SPAM 101

[RogerF]

Last month I received 2 SPAM messages.
Last month Donna (my wife) received 1.568 SPAMS. As tireless as she is, she's thinking about a new mail account.

Our current mail accounts are with our ISP and not transportable. We don't want to continue that inability to transport. Is it really worth it to setup a .com/net etc. account to control email?

Is there an email alternative out there that works for you? If so we would appreciate info.

[cdub1988]

Roger -

Be happy to setup an account for you if you'd like one.

Only catch is it would be username@a _domain_that_I_have, but the mail server is doing RBL lookups to control spam and has some pretty good functionality to prevent alot of that stuff.

If you would like to do so, contact me off-list and I'll set you up. Will only take a few minutes once I get the main domain setup.

I have a few other domains, but not sure if you want to use them or not.

The kicker is that it would allow you a "secondary" mailbox to send and receive mail through.

I'd only need a few things - such as what IP pool you're coming from so that I can permit your traffic.

You and your wife can have as many mailboxes as you want, as can others here at TS if they'd like to contact me (as long as it doesn't start hammering down my connection - but it's DSL, so I'm not too terribly concerned).

 

Just let me know if you'd like to.

You can get setup this evening if you want to.

Take care,

Chris

[Paddy]

Roger, surely your ISP will allow you to change your user name? If they do allow you to do this, then either take Chris up on his offer or find some other service (myrealbox.com is one I use) to use for ANY email other than friends and family (ie: ordering online, email lists, bulletin boards etc.). That way, if it becomes a spam magnet, you can dump it and not lose your "real" email. I simply have mail addressed to me at myrealbox.com forwarded to my attbi account.

ATTBI allows you to change your email ID online - and it also allows you to have 6 email acccounts. Check with your ISP to see what your options are - but I would be very surprised if changing your email ID was not permitted!

[Xairbusdriver]

Even after you get your new accounts/addresses, I highly recommend installing POPmonitor. I let it maintain a constant connection with all my accounts/addresses and use its filters to block/dump anything I don't want. I don't think I actually downloaded any SPAM via Eudora in the past few months. It all gets trapped by POPmonitor first. I still have to add a few domains/addresses every week. But it works like a charm. I think I will have to go through the address changing/forwarding/notifying routine again. I don't want to depend on any ISP to do this sort of thing for me, I basically don't trust them! Kinda like expecting a mechanic to say "there's nothing you need for your car!"    I think they have a lot to learn about how to provide real service, they are still just trying to figure out how to get more customers (selling a 'product'). Wonder how long it will take for one of them to figure out that they are being abused by SPAM just as much as (if not more than) we are?!    

BTW, I think there is an OS X version as well!

Jim C.

[CyberPet]

Been using POPmonitor now for a while and I'm really happy about it. Only thing is I need to make some more filters for it, because there's a few reoccuring spams that keeps coming back, just diffrent addresses. So I'm going to make some filters to check the topic to get rid of those too.

As of today I have almost 700 blocked senders. I guess with better filters that number will stay (different senders but same message is very common).

[Gregg]

This seems to come up frequently. So, at the risk of being redundant... Spamfire works for me. It corrals suspicious messages, and lets me "rescue" any I want to read. It really is a time saver. I let the list fill half the window before I trash 'em, a luxury I don't have in my e-mail program, because I save many legit messages until I've responded or received a response, and I don't want to have to scroll down all the time.

[cdub1988]

Roger -

The biggest difference we're talking here is whether or not you want to use a client to filter the mail after being downloaded to your box or do it on the server level.

Either way works (as Paddy, Jim, Petra and Gregg attest), so, like I said, if you would like to setup a secondary account for you and your wife, or whoever else, just let me know. Glad to offer the help.

Take care.

Chris