******* SPAM!
Posted by: Harris V on 23 December 2002
I am furious, quite possibly delirious at what has happened to my well used hotmail account. All I did was click on one banner, just to see what was behind it. After that I clicked no further as it was not interesting. How then, did they manage to get my email address and spam the hell out of me??? Surely that cannot be legal - they must have interrogated my PC in some way?
If I had submitted email address without reading the privacy agreement I would have said fair enough - but I didn't - there was no warning in the banner text. The worst thing is that I know that if i attempt to unsubscribe they will sell my email address to another unscrupulous company. I ******* hate spammers.
If I had submitted email address without reading the privacy agreement I would have said fair enough - but I didn't - there was no warning in the banner text. The worst thing is that I know that if i attempt to unsubscribe they will sell my email address to another unscrupulous company. I ******* hate spammers.
Posted on: 23 December 2002 by Steve B
About a year ago I was showing a friend who had never owned a PC, how to set up a hotmail account. He sat beside me while I showed him how simple (to some I suppose) it was. I set the account up in his name while he watched me. I checked the account about a week later and found about about 20 or 30 spam emails. This account now gets around 50 spam emails (porn, mortgages, etc.) per week even with the junk mail filter on maximum. How come?
The account has never once been used to send emails and no emails received have ever been replied to.
Steve B
The account has never once been used to send emails and no emails received have ever been replied to.
Steve B
Posted on: 23 December 2002 by Willito
Spammers use bulk mailer programs that try every iteration of names conceivable. The programs randomly generate names, and these are fired off as e-mails to common mail providers like yahoo, hotmail, msn, aol, etc. If the address fails, the mailer daemon will bounce back the message and the name is struck from the list. If the mail doesn't fail, well then hot damn, the spammers are in business.
Most messages include some click-through routine to "prevent" receiving future messages. These provide only a mixed response at best. Often you will find the "unsubscribing" routine involves sending an e-mail to an address that doesn't exist.
The worst part is there is very little you can do about it once they have your name. There isn't really anyone "official" for you to complain to (unless of course the messages contain threats of violence, etc).
Unfortunately, the most effective solution is to change e-mail accounts. If you are going to open an account with aol or hotmail, you are making yourself a ready target for their mischievous ways. Consequently, the best defense is to pick a completely nonsensical name that is unlikely to be generated by the algorithim. Hence, WillitoMosquito for my MSN account and Willabalou for Yahoo. Be creative and be free.
Anybody have any better luck?
Most messages include some click-through routine to "prevent" receiving future messages. These provide only a mixed response at best. Often you will find the "unsubscribing" routine involves sending an e-mail to an address that doesn't exist.
The worst part is there is very little you can do about it once they have your name. There isn't really anyone "official" for you to complain to (unless of course the messages contain threats of violence, etc).
Unfortunately, the most effective solution is to change e-mail accounts. If you are going to open an account with aol or hotmail, you are making yourself a ready target for their mischievous ways. Consequently, the best defense is to pick a completely nonsensical name that is unlikely to be generated by the algorithim. Hence, WillitoMosquito for my MSN account and Willabalou for Yahoo. Be creative and be free.
Anybody have any better luck?
Posted on: 23 December 2002 by Mike Sae
The spam I get is atrocious. If I "unsubscribe", I'm afraid my e-mail will be forwarded to other spammers.
Has anyone unsubscribed sucessfully?
Has anyone unsubscribed sucessfully?
Posted on: 23 December 2002 by Jay
This is not going to help anyone who's already got SPAM problems but I have about 3/4 email accounts.
1. is my personal email account never given out to anyone but friends and family. Never been SPAM'd (crossing my fingers now!).
2. the other is a hotmail address mailly used whilst I'm but for friends/family too. Bit of spam not too much.
3. the third is my junk mail account also at Hotmail - anything that looks slightly dodgy (which is in fact everything on the web ) get's this email account. Truck loads of SPAM
Try that - it might help..
Jay
Yabba, dabba, doooooo
1. is my personal email account never given out to anyone but friends and family. Never been SPAM'd (crossing my fingers now!).
