I would be interested in knowing how others control, or try to control, spam. Been having good results with iHateSpam.
I use Mailwasher and really like it. I read recently in another forum about a program called CSI which is more complicated but allows you to report the spammers to the appropriate agency (I don't know how much good that would actually do). I've also heard that K9 is good but haven't used it. Link to CSI (you'll probably have to copy and paste since I don't know how to make a link here yet): http://www.promailix.com/
Before saying what appears to be working for me, isn't true that e-mail can contain code that automatically "verifies" to the spammer that your address is valid when you open or preview it? Irrespective of attachments that is. Thanks. Rickster
Yes, that is true. The most common way to do this depends upon a person reading their email in html, with a browser enabled email client such as Outlook or Outlook Express. Spammers will customize the messages they send out to include unique information, (individualized to each receiver), which is contained within the active links (such as images) in the message. When the email client renders the message and goes to draw the various elements from the webservers they are sourced from, the unique identifiers within the message will be logged by the webserver. This confirms to the spammers that that message was opened and read, and therefore that the email address is valid. This is one reason why people often advise the reading of email messages in plain text, and not rendering the elements that are drawn via these customized links. I take a slightly different approach myself. I still use Outlook Express to read my email, and I allow html format to be used, but, I have my firewall configured in such a way that OE can only access my ISP's emails servers and only use email related ports (no port 80 http traffic is allowed, for example). But, there are other ways to read email securely.
Hi Rickster, If the email is sent with a read receipt request and the client is set to comply with those requests then yes. Alternatively, if the email is in HTML and the client is set to view in HTML and set to autoview then they could possibly tell that way as well (depending on how the html was drawn up). HTH, Dan
Thanks Dan and LowWaterMark. I have my OE set to read in plain text, so that must be it. But I noticed also since I disabled all scripting functions, including file dowloads in IE, I might get a small series of spams after visiting some sites. But when I view them in the preview pane, it looks like jibberish - jumbled letters. I delete them immediately and never get repeats. I assumed code - either through mail or while visiting a site simply can't execute. Either way, it just dies off completely. I haven't gotton one spam in four straight days now. The fastest way I picked up spam is when I send a business mail to someone (especially if they use AOL) and they obviously have a some kind harvesting Bot. You can tell because the spam has forwarded addresses of other folks we deal with. Ever since I took time to call folks who want to use e-mail with me and suggested these changes - spam is so rare now I can hardly believe it. I don't use any special programs to combat spam, it just fell off the face of the earth, so I must be doing something right. Best Regards. Rickster
