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Five Steps On How To Stop Spam Email
By John F | April 23, 2008
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How widespread is Spam? According to Vnunet: “Spam email accounted for 96.63% of all email scanned in March 2008, making it the third consecutive month that junk mail levels have remained steady.”
SPAM laws were passed in the USA and UK in 2003, and so far have failed to stop the flow of SPAM messages to inboxes. Very strict laws and punishment is required, rather than flimsy fines and little other punishment.
One major issue that needs to be dealt with about spam is that it is regularly coming from countries outside the UK or USA. These emails are harder to fight, because they come from outside the country’s laws and regulations. Because the Internet opens borders and thinks globally, these laws are good to set up, but do not stop the problem.
So what can you do to stop Spam getting into your inbox? Below are five steps to think about to protect you from spam.
Number 1: Avoid having your email address out on the Internet.
There are programs called “spam spiders” that search the Internet for email addresses to send email to. If you are interested, do a search on “spam spider” and you will be amazed at the results.
If you have a website, use form emails, which can hide addresses or use contact forms where the user has to complete an online form to get in contact with you. Don’t have your email such as yourname@yourdomain.com on your website, as after a short while you will be bombarded with spam email on a big scale.
Number 2: Get spam blocking software.
There are many programs out there for this. I suggest Mailwasher or Spambutcher. You may also buy a professional version. Whatever you do, get the software. It will save you time. The software is not foolproof, but they really do help. You usually have to do some manual set up to block certain types of email.
Number 3: Use the multiple email address approach.
There are a lot of free email addresses to be had. If you must subscribe to newsletters, then have a “back-up” email address. This would be like giving your mobile phone number to your best friends and the business number to everyone else.
You can also sign up for disposable email address that you can determine how long they stay active for. Using these disposable email addresses can prevent lots of spam getting delivered to you as once you have terminated the email address, that’s it. No more mail can be delivered. I would suggest Trashmail or Spam Gourmet.
Number 4: Attachments from people you don’t know are TROUBLE!
A common problem with spam is that they have attachments and attachments can have viruses. Employers often have filters that don’t let such things pass to you. Personal email is far easier for spammers. A general rule of thumb is, if you do not know who is sending you something, DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHMENT. Secondly, look for services that offer filtering. Good firewall or anti-virus programs should offer email scanning.
Number 5: Never respond to Spam emails.
Never respond to spam emails. Never respond to spam emails. Never respond to spam emails….
Topics: Computer Security Usefulness |
May 6th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
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May 15th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
[...] you read, you’ll probably smack your head and think " yeah, why didn’t I think of that!".http://www.john-french.net/blog/five-steps-on-how-to-stop-spam/Time Management Tips for Using EmailElectronic mail appeared as a blessing. It would let you [...]