2. the other is a hotmail address mailly used whilst I'm but for friends/family too. Bit of spam not too much.
3. the third is my junk mail account also at Hotmail - anything that looks slightly dodgy (which is in fact everything on the web ) get's this email account. Truck loads of SPAM
Try that - it might help..
Jay
Yabba, dabba, doooooo
Posted on: 24 December 2002 by steved
I have a "normal" email account - ie via an ISP.
I too am plagued with spam, despite being very careful in giving out my address.
This past few weeks I have had a particular problem with offers to take part in the infamous Nigerian money laundering scam.
These are where someone from a foreign country needs the use of a UK bank account, and promises you millions of £ "commission" if you allow your account to be used. Just before your commission is about to be paid, there is a "problem", which requires you to pay some "legal fees". Of course your "legal fees" disappear without trace, and your commission never arrives. Gullible people have lost thousands in such get rich quick schemes.
These originally emanated from Nigeria, but now seem to come from many other countries as well.
I just delete them straight away, but they still keep coming.
STEVE D
I too am plagued with spam, despite being very careful in giving out my address.
This past few weeks I have had a particular problem with offers to take part in the infamous Nigerian money laundering scam.
These are where someone from a foreign country needs the use of a UK bank account, and promises you millions of £ "commission" if you allow your account to be used. Just before your commission is about to be paid, there is a "problem", which requires you to pay some "legal fees". Of course your "legal fees" disappear without trace, and your commission never arrives. Gullible people have lost thousands in such get rich quick schemes.
These originally emanated from Nigeria, but now seem to come from many other countries as well.
I just delete them straight away, but they still keep coming.
STEVE D
Posted on: 24 December 2002 by NeilM
I have had a hotmail account for about 18 months now and receive very little spam.
My theory is that the automatic e-mail generation patterns always look to create an e-mail with a seperator i.e. fred.bloggs@hotmail.com. My hotmail address does not have a seperator which is my I think I do not get endless spams.
Saying that it will probably start now......
Any one have a similar experience?
My theory is that the automatic e-mail generation patterns always look to create an e-mail with a seperator i.e. fred.bloggs@hotmail.com. My hotmail address does not have a seperator which is my I think I do not get endless spams.
Saying that it will probably start now......
Any one have a similar experience?
Posted on: 24 December 2002 by Roy T
. . or the very, very respectable and tax paying world of the "bulk Mail Industry".
One link to the Wall Street Journal and one to the Detroit Free Press.
Wall Street Journal
Detroit Free Press
One link to the Wall Street Journal and one to the Detroit Free Press.
Wall Street Journal
Detroit Free Press
Posted on: 24 December 2002 by Greg Beatty
...found a decent solution? Does the filtering software work?
I found a website by a guy who designs spam-blocking software. He uses a dataset of over 4,000 e-mail message - some spam, some not - to test his software. He said that he could block over 70% of the spam with about a 1% false hit rate (blocking a message as spam when it was not spam) by filtering messages that contain the word 'click'.
- GregB
Insert Witty Signature Line Here
I found a website by a guy who designs spam-blocking software. He uses a dataset of over 4,000 e-mail message - some spam, some not - to test his software. He said that he could block over 70% of the spam with about a 1% false hit rate (blocking a message as spam when it was not spam) by filtering messages that contain the word 'click'.
- GregB
Insert Witty Signature Line Here
Posted on: 28 December 2002 by BigH47
Try Mail Washer. www.mailwasher.net. You start it before your Outlook Express or whatever. You then have the option of bouncing,deleting or keeping your mail. You can "read" the mails without any acknowledgments going out.After you decide then it opens your mail accounts. You still get spam but it does not get any of your information or confirmation of address. Basic Mail Washer is a freebie.
Regards
Howard
Regards
Howard
Posted on: 09 January 2003 by Roy T
Posted on: 09 January 2003 by shinpad
quote:
Originally posted by NeilM:
I have had a hotmail account for about 18 months now and receive very little spam.
