TOO MUCH SPAM!

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 10:27 am

Man I'm gettin tired of this spam... In the last 20 min ive gotten 20 msgs that were deleted by my filter... I dunno if their just targeting me or if I'm just a small fry in a big grease pit... Anyway u look at it we need an Anti Spam law immediately.

/me votes for it to include the death penalty

What do u guys think?

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 10:45 am

Everyone always talks about the copious amounts of SPAM they recieve. I guess I just stay on top of it and unsubscribe from those that appear reputable and block or "mark as spam" any others that reach my inbox. I've had this hotmail account for about 7 years now and recieve about 2 pieces of junkmail a day in my junk mail or inbox folder. (Sometimes none, sometimes more but it averages out).

My newer accounts in Yahoo and Gmail never recieve junk mail. So I have to wonder.......what sites are you all signing up for! Seriously.

Anyways, I can normally tell if an unsubscribe will work if the email looks like it was well written (or professionally) with very little to no gramatical errors at all. If they appear to be reputable I then use their little link to unsubscribe. I have often found that when I click that link I can unsubscribe from multiple junk mail hosts in one shot.

Another thing is, I dont pass on chain letters. I dont care who's little cancerous child my email is going to save, let's face it......how do we actually know that it is at all legit? Most of those chain letters are a gold mine for email farmers (i.e. those looking for more email addresses to send out their spam to). Often they are started for that sole reason. The creator of the email banks on the fact that they will be able to cash in on people's emotions and guilt.

Other tips include never posting your email anywhere online unless you use an email tag of sorts. If the plain text is in the open anyone with a browser and search engine (google) can just search with "@hotmail.com" and find a million people's email addresses online to send junk too.

Anyways, I have to run now and will probably post more later.

EDIT: Go here for more info as well: http://www.breakthechain.org/

Hope these tips help you all,
Kharn

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 10:59 am

yeah, same here, i got hotmail for long time, but sometimes no spam, and sometimes 5 or so.. today i recieved none!
i dont use a spam filter..
and blokking em does not work, couse i dont think iv gotten much spam from the same adres.
like 6 months ago i got alot of chinese/japanses spam.. that was hard to read Rolling Eyes

also.. if you want to get your penis enlarged.. i got multiply adresses to go to. also many different kinds of viagra and such.

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 11:57 am

I think its good idea [law] and it should cover allso reallife spam [commercials in the mailbox] and outomatically recorded comercials on the phone [they do it here quite often], plus surveys hehe...

Guest

sure it's a good idea, but the 'legit' direct-marketing industry (as the spammers like to call themselves) aren't the cause of the spam-problem.

The real problem are those that aren't tied to any specific organisation as they use zombie-servers & such things to keep them from being targeted.

// ---
I receive spam, but it's 'only' a few messages each day.

Best thing to counter spam is to avoid giving your own e-mail adress unless it is absolutely necessary. And even then I'd rather give my hotmail-adres.

Guest

You need to not publish your e-mail address on the web site. Don't you realize that SPAMMERS use BOTs to crawl through the HTML code looking for anything before and after an @ symbol?

raven@unrealops.com is planely posted on every single news post you make, and the other posters too.

You should seek out one of the free perl scripts or JAVA scripts that send e-mail via a web form instead of SMTP. That way your true e-mail address is never revealed but the web form in the back end knows how to send you e-mail.

google for the words "e-mail+form+script" you should find something.

Once you fix the site, then delete those old e-mail accounts and use something else, because the spammers already have you now. Hopefully they'll get NDR's on the old addresses and stop bothering you.

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 10:35 am

i use that on my website.
but.. what unrealops should do is use the replace() command in PHP and change the @ sign in the txt to a image that looks exactly the same. or use the mail adres and put that in a GD image and output that..
ore like this:
guus_goossens[NOSPAM]hotmail.com
guus_goossens[AT]hotmail.com
or something similair. but the first method works best i say..

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:21 pm

My point exactly. However, I thought his address was safe on the main page since the link on his name directs to "mailto:raven[at]unrealops.com". That doesn't protect his email address? Or can the bots just look at the source of the page and see the email address embedded in the page?

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 3:46 pm

mailto: command the browser to open the standard e-mail program and fill in the TO: field with the mail adres. sure bots can read this!

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 4:19 pm

Ok figured.

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 4:24 pm

That is a great theory but I never get any spam and my email address is on every post I make. Me thinks Raven's computer is not very secure or he hands out his address too easy.

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 9:04 am

/me slaps burgess for thinking that....

i only use the UO acct for UO stuff... nothin else

and i always have a firewall running.

and an e-mail filter

Guest

Kharnellius - Yes an HTML page is just a text file that can be easily scrapped looking for any characters before or after an @ character, Like Cheetah said. Smile

Guest

I just thought of another possibility. Change the e-mail links to be a forum PM for those guys and leverage the forums you have here instead of leveraging e-mail.