Spam Defense. ** Mailwasher.net **

[MichiganMan]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Originally posted by Tomas:
Interesting discussions and ideas.

I take it that those of you who set the filters to reject e-mail that doesn't have your address specificly in the "TO" or "CC" fields don't belong to a bunch of super-large technical mailing-lists that by design try to keep privacy up and spam down by BCCing all the addressees?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It still works, you just have to specifically make a filter rule that allows the mailgroups messages based on a consistant characteristic of the messages, ie. a Sender, or a Subject line. This is also why you don't set your reader to automatically delete spam, you need to periodically look through it to make sure you're not missing stuff you want to keep.

For instance I'm currently involved in this secret business deal where this Nigerian king is gonna make me rich, Rich, RIC... never mind, I already said too much.

 

[Chris M.]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

I must admit I really like Mailwasher. It stands between my mailserver and my Inboxes and won`t let anything through that I don`t want, and there is the satisfaction of knowing that the unwanted junk mail is getting returned to the senders as the discarded trash that it is. You can set up filters and things but I don`t care for those as they can and do reject valid mail even if you think you`ve honed and refined them. I recently discovered it can be tied into databases of known spammers like the one at Spamcop, and automatically marks junk for bouncing and deleting. Since Spamcop, etc, update their databases all the time it probably won`t be more than a few minutes from a new bit of junk mail being unleashed that the origin gets on these blacklists. Even if it doesn`t you can always just do it manually.

If you`re familiar with the format of mailborne virusses then it`s an effective defense against those too. You can preview suspect mail in raw text form and look at the source for the attachment file type and that telltale {iframe} tag that the evil virus-creating scum uses to try and auto-open the attachments. Spot one of those, delete it and it`s gone.

And the best bit, it can be totally free, or you can pay to register it but the only difference is the Mailwasher banner bit dissapears, it`s otherwise fully operational even in unregistered form.

Of course, it won`t make it go away totally. Good internet hygiene is of course reccomended too, ie, be careful who or what you give your address to, all things that have been said above. And as you probably all know from just below the orange banner, I`m the paranoid anti-spam sort who always disguises my address when posting in public now, for what it`s worth, and I ask that everyone else will do that for me too. Please don`t stick me in Outlook address-books either.

 

[Quickbeam]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

I have 3 accounts - one for thelightsite, one for "enter your e-mail address here" web forms that will result in possible marketing materials, and a 3rd address that only friends and family get with the explicit instructions that they are never to ever type that address into any web pages that ask for an e-mail address, including holiday/birthday card sites. 3 years and no spam on that last account.

 

[K-T]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Originally posted by Quickbeam:
I have 3 accounts - one for thelightsite, one for "enter your e-mail address here" web forms that will result in possible marketing materials, and a 3rd address that only friends and family get with the explicit instructions that they are never to ever type that address into any web pages that ask for an e-mail address, including holiday/birthday card sites. 3 years and no spam on that last account.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Worked for me, too. At least 4 years, then suddenly they found my secet private email address somewhere.

Originally posted by MichiganMan:

Originally posted by Tomas:
[qb]For instance I'm currently involved in this secret business deal where this Nigerian king is gonna make me rich, Rich, RIC... never mind, I already said too much.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Just a second, I thought I was picked to be the chosen one?

 

[logicnerd411]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

I forget where, but Craig has a VERY effective list of words to filter out on his webpage somewhere...

I've used for a few months and it has effectively cut down my spam. Try it!

 

[Silviron]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

I'm with Chris M.

I love Mailwasher. I reckon it saves me an hour a day; I can sort through my (average 300 a day) emails, not miss anything important that COULD be filtered out acidentally and saves bandwidth and wear & tear on norton by not having to download and check virus laden emails.

I was trying to manage my own spam filter at the server (I run several of my own domains, and have that control) but that was taking me an extra hour a day sometimes too.

