Re: OT/advice: spam (wasRe: Klingon speaker needed in Portland, Oregon)

On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 11:10:33AM -0700, Garrett Jones wrote:
> my solution to spam: buy your own domain name, and don't put links to
> your e-mail on the internet.
Doesn't help. Recently spambots have united with viruses to harvest
addresses from infected users' contact lists.

> there is no way you will ever get spammed.
Not really. It will take longer for spambots to pick up your address, but
eventually it *will* leak out somewhere, somehow, either by mailing list
archives, or by somebody accidentally posting it on a website, or
something.

> whenever i sign up for anything, i use a second e-mail address on my
> server which forwards to my main one. if that ever gets spammed, i can
> kill the account, change my e-mail at the different services i'm signed
> up for, and no more spam. i'd never have to change my main e-mail
> address.
I've tried that; unfortunately, I have one or more permanent contact
addresses which are public by necessity. Once the spammers get a hold of
that address, it's all over. (And they did.)

>  also, i created a separate pop account just for the conlang
> list (conlang@alkaline.org) so that my main box wouldn't get flooded. my
> host is only $5 a month (this is webserver plus unlimited pop/forwarding
> e-mails), cheaper than most hosts and more reliable too.
[snip]

If you have your own domain, one way to track who leaked your email
address is to setup aliases that forwards emails to you. Then when you
signup for anything that asks for an email, you can give it a unique
identifier (eg. travelcuts@mydomain.org, bankofamer@mydomain.org,
office@mydomain.org, etc.). That way, when the address somehow makes it to
the spamlists, you know exactly who leaked it, and can take proper
precautions next time you deal with them. (And you just disable that alias
and cut out all spam directed at it.)

My own way of dealing with spam is to use spam filtering software.
Currently I have SpamAssassin setup with Bogofilter; SA is a rule-based
filter, and Bogofilter is a Bayesian filter. The combination of the two
seems to be very effective; my filter weeds out an average of 95% of spam
that ends up in my mailbox.


T

--
"Give us money for our scam, and you will succeed!" "No thanks, I'm not a
bird. I don't suck seed."

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