Spam

Jemppa

OSNN Newbie
Joined
8 May 2008
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Seeing as the 31st anniversary of Spam has been and gone, I thought I would ask for some advice on the very subject: Spam is constantly leaking into my Yahoo inbox. Has anyone else experienced? And what can be done about it (as I'm ready to ditch yahoo as a consequence of this hiderance! Thanks.
 
Alot of of webmail providers have their own built in filters, are you using those?
 
Sorry to hear about your spam problems. Spam hurts everyone !

I also am a Yahoo mail user. And Yes, I have noticed more spam making it into my Inbox lately. (The spam settings are under Mail..Options, but I think they are turned on by default anyway)

Everytime filters are created to combat spam, someone comes out with a "new" method of sneaking past the filters and it takes a while for the webmail providers to catch up. It's a vicious circle, and you will find it regardless of which email system you use.

There is no fool proof method to stop all spam, at times some webmail providers will appear to do a better job then others, and then it will switch around. The best approach it to be sure to mark the spam as spam with the "SPAM" button which will block the message from reaching you again in the future.

Another important (and annoying) thing to note, is that often the "from" address in these spam messages is a fake. So while you might think you are getting the spam from xxx@yyy.net it really isn't coming from them. Someone is just spoofing their email address to spam you.

One Final Tip: Never post your email address on any public forms or websites, as there are hundreds (or thosands) of bots going around scooping up such email addresses and adding them to their "spam me" lists. There are a couple of cool utilities out there that will allow you to turn your email address into an image, which makes it harder for the spam bot to catch.
 
Jemppa

Don’t blame the service providers for spam, it’s the spammers who are responsible.

Spam Filters work by checking the message content for specific indicators before it ‘guesses’ if it is spam or a real message. If you tighten the algorithms too much it will see everything as spam and you’ll lose genuine e-mails (called a False-Positive). What’s more spammers adjust their techniques to circumnavigate filters as a specific identifier is acknowledged throughout the spamming community.

Bottom line is Spam Filters don’t really work but it’s a good revenue generator for the software houses that write it!

There is a solution; it’s called Sender Address Verification whereby every sender is checked for their authenticity. This solution guarantee’s Zero False Positives and is 100% effective against computer generated spam. It’s a very simple solution and looks at spam in a completely different way to filters.

As long as there are people out there gullible enough to believe the messages contained in the spam there will always be spam. It’s a billion dollar industry making the spammers very rich very quickly if they get it right.
 
Alot of of webmail providers have their own built in filters, are you using those?

EP, like JPRuss said they're on by default. Though there is a costly mail upgrade with a more powerful filter.

There is a solution; it’s called Sender Address Verification whereby every sender is checked for their authenticity. This solution guarantee’s Zero False Positives and is 100% effective against computer generated spam. It’s a very simple solution and looks at spam in a completely different way to filters.

Thanks ktak, btw, do you know if SAV works on a Yahoo Mail account?
 
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SAV is not 100% effective, as much as the market touts it is. I'm not saying it's a bad approach, it is an interesting idea.

In the simplist form, if I try to send an email you you and I've never done it before, the system will send be back an email to confirm I really sent the email. A bot can easily be designed to read these messages and reply.

It has been suggested to fix this problem, a CAPTCHA be implemented, but CAPTCHA are now being twarted as well. So at best it is a temporary solution.

The other problem is that SPAMmers fake From addresses. So if John Doe spams 100 and spoofs my email address. The SAV system [potentially] will send me 100 emails to confirm I am really who I say I am. But it's not my fault that some spammer phised my email address.

Plus once I say "Yes" to just one email, the system whitelists my email address to that recipient, so the next person who fakes my from address will still get through.

In theory, a properly implemented SAV combined with the sender policy framework (SPF, Yahoo already has this) *might* work.

I'm afraid SPAM will be here to stay so long as there are people making money from it.
 
SPF is automatic with Yahoo, though they call it something different (Yahoo Domain Keys or something like that)

SAV is not an option in Yahoo, but you could "sort of" do it. You would need to setup a new Yahoo email and give it out to no-one (ever). Then setup an account with a service like SpamAssisan (cost $). Then change your from/reply-to address to spamAssisan and give out the spamassisn email to people.

I am not aware of any free versions of this at the momemnt...hmm maybe I should create one :)
 
Best way to get rid of spam is to have an inclusion filter rather then an exclusion one; you can either put friends on a list to be included as NOT SPAM, or you can have people enter in a certain code word in the subject field to avoid getting bounced.
 
SAV is not 100% effective, as much as the market touts it is. I'm not saying it's a bad approach, it is an interesting idea.

In the simplest form, if I try to send an email [to] you and I've never done it before, the system will send me back an email to confirm I really sent the email.
That sounds like the same scheme used by BoxTrapper and also whatever netcom.com uses. I and some others I've talked with consider this rude. It's like I have to sign up to request permission for the privilege of emailing people that use it. Also, I've read that it generates enough extra email traffic (that you don't see) to cause a noticeable problem if lots of people use it.

Wired magazine had an article a while ago about a high-profile Russian that had become wealthy (by Russian standards) by spamming. He was found beaten to death. While I don't condone any violence, the story really warmed my heart.

One trade-off I've made is to filter out all email from yahoo.com.XX and yahoo.XX, where XX is any country code. I've never gotten any legitimate email from any address like that, but I've received a noticeable amount of spam from them.
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

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