How do you deal with Spammers?

[lost1]

OK, I'm gettin' tweaked here. Ever since I signed on with Mindspring a few months ago for internet, I've been swamped with spam mail. Get rich schemes, porno ****, you name it. I've had at least 10 different ISP's over the years, and I've never had a problem before.
I've turned on the utterly useless "Spaminator" mail filter they give with their software, but it's impact is marginal at best. I wrote their customer service a detailed email about the problem, and told them that I was using the Spaminator software. Their response was "Turn on the Spaminator software." Needless to say, they didn't even read my complaint- so I looked in my Inbox and forwarded (to Mindspring customer service) 18 individual spam mails I had sitting there, each with the header reading "You Mindspring guys like spam mail so much, I thought I'd share the wealth with you!" and sent all 18 to customer service. I DID get a response then- a very courteous one explaining how sorry they were, and how spam was an integral part of the web, blah-blah-blah.
Anyway my point is, how do you all handle spam? I've noticed that asking to be removed from a spammer's mail list usually results in the removal request being sent back as undeliverable- big shock there...
I see spam as an invasion of my privacy as well as an irritant. I've heard of email-bombs, but I think that they are illegal. So I'm interested in devising/learning new ways to legally be a pain in the spammers' butts. Any suggestions?

[smokin1]

You may want to just set up your e-mail client to delete mail from the various sources...mail bombing used to be so much fun..but now...well..spammers are a little ahead of that...I would be choked at mindspring for giving out your e-mail address though
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[LittleKing]

I know what you mean. My parents just switched ISP's and now they recieve several spam messages a day. This is the firsT time I have ever been involved with spam and I don't know how to deal with them either. I'll probably suggest that they switch back to there old ISP. Any help on how to deal with spammers would be appreated by me as well.

LK

[chipbgt]

whenever you use a company like bellsouth or mindspring or AOL especially, your liable to get spam because your email address is so accessible....getting a lesser known company might help , and make sure the company doesnt give your email out!

also, i have a hotmail account i give out on web pages instead of my real one...that sends most of it there.

[Ygor]

The easiest & quickest thing is just delete.
Lately it seems about half of mine comes from earthlink, which is rather odd due to their no-nonsense policy about it.
You can try forwarding to Postmaster@ whatever service you are on, as well as the originator's service.
If it comes from earthlink, use abuse@earthlink.net as the forward. I don't think I've gotten any from the same earthlink address twice.

Unfortunately most of this comes from accounts that are either hacked or disposed of once the email is sent.

[lost1]

Thanks for the replies folks. For a while, I had a DirecPC account at the same time as Mindspring, and anytime I gave out my email address, it was always the DirecPC one. I never got a single spam to that mailbox, but the Mindspring one got flooded every day- even though I had never given it out myself. This leads me to the conclusion that Mindspring (or one of their employees)is selling my email address to junkmailers, which totally hacks me off to the max.
I live in a very rural area, and my ISP options are limited. I went with Mindspring only because they are one of the few who service my area.
The "click here to be removed from our mailing list" link that accompanies all these messages is a waste of time- for as Ygor says, they originate from hacked or dead addresses. What I usually do is click on the legitimate site address they give & send them a flame mail- probably useless as a deterrent but somewhat therapeutic to me on a personal level...
So again, if anyone has something more creative they'd like to pass on, I'm open to suggestions http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[Wiz]

i'd like to say that the email account i got through @home is great. I have et to get spam, and i have had it for almost a year. the only stuff i get that i even concider a bit annoying is their newsletter.

[RayH]

This may sound complicated, but is actually very simple in practice.

Since Mindspring is becoming spam central, just leave it as a spam box. If you're using OE5, eliminate it from send/receive.

Get two Hotmail boxes. One for personal e-mail, which will be linked to OE5.

The second to retrieve spam from Mindspring via the retrieve POP3 accounts. If something from Mindspring arrives that you want, forward it to the first Hotmail account.

The first Hotmail account, you only give that address out to friends. Any other stuff goes to Mindspring.......

You can use OE5, like a POP3 with Hotmail..

[Susan]

What's strange is that I have used Mindsping for the last three years and it wasn't until recently (when they merged with Earthlink) that I started getting the spam myself.

I actualy received a spam message recently that did not even have my address correct, but was a variation of it - and I still received it.

I e-mailed Mindspring with the information and received the same sort of message from them that lost1 got, but with a bit more regarding how spammers can actually get around the system by creating similar addresses.

Needless to say, I'm not too happy and have been thinking of switching from Mindspring.

I'm thinking Pinkpig.

[socalgal]

Apparently Mindspring's merger with ELN doesn't extend to ELN's great anti-spam filters.

I never, and I mean never, get spam with Earthlink. Can't beat their tech support either. I'm sprung on ELN! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif

[beller6]

I get spammed left and right at hotmail 35 in one day alone!!, but NEVER had it at Yahoo. What I do to spammers is send their mail back to them, then block it.

[stylin19]

I just received spam about accepting credit cards blah..blah..blah
they include a 1-800 # to call.
I will call it about a bazillion times and put the phone to the TV set on a spanish channel. i will try to fill up their message box and they have to pay for the calls.

