After several years of being very careful, I'm not sure exactly which company I gave my email address to, and now I get several spams a day. Very annoying. Once you get on one list it seems to replicate and you end up on many.

Another person was telling me they use crawling technology and so on to mine potential hits. IIRC, a Tasmanian politician got into trouble for exactly this method recently.

The thing that pisses me off the most is the protection that they have - you have no say and no right of reply. The email address is (almost certainly) forged, as is the fwding servers in the header.

So, you can't return that crap to them, nor can you register a complaint against their ISP.

What I would like to see W3C (someone! anyone!) is a specification that a mail parcel must be fully authentic, otherwise all forwarding servers kill it, instantly, or send it back to the originating server.

Be quite funny to see them spam themselves silly...

johnd · Unread post by **johnd** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 7:29 pm

Psycho wrote: The email address is (almost certainly) forged, as is the fwding servers in the header.

So, you can't return that crap to them, nor can you register a complaint against their ISP.

While the email address and headers can be faked, the forwarding servers cannot as the info is added after it leaves their system, so, generally, you can track them.

I have started complaining, and it is satisfying to get an email from a provider saying the account in question has been terminated.

I may just put a web page together showing how to track and complain to the right people.

Psycho · Unread post by **Psycho** » Tue Apr 15, 2003 8:23 am

I meant the originating server, and in many cases the following ones.

In all the cases where I tried, the source was untraceable.

Certainly, you can track it back to where it entered the internet and register a complaint with the earliest legit forwarding server, and get them to stop fwding stuff like that.

That's a bit too much effort just for one piece of spam, but I guess that's where your automated programs come in.

You might find this article on content blocking amusing/interesting.

Net_Fish · Unread post by **Net_Fish** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 8:43 pm

I used to use spam assassin which is really good. I'm using the inbuilt junk mail filter of Apples Mail.app due to being too lazy to configure spamc/spamd on my unix box again