QUOTE
If the people you email to put you one a list and send the list out publically, it's only a matter of time before your address becomes public. don't give those people your new address and it will be a secure address for years to come!
While I don't deny that this procedure will work, for a while, anyway, it is just way too inconvenient for many people.
First, "those" people are often our close friends and family. It could become quite difficult to avoid giving these people our new addresses.
Second, many who have the old address will be slow to even change/delete/add any new address and may not have been involved in the 'publication' of them in the first place. Forcing them to change is impolite, at least, and inconvenient also. It's not their problem, it's ours.
Third, the solution is not really permanent. It also depends on the security of all the recipients computers and/or their computing habits and skills.
I'm not faulting you. You have the skill and patience to use it and it works well for you and your contacts. But it still requires your time, even if just once a week, to make sure good emails are not being lost. If there
is a good one in the trap, it will have lost much of its timeliness by using this technology. If the message concerns a business opportunity, that timeliness may be very important.
In the end, there is simply not a 'perfect' way to stop this stuff and still make use of email.
Most of our SPAM comes from our EarthLink accounts, but my wife doesn't want to bother using their fairly strong trapping methods ( yet ). I can probably count on one hand the SPAM from .Mac and only occasionally on the RoadRunner addresses, so I haven't even bothered checking what they offer in the way of filtering, but I may do that for RR, soon.
I guess my point is:
• Learn about and use the tools that are available to you, when you decide you don't want as much SPAM as you are getting. But remember that no systems will work forever because, somehow, the SPAMmers are making enough money to justify their efforts.
• Never reply, in any way to a SPAM/scam message. Period.
• Turn automatic image display in your email program OFF, at least as much as possible.
• Find a convenient app to scan the contents of a suspect message,
before opening it in your email program. And get or use any 'intelligent' filtering software that works with your email program.
• Understand that you will always have to check for 'false positive' messages; good stuff that gets tagged as bad.
• Try to use your oldest, most SPAMmed address for non-critical messages/registrations. Put the tightest controls on that address.
• Try to gently/tactfully enform your family and friends of how they can help themselves ( and you ) to cut down on the abuse of 'our' addresses. But just don't expect 100% understanding or compliance!