My theory is that the automatic e-mail generation patterns always look to create an e-mail with a seperator i.e. fred.bloggs@hotmail.com. My hotmail address does not have a seperator which is my I think I do not get endless spams.
Saying that it will probably start now......
Any one have a similar experience?
Unfortunately this isn't the case. My hotmail account, 5 or 6 years old, has no seperator and yet I still get hundreds of spam mails offering all sorts of things
As Liquidken says, if you select Options then under the Your Information list choose Personal Profile, at the bottom of the page there are 3 check boxes:
Share my email address
Share my first and last names
Share my other registration information
Uncheck all 3 - this should help
Graham
Posted on: 09 January 2003 by jayd
From the "News of the Weird" site:
Following a Detroit Free Press interview in November with bulk e-mailer Alan Ralsky (who gloated that his success at sending "spam" advertising had paid for his $740,000 home), Internet spam-haters tracked down Ralsky's West Bloomfield, Mich., address and inundated him with thousands of unsolicited hardcopy catalogs and mailings.
Following a Detroit Free Press interview in November with bulk e-mailer Alan Ralsky (who gloated that his success at sending "spam" advertising had paid for his $740,000 home), Internet spam-haters tracked down Ralsky's West Bloomfield, Mich., address and inundated him with thousands of unsolicited hardcopy catalogs and mailings.
Posted on: 19 February 2003 by Roy T
About time MS get legal with spammers, but why in the first place market a system that allows the spam merchants access to customer information?
Posted on: 12 April 2003 by Roy T
I have just come across these two links that will intrest those of you who suffer from the curse of spam.
The link from the Centre for Democracy & Technology shows findings gathered over six months from an ongoing research project concerned with how the scum get your details in the first place, it also offers some simple tips about how not get caught.
The second link is from The Age and offers some advice about the selection of the tools available to users who wish to fight the spammers.
Have a look and see what you think.
Roy
The link from the Centre for Democracy & Technology shows findings gathered over six months from an ongoing research project concerned with how the scum get your details in the first place, it also offers some simple tips about how not get caught.
The second link is from The Age and offers some advice about the selection of the tools available to users who wish to fight the spammers.
Have a look and see what you think.
Roy
Posted on: 13 April 2003 by Derek Wright
I occasionally receive spam that contains only an asterix - if I expand the message to show the script detail then the asterix is expanded to non human readable text - do other people get this type of junk
I am using the mail reader facility in Mozilla so I probably defeating some MS mail facility virus
Derek
I am using the mail reader facility in Mozilla so I probably defeating some MS mail facility virus
Derek
Posted on: 13 April 2003 by Roy T
Derek,
have you taken a look at the mozilla fora of late?, they have a new release plus better spam filtering - this may help. I use the Phoenix browser and rely on yahoo spam filtering plus others, it works for me
Roy
have you taken a look at the mozilla fora of late?, they have a new release plus better spam filtering - this may help. I use the Phoenix browser and rely on yahoo spam filtering plus others, it works for me
Roy
Posted on: 13 April 2003 by Derek Wright
Roy- Yes I am following the netscape.public.mozilla.os2 newsgroup
so far my ISP has been stopping a fair amount of spam from getting to my machine and they have provided an email address that I can forward spam to so that the charecteristics can be built into their filtering system.
I am on Mozilla 1.3 final - I declined to to go the next alpha or the latest variant that uses a different compiler - however I shall move up once I see some good feedback on the forum.
Derek
so far my ISP has been stopping a fair amount of spam from getting to my machine and they have provided an email address that I can forward spam to so that the charecteristics can be built into their filtering system.
I am on Mozilla 1.3 final - I declined to to go the next alpha or the latest variant that uses a different compiler - however I shall move up once I see some good feedback on the forum.
Derek
Posted on: 15 April 2003 by Roy T
AOL Sues Five 'Spam' Companies - A start
By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer
NEW YORK - America Online has filed five federal lawsuits targeting spammers it accuses of sending some 1 billion junk e-mail messages promoting mortgages, steroids and pornography to its subscribers.
The case resulted from about 8 million individual spam complaints from subscribers, most of whom used a "Report Spam" feature AOL introduced last fall, the company said Tuesday.
