Information Request

Does anyone know how spam emails be stopped, or is there something
that can be downloaded
that would help?

James

http://www.mailwasher.net/

John

James wrote:

Does anyone know how spam emails be stopped, or is there something
that can be downloaded
that would help?

James

On Fri, 28 Dec 2007 09:14:53 -0800 (PST), James
wrote:

Does anyone know how spam emails be stopped, or is there something
that can be downloaded
that would help?


There are many third-party tools available, depending on what E-mail
client you use. Some are free; some are not. I personally use
Cloudmark with Outlook 2007.

Also many ISPs and E-mail servers do a good job of filtering spam.

However, note that no tool, whether it's one that you run or one that
your ISP provides, is anywhere near perfect. At best they will
recognize some spam (although the good ones get *most* spam), and stop
it. The result is a *reduction* in spam, not total stopping of it.

I see that you use GMail. If you haven't done so, enable GMail's spam
filter. It's one of the best.

Also note that you posted here using what appears to be your real
E-mail address. Although some damage may already be done, you should
stop doing this immediately. There are spambots that garner E-mail
addresses from newsgroup postings. Either "munge" your address by
adding characters to it (with instructions on how to remove them in
your signature, if you want E-mail replies) or use an entirely fake
return address. Since I don't want E-mail replies here at all, I take
the later option, and my return address is
in


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

On Dec 28, 12:42*pm, "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:
On Fri, 28 Dec 2007 09:14:53 -0800 (PST), James
wrote:

Does anyone know how spam emails be stopped, or is there something
that can be downloaded
that would help?

There are many third-party tools available, depending on what E-mail
client you use. Some are free; some are not. I personally use
Cloudmark with Outlook 2007.

Also many ISPs and E-mail servers do a good job of filtering spam.

However, note that no tool, whether it's one that you run or one that
your ISP provides, is anywhere near perfect. At best they will
recognize some spam (although the good ones get *most* spam), and stop
it. The result is a *reduction* in spam, not total stopping of it.

I see that you use GMail. If you haven't done so, enable GMail's spam
filter. It's one of the best.

Also note that you posted here using what appears to be your real
E-mail address. Although some damage may already be done, you should
stop doing this immediately. There are spambots that garner E-mail
addresses from newsgroup postings. Either "munge" your address by
adding characters to it (with instructions on how to remove them in
your signature, if you want E-mail replies) or use an entirely fake
return address. Since I don't want E-mail replies here at all, I take
the later option, and my return address is


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

Ken the email programs I was use are Gmail, Outlook Express, and the
one I was actually asking about is my 3rd inbox-Hotmail.
Thanks in advance for helping
James

James wrote:
Does anyone know how spam emails be stopped, or is there something
that can be downloaded
that would help?

James


While it's not possible to completely eliminate spam (unsolicited
commercial email), there are some precautions and steps you can take to
minimize it's impact:

1) Never, ever post your real email address to publicly accessible
forums or newsgroups, such as this one. For years now, spammers have
been using software utilities to scan such places to harvest email
addresses. It's a simple matter to disguise your posted email address
so that these software "bots" can't obtain anything useful. For
example, insert some obviously bogus characters or words into your reply
address, for example: ."

2) Never, ever reply to any spam you receive, even to "unsubscribe" or
"remove" yourself from the spammers' address lists; you'll only compound
the problem. If spammers had any intention of honoring the your desire
not to receive spam, they wouldn't have become spammers in the first
place. When you reply to a spammer, all you're doing is confirming that
he/she has a valid, marketable email address.

3) Be especially leery of any offers from websites for free software,
services, information, etc, that require your email address, or that
require your email address so you can "login" to access the offered
service and/or information. Many such sites are supplementing their
income by collecting addresses to sell to the spammers. For instance,
subscribing to CNN.COM's Breaking News Service will garner you a lot of
additional spam. (Of course, not all such sites have under-handed
motives; it's a judgment call. If the offer seems "too good to be
true," it's most likely a scam.)

4) DO forward any and all spam, with complete headers, to the
originating ISP with a complaint. Not all ISPs will make an effort to
shut down the spammers, but many will. One tool that makes forwarding
such complaints fairly simple is SpamCop (http://spamcop.net).

5) Another useful tool is MailWasher (http://www.mailwasher.net). This
utility allows you to preview your email before downloading it from the
server. Spammers can even be blacklisted, so that any future emails
from them will be automatically deleted from the server.

