Fighting Spam - Part One
Like most people, I do get frustrated with the sheer volume and repetitiveness of spam email I receive. So it’s time to try and do something about it. Here are a few anti-spam tips for the ‘net novice. Who knows, if just one person reads them and learns something, then at least I’ve done something to prevent Mr Spammer from making a few more $$$…
Five quick anti-spam tips… (another 5 to follow some time soon…)
1. Never buy anything from a spammer.
Spammers send millions upon millions of emails every day. It only takes a couple of people to actually buy something from them in order for them to cover their costs and make a profit.
As long as spammers continue to profit from sending spam, they’ll continue to send it. So, take the profit away… never buy anything advertised in a spam email. It’s hard to believe, but this BBC News reports indicates 1 in 10 people actually buy something from a spammer. Zoiks!
2. Never reply to a spam email or use the opt-out link.
It’s very tempting to reply to a spam email with comments on how you’d like the spammer to go fook themselves and to die a nasty prolonged death. This is never a wise idea though.
By replying to a spam email or using an opt-out link:
a) confirms that the email address is valid.
b) also confirms that you actually read spam email.
Knowing the above, do you think a spammer will actually delete your email from their spam list, or…. send more spam to their guaranteed receptive audience. Hmm!
3. Don’t automatically display images or preview email.
HTML emails are a bad thing. Imagine Mr Spammer sends out an email with details of his latest Viagra pill. That email contains a unique image located on Mr Spammers server. Lets say he calls this image xxkjssdfsdf.jpg.
You receive the email. Your preview pane automatically loads the email along with images and you swear at those damn spammers again. You then delete it.
Is that the end? No.
Mr Spammer then checks his server logs. He can see that an image called xxkjssdfsdf.jpg has been requested from his server. He now knows that the email he sent containing the unique image (xxkjssdfsdf.jpg) has been viewed.
You’ve basically just again confirmed that:
a) your email address is valid.
b) you actually read/view spam email.
Result? More spam by just *looking* at spam.
4. Never put your email address on a webpage/newsgroup.
There are many, many spambots that roam the web and newsgroups, following links, travelling from page to page specifically looking for and collecting email addresses. An automated email harvester… a spammers wet dream. Don’t feed them by putting your email address on forums, webpages or newsgroups.
Munge your address if you have to, but remember… you’re putting your email address ‘out there’ for the rest of time… so it’ll only be a matter of time before a spammer picks it up and un-munges it to add to their email database.
5. Be careful about who you give your email address to.
A lot of websites these days ask you for your email address. A lot want it so they can send you details of products that you might be interested in. Some use it as a verification that you are who you say you are. It’s sometimes worth setting up a ‘fake’ disposable email address with a free provider like Gmail or Hotmail which you can use to give to these sites that don’t genuinely require your real email address.
If you own a domain, you can also set up a specific mailbox for certain sites, say: xyzforum@yourdomain.com. That way, when a spam email arrives to that address, you’ll have a pretty good idea of which website has been selling their database of email addresses to spammers.
Anyway, enough for now. I think they are all basic common sense tips… so I’ll try and do a few more techy type tips next time…
January 4th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
[...] It seems like an eon since I wrote part one of this post. I’ve had part two sitting amongst my draft posts for ages, so it’s about time it was unleashed… and it’ll make a nice break from all the recent Google stuff! Plus I’m fed up of looking at it sitting there!! [...]