[fah q]

Bomb them back....hehe <eg>

[daveleau]

I don't use Mindspring's email. I just switched over from Prodigy about 2 months ago b/c of the Best Buy thing swamped the servers for Prod. here in Chas. i do have a mailbox full of junk at Mindspring. I have never given that address out to anyone and have never even sent out an email. I just use Yahoo. Spam is sent to a bulk mail box that can be emptied directly like your trash. nice feature. I've been using that email for about a yr and a half and I get very little spam that doesn't get sent to their new bulk mail box.
Dave

[Serge]

What you do is.. you setup free web based email adress and when you sign up for newsletter or post your email somewhere or such where you know people you don't know will see it.. use the web based email. Also you might want to try setting up a free redirect account.. in both cases when the spam load gets unbarable just cancel the email accound and open up new one. I've notices that my email is frequently sold when I buy online from small and medium sized companies so if you sure about the security of your web based email I'd go with it too for online shopping.

As far as individual spammers go I've found that about 1/4 of spammers are "amatures" and they don't properly spoof their ips. What you can do is go to InterNIC whois (http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois/) or for individual areas (Americas = <A HREF="http://"http://whois.arin.net/whois/arinwhois.html" TARGET=_blank>ARIN</A>, Asia = APNIC (http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl), Europe/Middle East = RIPE NCC (http://www.ripe.net/db/whois.html) and plug in the IP of emailer. If you using netscape make sure you have "All Headers" enabled in Viewing options.
In the 'whois' results you should get some contact email from spammers ISP and if you don't at least you'll get ISP adress or name and you can figure out the rest. I find that forwarding spam to apropriate ISP account doesn't always work so if you have time call up their 1-800 number. I've killed about ten accounts that way. Unfortunately most spammers know what they're doing and bounce thought several wingates with their spoofed IP so tracing it is rather difficult.

P.S. when viewing ip and getting dns'd things like hicorp.gate.net you can be sure that's not the real spammers ip and simply a bounced adress (passed through), in such cases don't waste your time.

[This message has been edited by Serge (edited 01-03-2000).]

[Ygor]

One thing I've done is make a list of those I like to get mail from and enter those, blocking all others for about a week.

As far as I can tell, the spammers have to stop and remove each blocked name for it to send. They eventually get tired of this and just remove the address.

I'm not directly with earthlink, but some of my spam/porn mail seems to originate there. I guess the senders don't realize I can track that and send it to abuse@earthlink when I do get it. That, or it's a deleted account by then. It seems to go thru a lot more relays when that happens.

[Axel]

I noticed a few major mistakes made by a few of you.

Many SPAM e-mails are set up to get responses and then keep mailing to those boxes.

So - if you reply in any way, either by blocking the account or replying with a flamer, then you just got tagged as a live e-mail address and the spammer makes money by selling other spammers addresses that have responded to his ad. Note it makes absolutely no difference what the response was.

The absolute best way to reduce your SPAM is to diligently delete without response or blocking the e-mail. The only true way to eliminate E-mail spam is to never log on to the internet again.

The idea that a blocked e-mail address stops a SPAM program is a pipe-dream. It stops you from getting the e-mail in your in-box, but doesn't stop anyone from sending it out. That's like trying to stop bulk snail-mail.....

As for the porn stuff - that and a few other offers are legally actionable and can be brought to the attention of your local DA should you opt to try to do something about it.

[Serge]

Ofcourse you should never reply as Axel says but that's the spammer will know your email account is real since he/she received DSN "receipt" from your isp's email server saying that user@isp.ext exists. As far as MDN (the one that tells sender you've "read" the email) receipt goes you can block it. Look in your "Mail & Newsgroups"/"Return Receipts" section of preferences in Netscape.. not sure about IE as I don't use it.. much.

[brandon184]

I've noticed its the large ISP's who do it too..

My first internet accounts were with fairly small ISP's and probably 1 message out of 100 was a spam/unwanted message. After a few small ISP's, I started with larger ISP's (no better access by the way.) and 1/4 to 1/2 of my email is spam...

I have a hotmail acct, and probably about 75%-85% of my mail there is spam... I know for a fact hotmail gives out addresses, because you can sign up for a weird address there like yxp301373@hotmail.com, an address that has probably never been used before, and leave the account inactive for a long time, just logging in every once and a while, not giving ANYONE your address, and you will get spam.. I've done this before. To prove hotmail gives out your email address.. (Also not signing up for any of their e-zine services)

I used to think spam wasn't a big deal, until I started to get it.. Then it was a big deal for me.

[lost1]

That's basically how I figured out that Mindspring was selling my address- I had 2 internet accounts for several months (DirecPC & Mindspring), NEVER ONCE did I give out the Mindspring email address, and within 48 hours of opening the account, spam started flooding in. I guess they figure we're stupid and can't figure out their BS scam.
Oh well, I guess it's time to bail on Mindspring...

I really wish that some warped virus-creator would get mad at the spammers and devise some insidious bug that would seek out the offending address & blow up the spammers computer.
Hmmm, wishful thinking... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

[Axel]

lost1 - that's why most of the spam e-mails shut down moments after launching, so they don't get all the flame-mail and viruses they get launched at them.

Then all that stuff hangs around the e-mail server of the dead account doing who knows what to innocent e-mail accounts at the same location. The whole SPAM thing is bad all around.