OT- Junk Mail
 

Ok, please tell me if this is not the height of all irony:

I have an e-mail address for a summer program I participated in. I didn't use it for anything else, and the address only appears once on the web page of that same summer program.

I just checked this account. I got a spam message trying to sell me a junk mail filter! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Not entirely sure why they're expecting to get any response to this. If it is in fact a legitimate mail filter, it will obviously leave a huge hole for the seller to send you Messages, and thus a big hole to whomever the seller decides to sell the filter penetration method to.

Just felt like ranting...

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

Yea, an the people that provide you that email address NEVER sell lists of their email accounts. that would be unethical. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

Just FYI...

Hotmail accounts are spam-cursed. Microsoft will harvest the addresses that you send mail TO even if you have opted out of their 'direct' spam list. Isn't that clever? You opted out of receiving spam, but they didn't ask if you wanted all recipients of your emails to be spammed. This is Bill Gates at his slimiest. So, whenever you send an email to someone from a Hotmail account you are pointing a gazillion spammers at that account.

Did anyone working with you on that project use a Hotmail account? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Other ISPs might have similar 'gotcha' policies, of course.

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

There are also harvester bots that crawl the Web mining e-mail addresses from any site they encounter.

We even sometimes get spam at the admin requests address at PBW.

capnq
PBW admin

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yuk! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

I once reactivated my Hotmail account, just to sign up for, IIRC, Webshots. I got 3 spam Messages BEFORE I got my sign up confirmation message!

Fortunately, I don't use that account for anything except signing up for things, so I never have to read the spam http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

Shh! We're not allowed to talk about harvesters!

{confused silence}

Oh, that's right, this is the SE4 forum, not MOO3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

I get tons of junk e-mail everyday and have to be constantly deleting unwanted Messages, something like 20 per day. I used to read them all but I stopped doing that because it's a waste of time. You can usually tell which Messages are junk by looking at the subject and sender. There's tons of get-rich-quick schemes, chain Messages, insurance services offers, credit card company offers, adult web site offers, university degree by mail deals, weight loss products, viagra solicitations, all sorts of fake prize win Messages, deals to sell you herbs or drugs that's supposed to enhance your anatomy in various ways, pyramid schemes, Nigerian letter scams, mortgage deals, etc.

Some of the the subject lines are cleverly disguised to look like a legitimate message from a friend or someone you know. How do all these people get your e-mail address? The mail filters aren't perfect and don't work that well. I found that the only way to stop all this junk is to change your e-mail address every so often, but that is inconvenient...

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">LMAO.

or apolywonton

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

For starters, I never use my ISP email address for anything. I always use my Yahoo account. They have a farily decent spam filer that routs about 75% of the garbage into a bulk mail folder, which can be deleted enmasse with a single click. as for the ones that do go to the inbox, I either go down the list and just delete the obvious ones, and the more sneaky ones i report to yahoo as spam. I don't know if the reporting does any good, but it makes me feel better knowing that I at least tried. when things get too bad, it really is not hard to start another yahoo account, and do an addy book mailing letting others know your new addy. my Last addy change was in 2000. so the filters work fine for me. I don't blame the spammers that much, as i have no problem putting my email into a free pron site i want to peruse for a day. the spam from that goes to the bulk mail and I never have to look at it. I delete an average 50-70 emails from the bulk folder daily.

Spam is just part of the web. Just like commercials are part of normal network TV. they are here to stay, get use to it. learn to work around them and don't let them get your goat. otherwise you will be spending good money of spam filters when you could take that same 50 bucks and get SEV, or Moo3. lol

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

spam is a word associated with hotmail.
20 spammails per day is nothing. i had (have?) a hotmail account that was about 4-5 years old. i was getting 100+ spams per day.
Yahoo! is pretty good at getting rid of spam.
a friend of mine recommended me http://www.graffiti.net . if you dont mind graffiti.net in your mail address it is the best - absolutely no spam. had this account for 8 months for now, not a single spam letter.

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

The address was definitely harvested by a spider bot. The mail server is part of a University network, so the owners didn't sell it, and I've only recieved Messages originating from the same server. So the only possible way that the address got on spam lists is because some bot randomly happened upon it. Well, someone else could have sold the 50 or so addresses to a spammer, but I doubt that.

About the Hotmail accounts, I've suspected this for a while, but never really bothered taking time to prove it (set up dummy account, send mail from Hotmail accounts, wait to see if spam arrives). That's why I don't really send mail out of my Hotmail accounts, I just recieve sign-up confirmations.

Like I said, I just wanted to rant about how sad it is when a company resorts to a very unpopular advertising method to sell a product designed (supposedly) to block that same advertising method.

Personally, I never really understood why spammers continue to just buy any address they can and send several different ads to them. They say that the "0.001% response is enough to compensate for the costs". Well, why not work on sending to addresses that might even remotely be interested in responding? Changing 0.001% to .5% has to be more profitable, right? And, you get the added bonus of pissing fewer people off. For example, there are several ads marketing certain ways to enhance physical aspects that are specific to only a specific gender, within a certain age range, with an income level that allows for the frivolous expence of that enhancement. Send to just the people that fit into those catagories, and the 0.001% could turn to .5%. Maybe. But no, I have to recieve 50 Messages a day that inform me of a new way to make my chest bigger, and they ain't talking about a new exercise program. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

*/rant*

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

Umm... I get almost no spam emails with my hotmail account. You people just don't do it right. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

I have had my hotmail account for more than a year. I usually get one or two spam Messages in a day. A good trick is not to put your e-mail address as text in webpages. I always put my e-mail in an image.

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

[babbling] Wow! I don't know what you all are doing wrong. I never get junk mail. And I make it a habit to always post my e-mail address on the Web every chance I get! I must just be lucky or something.[/babbling]

Of course, I'll probably get tons of it, just to make up for my gloating.

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

I'm using hotmail ~3 years. I got 2 spam Messages during the Last week.

Hotmail Users have an option to include a single adresses to block-lists, if they don't want to recieve Messages from them. They can include specific endings of email (****@free-stuff.com) to block-list as well. That is why I like hotmail.

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

I use Yahoo. In your email config you can block address. It also seperates your email into 2 Groups via Spam Guard, InBox and Bulk mail. I does a very nice job. Plus you can report 'Spam', from your inbox. Our report 'spam' from inside the Messages you choose to read from Bulk mail. This is all from the free Yahoo account. You can sign up for bigger and better, for a fee.

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

And so sayeth Bill Gates:

Spam was, Spam is, and Spam shall be. After summer is winter, and after winter, summer. It ruled once where man rules now; where man rules now, it shall rule again. As a foulness shall ye know it.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

Whether you get junk mail or not also seems to depend on how common-sounding your e-mail address is. For example, if your name is John Smith, then you will get a lot of junk if your address is something like jsmith@hotmail.com. But if you make your e-mail address JS66260755@hotmail.com, then you won't get much. I suspect that some of these companies that send spam generate e-mail addresses by taking a list of Last names and adding different letters or different first names in front of them, or some other common way that people use to come up with addresses.

Spam is a luncheon meat that comes in a rectangular can, similar to corned beef.

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

Hmm... guess my totally abnormal email address helps me not get spam. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

That spam stuff that comes in cans is worse than internet spam by far.

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

There is hope:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupda...909482,00.html
About an anti spam conferance at MIT
Caution: Might generate a Popup

Re: OT- Junk Mail
 

Gryphin, I got an invitation to that conference! Wow, small world!

<font color=purple>mlmbd http://www.shrapnelgames.com//ubb/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font>