The Spamdemic Map

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://www.cluelessmailers.org/spamdemic/mapfullsize.html">http://www.cluelessmailers.org/spamdemic/mapfullsize.html</a><br /><br />This is a GREAT graphic that shows the complicated web of interaction between spammers and the companies that hire them. Absolutely incredible! Go check it out. Source: <a href="http://www.lockergnome.com/issues/techspecialist/20020626.html">Lockergnome Tech Specialist</a>

[sundown]

For the longest time I tolerated spam and didn't see what the big deal was. I mean, heck, deleting unwanted email is easier than throwing away the junkmail I get in my mailbox each day. But now I do care because not only am I getting 20x more spam (100 or more messages a day in one email account alone) but some of it is advertising incest, rape and other extremely offensive material. I wish there was a simple, straightforward way for me to deal with it. I'd like to report the spammer to someone who can blacklist them and then be done with it. I've tried things like Spamcop (www.spamcop.com) but their reports don't seem to help much and I seem to end up getting even more junk (could it be because Spam Cop sent my email address to the spammer as part of the complaint?).

Just ranting I guess. We need a massive opt-out list or something. Heck, I'd even pay something to be on it.

[Ed Hansberry]

Holy cow! someone get me a text listing of this site. Lots would just love to copy and paste these domains in their email filters.

[innersky]

Heck, I'd even pay something to be on it.

You found a hole in the market...if it only were possible

[Tom Eichers]

:( I finally just set my email filters to delete everyting except from people only in my contact list. The junk mail was just getting way out of control, now when syncing it downloads 100 + emails directly to my trash and 1 to 5 appear in my inbox.

[Ed Hansberry]

:( I finally just set my email filters to delete everyting except from people only in my contact list. The junk mail was just getting way out of control, now when syncing it downloads 100 + emails directly to my trash and 1 to 5 appear in my inbox.
That is a bit extreme isn't it? You could win valuble prizes from Pocket PC Thoughts.com and you would never know because the email notification would be lost. :lol: :wink:

[Jason Dunn]

:( I finally just set my email filters to delete everyting except from people only in my contact list. The junk mail was just getting way out of control, now when syncing it downloads 100 + emails directly to my trash and 1 to 5 appear in my inbox.

My problem when I do that is I always have to go look in the deleted items folder just to see if there is an email that shouldn't have gotten deleted...thus it takes more time than simply deleting them as they come in.

[normaldude]

I used to fight spam religiously. But 2 years ago, I decided to try a fresh approach.

I slowly retired my old email accounts, and created a new primary email address and a bunch of disposable forwarding email aliases (using directnic.com as my registrar for my domain name). I only gave my primary email address to close friends and family. With the various disposable forwarding email aliases, I would just individually destroy them if they attracted any spam.

For example: If I owned the domain name "randomwebsite.com" at directnic.com, and I wanted to create an account at Amazon.com to do some shopping, I would create an email alias like [email protected]. All emails to this alias would be forwarded to my primary email account. If [email protected] ever attracted any spam, I would just delete that email alias. And I would also know that Amazon.com was the one who sold me out to spammers.

It's been 2 years now, and I no longer get spam email. It's a huge relief.

Some links:
http://mail.yahoo.com
http://www.fastmail.fm
http://www.directnic.com

[icatar]

For those that don't want to register their own domain, you can try www.sneakemail.com, which will setup aliases for you that will forward mail to your primary account.

[Marc Zimmermann]

I only gave my primary email address to close friends and family.

I hope that you have been educating friends and family NOT to use that address to enter in forms for sending you greeting cards or other stuff.

[normaldude]

I only gave my primary email address to close friends and family.

I hope that you have been educating friends and family NOT to use that address to enter in forms for sending you greeting cards or other stuff.

I know. That's the weakpoint in the chain.

I think the major sites like bluemountain and hallmark are probably safe, but the smaller, lesser known e-greeting card sites are risky. I haven't thought of a polite way to tell all my friends & family to NOT send me e-greeting cards. Even if I did ask all my contacts to NOT send me e-greeting cards, I'm sure many of them would forget after a year or so, and send me one next time Christmas rolled around.

Oftentimes, if a friend sends me an e-greeting card from a website that I don't know, I won't pick up the card (don't want to validate my email to a potential spamhaus), and I'll ask my friend to send me the message directly.

The other weak point is that I hear some MS Outlook viruses might grab people's address books, and send that info to the virus writer. Although I never get caught by viruses, a friend or family member might, and thus reveal my email address to the spam world.

But as I said, it's been 2 years now, and I'm still spam free. Hopefully it will keep up.

[Ed Hansberry]

I hope that you have been educating friends and family NOT to use that address to enter in forms for sending you greeting cards or other stuff.
No kidding. My kids had emails that were only given to grandparents. One of the grandparents did the greeting card thing and within 2-3 days, they started getting spam. I simply deleted the email addresses.

[sundown]

:( I finally just set my email filters to delete everyting except from people only in my contact list. The junk mail was just getting way out of control, now when syncing it downloads 100 + emails directly to my trash and 1 to 5 appear in my inbox.

Funny that you mention that - I've had 3 people in the last day or so tell me they've done the same thing. I agree they will miss out on some legitimate stuff and it's too bad they have to go to that "extreme" to fight spam.