Use a fake email address to reduce spam from newsgroups
michi
I have posted several times my personal email address all over the
use-net.
and got tons of spam back. Some news groups are a favourable place for
spammers to spider email addresses.
If you fell that you also get spam, use the free email service from
http://www.myTrashMail.com. You dont need a signup nor password. You
can use
any name for your new fake email address. Just write any name +
@mytrashmail.com
The whole thing is free and keeps your email up to two weeks stored.
However you should not use this service for signing-up bank accounts
etc. Never use this service ifyour data must be 100% secure. Since you
dont have a password it is possible for others to check out your
emails.
Nevertheless, its a great service to reduce new spam emails.
Shawn Hearn
www...@gmx.ch (michi) wrote:
> Hello there.
>
> I have posted several times my personal email address all over the
> use-net.
> and got tons of spam back. Some news groups are a favourable place for
> spammers to spider email addresses.
Isn't it easier just to munge your email address?
bat
SH>> use-net.
SH>> and got tons of spam back. Some news groups are a favourable place for
SH>> spammers to spider email addresses.
SH> Isn't it easier just to munge your email address?
In usenet - yes. Temporary email addresses are useful when you make a
purchase in yet another web store that can't just charge your credit card in
order to sell their item - no, they need email address. Or web forums. Or
your bank. Etc.
Yahoo! mail has this feature, very convenient. Their disposable email
addresses automatically forward to the main address, plus these emails
become color-coded in the web interface, so they are easy to spot.
regards
Christine
"Shawn Hearn" <sr...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:srhi-A90EBB.0...@news-40.giganews.com...
I would think so. Didn't want to "munge" my real e-mail address but felt
forced to because of spam. Mine is ever so slightly munged so if anybody
really wants to e-mail me they can.
Chris in Pearland, TX
jjmoreta
Well it depends. If you munge your email address like:
nobody...@spamcop.net - you're making more work for your email
provider since any mail is going to be processed by your server and have
to be bounced back if the mail isn't unmunged. Since spammers use fake
reply-to addresses they'll never see it, either.
And you really shouldn't mess with domain names either, like
nob...@nospam.spamcop.net or doing something like
nob...@spamcop.org/com/co/etc which also causes havoc with mailing lists
- Yahoo Groups stopped accepting my messages without being able to
bounce them back when I tried it a long time ago (took me a week to
figure out why none of my emails were showing up).
The right way to do it is to add things after the domain name or change
it completely using invalid like nob...@spamcop.net.nospam or
nob...@spamcop.invalid. You can also spell things out in the body like
the famous nobody(at)spamcop(dot)net (but I'm sure that can be stripped
and replaced by most email-harvesters nowadays). But the problem with
doing this is that some email programs won't let you do this (Mozilla
Thunderbird won't) and then you have to deal with SMTP servers that will
automatically reject mail if they can't resolve the domain (which is why
"joe jobs" started being used, where spammers use someone else's valid
email address as a reply-to when they send the spam)
My favorite alternative is to use a spam trap email address that people
have set up - like nob...@spamcop.net. If people spam it, it is used to
improve spam filters and a complaint is sent to the ISP's involved. I
wonder if u...@ftc.gov would be a good one too *snicker* (it's the
address where you can forward UCE or unsolicited commercial email to the
government)
But what I use is a system of "throwaway" Hotmail email addresses. I
have even have two tiers - one for legitimate website signups and one
for shady places I'm fairly sure would spam me. The spam filters at
Hotmail are a lot better than they used to be and with the increased
account space, I only have to check them every few weeks for a
legitimate email from someone. I don't give out my ISP email address to
anyone but my closest friends.
And if you have your own domain with dozens of email addresses to spare,
something fun I know some anti-spam advocates do is to create a unique
email address for each sign-up that they do. If that address receives
spam, then they know which site likely sold their address. Granted,
there are spammers that do dictionary searches (stringing random
characters together until they find a hit), but unless you have a common
domain name, you're not going to be high on their list.
Oh and btw, I would be shocked if every email-harvester program out
there couldn't unmunge NOSPAM or various common variants by now, so be
creative whatever you do and tell people how to unmunge your address in
your post or sig.
This munging FAQ is an oldie but a goodie:
http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/mungfaq.html
- Joanne
Jeff
Gary Schnabl
"michi" <www...@gmx.ch> wrote in message
news:ec0e7914.04082...@posting.google.com...
> Hello there.
>
> I have posted several times my personal email address all over the
> use-net.
> and got tons of spam back. Some news groups are a favourable place for
> spammers to spider email addresses.
I don't bother with altering my addresses and such. In return, I receive a
small amount of spam which is easily dealt with using MailWasher Pro and/or
Eudora. If I feel inclined to do so, I can effortlessly even report the spam
and virus/worm email via SpamCop to their source ISPs. Or I can use an
address in the NGs that only is a depository for spam. It's no problem,
really.
Gary
Bob
"jjmoreta" <jjmo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2orsanF...@uni-berlin.de...
> Oh and btw, I would be shocked if every email-harvester program
out
> there couldn't unmunge NOSPAM or various common variants by
now, so be
> creative whatever you do and tell people how to unmunge your
address in
> your post or sig.
I count on that.
Bob