The lawsuits, one filed Friday and the rest Monday in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., are the first anti-spam cases AOL launched since May 2001. They seek damages of more than $10 million plus an end to the messages.
Most of the defendants are "John Doe," meaning AOL could not determine their identities. However, filing the lawsuits gives AOL additional authority to subpoena service providers and others to try to track down the spammers.
Individuals named in the lawsuits were Michael Levesque of Issaquah, Wash., and George A. Moore Jr. of Linthicum, Md. Their numbers were unlisted, and registration records for their domain names had false phone numbers.
Meanwhile, AOL has begun targeting spammers who use residential broadband services such as Comcast and Road Runner, which is also owned by AOL parent AOL Time Warner Inc.
AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said the company worked with the broadband service providers to identify the ranges of Internet addresses that appear to generate the most spam.
Legitimate messages from subscribers who use alternate mail servers — for example, if they have their own domain name — may be blocked in the process. Graham said such users would receive a notice about the block and could try to get their service provider to exempt them.
The blocks, he said, do not affect subscribers who use the primary mail server that comes with the service, which is usually the case.
"After we implemented those blocks, spam coming from Comcast and Road Runner dropped by approximately 90 percent each," Graham said.
Lets see just how far they get.
By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer
NEW YORK - America Online has filed five federal lawsuits targeting spammers it accuses of sending some 1 billion junk e-mail messages promoting mortgages, steroids and pornography to its subscribers.
The case resulted from about 8 million individual spam complaints from subscribers, most of whom used a "Report Spam" feature AOL introduced last fall, the company said Tuesday.
The lawsuits, one filed Friday and the rest Monday in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., are the first anti-spam cases AOL launched since May 2001. They seek damages of more than $10 million plus an end to the messages.
Most of the defendants are "John Doe," meaning AOL could not determine their identities. However, filing the lawsuits gives AOL additional authority to subpoena service providers and others to try to track down the spammers.
Individuals named in the lawsuits were Michael Levesque of Issaquah, Wash., and George A. Moore Jr. of Linthicum, Md. Their numbers were unlisted, and registration records for their domain names had false phone numbers.
Meanwhile, AOL has begun targeting spammers who use residential broadband services such as Comcast and Road Runner, which is also owned by AOL parent AOL Time Warner Inc.
AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said the company worked with the broadband service providers to identify the ranges of Internet addresses that appear to generate the most spam.
Legitimate messages from subscribers who use alternate mail servers — for example, if they have their own domain name — may be blocked in the process. Graham said such users would receive a notice about the block and could try to get their service provider to exempt them.
The blocks, he said, do not affect subscribers who use the primary mail server that comes with the service, which is usually the case.
"After we implemented those blocks, spam coming from Comcast and Road Runner dropped by approximately 90 percent each," Graham said.
Lets see just how far they get.
Posted on: 15 April 2003 by garyi
I always get spam on how to increase the size of my penis.
Question is how did they know?
Question is how did they know?
Posted on: 22 April 2003 by Martin Payne
I'm sure this is getting worse.
A couple of weeks ago I reached a new record - over 100 spams within one 24 hour period. Trouble is, it's now getting to be almost normal. The most annoying part is when I accidentally add a non-spam ID to the 'junk senders list'.
Jeez.
Martin
E-mail:- MartinPayne at Dial.Pipex.com
A couple of weeks ago I reached a new record - over 100 spams within one 24 hour period. Trouble is, it's now getting to be almost normal. The most annoying part is when I accidentally add a non-spam ID to the 'junk senders list'.
Jeez.
Martin
E-mail:- MartinPayne at Dial.Pipex.com
Posted on: 23 April 2003 by Roy T
Spammers to sue anti-spam organisations
A group of Florida-based porn peddlers, penis enlargement and Viagra spammers has united to file suit against anti-spam organisations.
Now read on . . the register
Roy
A group of Florida-based porn peddlers, penis enlargement and Viagra spammers has united to file suit against anti-spam organisations.
Now read on . . the register
Roy