SICK and TIRED of SPAM!

[mxtras]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have been absolutely bombarded with SPAM recently and I am over it. It's always been a rediculous waste of valuable time but recently it has become 10X worse.

Postini seems to be fine but when you operate a business and Postini blocks a message from an unknown, potential customer, that too becomes a nuisance.

Why don't these spammers just find something else to do with their obvious abundance of time and leave us working folks the heck alone!




Thoughts?

Scott

[NC Cams]

Change your e-mail address and don't give it out willy nilly.

Don't accept cookies - if you do, delete them ASAP so they don't send back information to anybody who can access them.

Don't fill out all kinds of forms to become members of all kinds of goofy stuff. IF you do, give them a bogus e-mail address.

DON'T respond to have your name taken OFF their list - doing this only confirms that you exist and you'll get MORE.

Hardly any spam after taking the above tactics....

[pminmo]

Yep, I agree, same goes for the paper spam in my mailbox. It ticks me off even more, because it's more of a hassle to sort through then throw away. And institutions these days send some checks in some pretty plain junk mail looking envelopes. My wfe almost threw away a large check because it looked like junk mail. Since then we always open mail.

And what ticks me off even more is that politicians could go a long ways to making our lives simpler and more productive by putting a few simple regulations in place governing junk mail, spam, and junk phone calls. But NOOO. I'm not big on government controlling our lives, but these are agravations that 99.x% of the population hate!

[MonoNeuron]

Regarding your letterbox. If you place a sign on it saying "No Junk mail" then you can be sued by some large company because their mail is not classed as "junk" to them and brings in about 12% of their revenue. You have to put up a sign that says "Registered Post" or "Post Office mail only" or something to that effect. And yes, someone has been sued for it a couple of years ago, that's how I know.
Regarding Spam, Just do what NC Cams says and you will go a long way to defeat it. I would love to kneecap ALL Spammers , Malware and Virus writers as they are just a blight on society. Most you cannot reply to so what is the point of sending the mail?????. Idiots with no time for the real things in life.
just my $.02 worth.

[widgitmaster]

NEVER use one of the online "Send a Greeting" or "Send a Postcard" pages, as all they do is collect emails!

Have two emails, one for general online activity, and one that is private!

Have one of your emails a "WebMail" like Yahoo.com, then all the spam goes to Yahoo! and not on your computer!

[martinw]

[QUOTE=mxtras;224222]
Thoughts?


Dear mxtras

1) Do not be promiscuous with your e-mail address. If you have been, change your address.

2) Norton Internet Security Professional

3) Turn off cookies

I am sure there are other measures that you may need to take, but I do not know them. The three above have worked for me.

Good luck

Best Wishes

Martin

[Hyrum R]

Most of the advice here is good for avoiding spam, but there is just one slight error with a couple posts that I'd like to point out regarding internet cookies.

As a part time web developer, I thought I should clear up any misunderstanding here. Cookies can only be read by the website that set them, so information from one site cannot be transferred to another site via cookies. Generally, cookies are used for your convenience. For example, on most sites, you can have it remember you so you don't have to log in each time (like this forum). A website can only keep track of you via cookies as long as you're on their site. Spyware, on the other hand, is programs that install onto your computer (usually without any permission or very deceivingly), to monitor all your online activity. Please don't confuse spyware with cookies. Most websites use cookies for your convenience and there isn't any danger having them enabled.

To avoid spam:
Don't post your email address like this:
myemail@somewhere.com

Instead, when posting your email to a forum or on a website, use something like:
myemailaddress***removethispart***[at]g mail[dot]com
A human can understand that, but an email harvester wouldn't.

Then, don't give out your email address to dodgy sites, like to get information on how to get free downloadable software, etc., etc. Get a new email address (gmail has a very nice spam filter), and use your old one for junk.

[Aksess]

I have fun and actually like getting Paper spam in the mail, especially the ones with guarinteed postage paid Just tape a brick to it and put it in the mailbox stuffed with other spam from other companys. They half to pay postage on the brick.

[roonster71]

Thats funny i do the same thing, i put all my other junk in there gaurinteed postage paid envolopes and send it back to them, ill have to try the brick!!

[dertsap]

Originally Posted by widgitmaster NEVER use one of the online "Send a Greeting" or "Send a Postcard" pages, as all they do is collect emails!

i use the shady greeting services and porn sites to mail bomb spammers who have been so stupid as to leave their mailing adress ,

oh ya , no i don t because that would be illegal ,go figure

[lwill]

What gets me is that first class rates have went up several times in the past few years but bulk mail rates have barely changed. It would seem to me that the rate increases would be due to the cost of delivering the mail going up, but if there was less mail to deliver then it would be cheaper to handle and deliver (less labor and fuel). Since bulk(junk) mail by far is the largest percent of what is delivered, a slight raise in it would off set the need to raise first class rates and probably cut down on the amount of junk mail since it would cost the junk mailers more and there fore reduce the amount of mail needing to be delivered and reduce the need to keep raising first class rates in the first place!
My way of thinking must be way to simple for a government agency, I keep forgeting they pass everything on to the average guy instead of fixing the problem.
Maybe we should all get together and stop electing people and just start hireing lobbiests so things accualy get done. -end rant-

The thing that gets me even more it she fact that there IS less mail now since every one uses E-mail and they claim that too is hurting the USPS's bussiness, so even higher rates!

[pminmo]

Originally Posted by Aksess I have fun and actually like getting Paper spam in the mail, especially the ones with guarinteed postage paid Just tape a brick to it and put it in the mailbox stuffed with other spam from other companys. They half to pay postage on the brick.

Seriously? I'll have to try that one, maybe they would take the hint if it started happening a lot! I've got a lot of scrap lumber that I would love to use for a good cause.