Mailwasher is a good choice, and is free. I sent the guy some money because it is worth it to me.
http://www.mailwasher.net/

 

[doubleganger]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Originally posted by Icebreak:

What do you do to defend your main address?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">when you log into hotmail, you get a cookie from passport that contains your hotmail address. You get the cookie even if you go into passport and uncheck the share email address. Download ie cookies view from download.com and take a look for it. There are ways for third parties to read the contents of cookies if they know the name of the cookie. So make sure you get rid of that cookie on a regular basis.

EDIT: I figured this out because I would just look at a website and the next day get spam on the very item I had looked at. That happened too many times to be coincidence.

The other thing I do is use the unsubscribe/remove option on spam from legitimate businesses. They usually honor the request. That has cut my spam way down.

 

[Icebreak]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Thanks all. I’m sure these solutions will be helpful to other members.

K-T –

Yes, MichiganMan got me straightened out.

I like e=mc²s autoresponder deal. I need to investigate that as well.

I’ll be aware of the caveats Tomas presented. It seems like a batch of filters is somewhat programmatic in that they are basically If Then Else statements.

Chris M.-
Thanks for your confirming input. Silveron’s description, which includes the .net, http://www.mailwasher.net/ sure makes this look good.

doubleganger-

It’s my real address I’m most concerned with. I usually access Hotmail through a folder in Outlook. When I go directly to it for maintenance I’m pretty sure Cookie Crusher defeats the cookies.

 

[jtivat]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Originally posted by MichiganMan:

Second is set your e-mail reader to filter out e-mail that doesn't explicitly have your address in it. This is tremendously effective. Notice how 90% of the spam you get has your address in the BCC, this of course is because they e-mail 1000 people at a time and can't include every address in the TO field. It also provides purchased addresses to other spammers, so they go in BCC.

Both of these have worked well for me.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Can someone tell me where to do this in Outlook.

 

[Icebreak]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Originally posted by Icebreak:
...

OK in Outlook it's Tools/Message Rules. So I made this rule:

"Where the to line does not contain '[email protected]' send this cr*p to the Recycle Bin."

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">In Outlook Express it's on the menu bar at the top. Tools/Message Rules/Mail. As you check the boxes the rules begin to appear. Any part of the rule that is blue can be clicked on and modified. I have not totally figured it out yet but that is where it is. Some of the other posters to this thread suggested to be careful about how this option is used.

 

[Wingerr]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Since you guys have been giving it good reports, I gave Mailwasher a try, and it looks pretty good-
this may be effective on the accounts already getting overrun with spam, like everything Hotmail related.
The beta version has been a bit unstable, crashing every now and then for some reason, but it only needs a restart to get back up; so far no permanent type effects. The older stable version listed on the site may not have these problems, but I've been using it primarily to handle the hotmail spam, which the older one doesn't support.

Not sure how effective it'll be in getting off the spam lists, presumably by sending back "Undeliverable" bounces to the spammmers, because they probably don't use real return addresses anyway, but it does make it easier to consolidate and delete them wholesale.
I give it a thumbs up too-

 

[logicnerd411]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Even though not very effective, if my filter hits something, it puts it in my Bulk Mail and sends an autoresponse:

WARNING: Your email address has been sent to the Federal Trade Commission Spam Report Center([email protected]).

This email address does not tolerate spam of any kind. Please remove this email address from your list. Thank you. If you really are legitimate, please use words that do not imply you are junk mail.

 

[MichiganMan]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Logic, that may get you off a list or three on the "respectable" spammers (BIG oxymoron) but the problem is a "Remove me from your list" response is often exactly what spammers desperately want. It gives the them two very valuable facts: One, it confirms the e-mail address is valid, and Two, that someone at that address at least reads the headers (see if they bother to determine it was an auto-response) These two facts makes your address a valuable commodity to be bought, sold and used.

