Spam source?

[Cool Hand Lurker]

Forget it. I was just trying to give a heads-up to Fordbarners. I didn't feel it was OT Non-Model A.

[MikeK]

I feel your pain, but only a little! That's typical junk we all get, from multiple sources that have grabbed our addresses and sold them off to lists. I get maybe 10-25 a day to my spam folder, occasionally one makes it to my "IN" folder. I just delete them. It helps if you carefully read the fine print on sites you request emailed info from and unclick the little boxes that sometimes give you an 'opt out' for additional mailings. Your address is also involuntarily given away when someone sends out an email with several "c.c. to:" addresses or several addresses in the primary 'send to:' line, and you are one of them. If mailing to many recipients, always use "B.C.C. to:"

Now, for the REAL distribution center of spam: The U.S. post office! I'll trade twice as much email spam for no junk in my real mailbox. Where do I sign up?

[Rowdy]

With my ISP all I have to do to reduce SPAM is check my e-mail remotely and report it to my ISP. I do this when I am getting way too much SPAM and usually within a day or two I see a dramatic reduction. I somewhat enjoyed the HOTROD spam and forward it to a freind of mine. He seems to enjoy it also. Rod

[Ross/Kzoo]

The tip off to me is the emailers name is usually in BOLD type with capital letters. Also the names have a real "Dick and Jane" ring to their name like:

BARRISTER JAMES BILLY

MR. JOHN JAMES

MRS. LOUISA JONES

I think that you get the picture, they don't and I'm not going to tell them.

[dan]

If you're using the email address your ISP gave you (something like <name>@provider.net) in on-line forums, you're doing it wrong I suggest picking one of the "big three" (google, hotmail, yahoo) web mail providers and registering for an account that you use for any online-forum-type use. I especially recommend Google's g-mail, which has one of the most effective spam filters available.

Basically, Google bought a pretty good spam filter company (Postini) and now uses the tens of millions of messages they see every day to tweak their filter. I can't recall the last time a spam message got through to my gmail inbox, and I've never had a false positive (a real message tagged as spam).

Your ISP has a much smaller sampling of email to use to "train" their spam filter so unless they have someone else providing the service (some do) they aren't going to be able to be as effective.

Just a thought from someone working in the technology industry.

[Brubaker]

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MikeK-try stopjunkmail.org. That should help keep junk out of your real mailbox.

[BillLee/Chandler, TX]

Google also scans your gmail messages for content OTHER THAN spam! They add it to their database to sell to advertisers to "customize your 'net experience".

When Big Brother arrives, his middle name will be "Google"!

[dan]

Originally Posted by BillLee/Chandler, TX

Google also scans your gmail messages for content OTHER THAN spam! They add it to their database to sell to advertisers to "customize your 'net experience".

When Big Brother arrives, his middle name will be "Google"!

Almost, but not exactly. When you open a mail message, they scan the body for keywords and then present advertising based on those. For instance, when I get an email about a Model A, I might see advertising from MACs or eBay with Model A listings. This keyword information isn't stored and it's all machine generated (and it can be turned off).

From the relevant page on on the Google T&C: We provide advertisers only aggregated non-personal information such as the number of times one of their ads was clicked. We do not sell, rent or otherwise share your personal information with any third parties except in the limited circumstances [...], such as when we believe we are required to do so by law.
There is definitely a trade-off (free, spam-less email service in return for ad views).

But I think that if you're expecting your ISP to somehow provide better privacy than an online service, you're going to be disappointed. Basically, both Google and your ISP are trying to make money off your online activities--expecting either them to respect your privacy is probably not a winning bet. You might ask your ISP how long they retain IP address information...

To be honest, anyone using the internet is giving away a lot more information about themselves than they likely realize. Just from your IP address and a quick search it would be pretty easy to find out where you live, your phone number, what your interests are, etc. (Left as an exercise for the reader). There are ways to be more anonymous--TOR and the like--but they tend to be cumbersome.

Someone once said that the only way to secure a computer from network attacks is to remove it from the network. Similarly, the only way to ensure complete privacy on the Internet is not to connect.

And I should probably report myself to Ryan, since this post doesn't really belong in the Model A discussion

[MikeK]

Brubaker, Thanks for the lead to get rid of postal junk mail. When I had a bird, it had some use. Not anymore.