Tommy's Personal Spam Info: Links and Recommendations

I use Method 1 : this works! I get one or 2 spam messages in my main mailbox per month!   Before I researched this I got appx 80 emails/day because I signed up for so much stuff.   Appx 3 or 4 of these Daily emails had viruses!   I was using Trend Micro PCillin [ a very reputable and capable AV ] at the time but hadn't updated in several months.    I contracted SirCam32 and almost lost it all!   When I went into the hospital for a couple of months, I had thousands of emails and potentially infectious viruses sitting there in my email box!    It took a long time to process and clean all this. That is where I really started learning this stuff for real.   If you have an AV program, update it at least once a week!   Most new ones have an update at least once/day.  [McAfee has 2 or 3 updates/ day!]   If you do this stuff, you'll never have problems with spam / viruses and will wonder why all the fuss.  When you come back from vacation use the webmail feature of HALNET or others [hotmail, yahoo, etc] , then you won't swamp your hard drive with junk, viruses, and so forth. Most experienced users I know do this anyway.

Method 1 : Most Effective Method :

1. Change your primary email address [ and only use it for important things ]
2. Get a free web email account [ mandatory to make #1 effective ! ]
3. Use the web email account for unimportant forms [ or just make one up see www.mailinator.com ]
4. Set Mail Reader Security Options to disallow opening of attachments
5. Don't forget to send your new email address to your friends [non-spammers]

• Mailinator lets you make up an email address off the top of your head [ no signup ]
• Stop spam with Sneakemail 2.0, the spam stopper, anonymizer, ...[ must signup ]
• spamgourmet - free disposable email addresses, spam blocking  [ must signup ]

Method 2 : Alternatively You Can :

1. Keep Your Existing Email Address [ works best when email address is new ]
2. Get a free web email account or use the anonymizers [ this is mandatory for fighting spam ! ]
3. Use the web email account for unimportant forms [ or just make one up ]
4. Set Mail Reader Security Options to disallow opening of attachments
5. Use a Spam Filter/Killer Program
6. Set "Blocked Sender List" in Email Client to "active" status [only partially effective ]

Items 3, 4 and 5 may also be used with Method 1 above

Info on Spam Blocking in Outlook Express
Do you get SPAM? [a trick using Blocked Senders List]
List of Shareware Spam Fighters on CNET
PopTray [ Spam Filter program, I'm using free v3.1 now ] alternates, additions to this : Mailwasher;   Spampal  
Freeware-email Antispam Tools [filters] comparison matris AntiSpammers compared
Commercial Spam Filters Review 2006 . comparison matrix Excellent!

Method 3 : In Either Case : You Definitely Also Want To :

1. Set Your Email Program to Disallow the Opening of Attachments [for virus control]
2. Set Your Browser to Control Cookies [they tell marketers what junk to push on you ]
3. Clean Your Internet Cookies off and Delete Temporary Internet files Regularly
4. Make Your Internet Explorer "Security" and "Privacy" Settings to at Least Medium
5. Don't Put Your Primary Email Address into Your Personal Profile of Instant Messengers

Info on Internet Explorer Security Settings and Cookies
Info on How Cookies threaten your privacy and security
Info on Browser Security Settings
Info on MS Hidden Files [ advanced stuff ]

Method 4 : If You Use Newsgroups or Make Your Own Website

1. Use Address Munging [ disguises ] in NewsGroups
2. Use Address Munging on your Website

"Spam Blocking" [ Address Munging ]   make image of email address automatically, instantly online
Checkout Spambot Info   Programs which crawl the web collecting email addresses.

Method 5 : You May Also Wish To :

1. Use Spam Reporting to "sting" spammers [ takes a lot of extra work to learn how, but easy to use once you have it setup] example: Spamcop
2. Use a Firewall [ even with a dialup accounts]
3. Use AntiSpyware [ can speed your pc / internet performance up a lot! esp if you haven't used it before]

More links :

Hal-PC page on spam   [ they suggest "Postini" instead of spampal , others  
"Phishing" the most malicious kind of spam: see an example of phishing [spoofing] on ebay website
Spamcop spam reporter  
    How to setup and use spamcop [my simplified instructions you'll need this!]
www.samspade.org   ...tracks origin of spam messages
spamhaus  worldwide spam reporting and listing agency
AntiSpyware Links
Firewall Links
CounterExploitation Anti Spam Info [ lots of stuff here ]
More info on cookies and problems they can cause

Why This Works [ Method 1 ]

Why this works : These actions mislead spammers and cause them to send your spam to a web email address where they can easily be deleted, and don't jam up your email program and hard drive with this [usually useless] email ! [ Spam email uses up memory and hard disk space and slows your computer down ! ] Always use your free web email address when replying to anybody that may send advertisements that you may not be interested in. This is technically not spam, but it still has the same effect. It wastes time and space on your computer and may cause you to delete things you want to save, usually spam is where viruses come to your computer through attachments in your email. If you use MS Outlook Express you could potentially forget to set the security back on after reading something it filtered! Using PopTray or web email makes this problem a piece of cake!

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Created on ... August 15, 2003
Last ModifiedTuesday, 01-Jan-2008 17:05:04 CST