I understand the FTC does take forwarded Spam and uses it for patterns though. But as for as the spammers go, unless you implicitly trust the company and have a relationship with them I wouldn't let them know they found me. It won't nessasarily help you, but it doesn't help them either.

 

[Wingerr]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Originally posted by MichiganMan:
Logic, that may get you off a list or three on the "respectable" spammers (BIG oxymoron) but the problem is a "Remove me from your list" response is often exactly what spammers desperately want. It gives the them two very valuable facts: One, it confirms the e-mail address is valid, and Two, that someone at that address at least reads the headers (see if they bother to determine it was an auto-response) These two facts makes your address a valuable commodity to be bought, sold and used.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That's why I always go offline to look through the mail, because just previewing in Outlook Express can allow them to know the address is 'live', when it retrieves the objects from their website- you don't even need to respond to it.

 

[BillPilot]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

I agree with the post about Mailwasher -- it's an excellent anti-spam program, that has very few false positives.

I also like InboxDoctor, www.inboxdoctor.com, which scans your pop email and grabs your spam before your regular email program downloads it. With InboxDoctor you have the option of deleting that spam at your convenience, or returning it to your inbox, if it's not spam.

--Bill

P.S. And I've been getting a fair amount of spam lately about the Forever Flashight (that you shake to make electricity.)

 

[Albany Tom]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Outlook express? I'd give some serious thought to using something, anything, else. I've seen more security reports on that product than every other Microsoft product combined, with the possible exception of IIS, and that's saying something.

 

[Icebreak]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

BillPilot-

replacing the "," with a "/" seems to correct your hyperlink to http://www.inboxdoctor.com/ .

Thanks. I'll check it out.

Albany Tom-

Well, now you've gone and embarassed me. My machine is a $5,000.00 replacement to a $900.00 dollar machine courtesy of Dell after a 3 mo. long trouble ticket. It's stable and fast. I told myself I would not do anything to it as it is so critical to income. You are right. Outlook Express is like saying, "come get me.".

Here I am with Office 2000 and XP disks sitting next to me for a year, ready to go but I just can't pull the trigger.

At work I'm the only pgmer that thoroughly investigates patches and upgrades and has only excepted one for the upsizing wizard in ACCESS to build SQL databases. I'm also the only pgmer that has had no proglems.

Yeah, Sr. Software engineer I am, I am...but fumble with unwanted e-mails on my home machine. Well, I can tell you guys 'cause I don't mind if you make fun of me...or fun of the ME on the machine.

 

[Wingerr]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Originally posted by Albany Tom:
Outlook express? I'd give some serious thought to using something, anything, else. I've seen more security reports on that product than every other Microsoft product combined, with the possible exception of IIS, and that's saying something.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That's true, but it's worked well for me so far; just have to be more careful with it, and I haven't had any security issues or other reasons to switch. I tried Eudora, but it wasn't as fast and easy for me, so I just stayed with OE. The main problem with OE is its inability to optionally download just the mail headers, but now with Mailwasher, I can prescreen it, so the combination works well.

 

[Canuke]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Another vote for Mailwasher here. The ability to filter mail on the server BEFORE downloading it ought to be built into mail readers on principle; Mailwasher combined with Eudora 5 does everything I need.

An additional benefit to Mailwasher is its bounce feature. The only possible flaw with the latter is that bounces from Mailwasher are not exactly like real bounces -- the former contain your IP address and computer name. If the spammers develop bounce trackers that can differentiate between them, then this feature may bite you back.

http://www.mailwasher.net

This guy is getting some cash once I'm working again.

 

[Albany Tom]

Re: Spam Defense. What do you do?

Originally posted by Icebreak:

Yeah, Sr. Software engineer I am, I am...but fumble with unwanted e-mails on my home machine. Well, I can tell you guys 'cause I don't mind if you make fun of me...or fun of the ME on the machine.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It's the story of the shoemaker's kids.

Thanks for the humor. Just don't return the favor and ask me when the last time I backed up my home pc was!