6) Within Outlook Express, add any spammers to your Blocked Senders
list, so the their messages are automatically deleted from the server
without being downloaded to your PC.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

On Dec 28, 7:56*pm, Bruce Chambers wrote:
James wrote:
Does anyone know how spam emails be stopped, or is there something
that can be downloaded
that would help?

James

* * *While it's not possible to completely eliminate spam (unsolicited
commercial email), there are some precautions and steps you can take to
minimize it's impact:

1) *Never, ever post your real email address to publicly accessible
forums or newsgroups, such as this one. *For years now, spammers have
been using software utilities to scan such places to harvest email
addresses. *It's a simple matter to disguise your posted email address
so that these software "bots" can't obtain anything useful. *For
example, insert some obviously bogus characters or words into your reply
address, for example: ."

2) *Never, ever reply to any spam you receive, even to "unsubscribe" or
"remove" yourself from the spammers' address lists; you'll only compound
the problem. *If spammers had any intention of honoring the your desire
not to receive spam, they wouldn't have become spammers in the first
place. *When you reply to a spammer, all you're doing is confirming that
he/she has a valid, marketable email address.

3) *Be especially leery of any offers from websites for free software,
services, information, etc, that require your email address, or that
require your email address so you can "login" to access the offered
service and/or information. *Many such sites are supplementing their
income by collecting addresses to sell to the spammers. *For instance,
subscribing to CNN.COM's Breaking News Service will garner you a lot of
additional spam. *(Of course, not all such sites have under-handed
motives; it's a judgment call. *If the offer seems "too good to be
true," it's most likely a scam.)

4) *DO forward any and all spam, with complete headers, to the
originating ISP with a complaint. *Not all ISPs will make an effort to
shut down the spammers, but many will. *One tool that makes forwarding
such complaints fairly simple is SpamCop (http://spamcop.net).

5) *Another useful tool is MailWasher (http://www.mailwasher.net). *This
utility allows you to preview your email before downloading it from the
server. *Spammers can even be blacklisted, so that any future emails
from them will be automatically deleted from the server.

6) *Within Outlook Express, add any spammers to your Blocked Senders
list, so the their messages are automatically deleted from the server
without being downloaded to your PC.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

I want to thank everyone who responded-you all are really helpful, and
too I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

James

"Bruce Chambers" wrote in message
...

4) DO forward any and all spam, with complete headers, to the originating
ISP with a complaint. Not all ISPs will make an effort to shut down the
spammers, but many will. One tool that makes forwarding such complaints
fairly simple is SpamCop (http://spamcop.net).

Using SpamCop can make things worse for you, not better.

Another useful defense (for OE at least) is to set the option to always read
messages in plain text format. OE allows us to switch to HTML format if we
can trust that the message is not spam. Plain text format makes it nearly
(essentially totally) impossible for malicious email to do anything. You
especially don't want to allow images (even small ones) to be shown unless
you trust the sender.

All of these are intended to make it difficult or impossible for a spammer
to verify that your email address is valid.

"Sam Hobbs" wrote in message
...

Using SpamCop can make things worse for you, not better.

Eh? How do you work that one out?

Sun, 6 Jan 2008 03:37:33 -0800 from Sam Hobbs
:
Using SpamCop can make things worse for you, not better.

How, pray tell?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

Sam Hobbs wrote:


Using SpamCop can make things worse for you, not better.


How so? Please provide some sort of evidence to support such an
unsubstantiated claim. No guesses allowed.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Sam Hobbs" wrote in message
...

Using SpamCop can make things worse for you, not better.

Eh? How do you work that one out?

This was discussed in this newsgroup about a month ago. If you don't fnd
that discussion then perhaps I will later.

"Bruce Chambers" wrote in message
...
Sam Hobbs wrote:


Using SpamCop can make things worse for you, not better.


How so? Please provide some sort of evidence to support such an
unsubstantiated claim. No guesses allowed.

See my previous reply in this thread about a previous reply to another
thread.

Sam Hobbs wrote:
"Bruce Chambers" wrote in message
...
Sam Hobbs wrote:

Using SpamCop can make things worse for you, not better.

How so? Please provide some sort of evidence to support such an
unsubstantiated claim. No guesses allowed.

See my previous reply in this thread about a previous reply to another
thread.





In other words, you can't substantiate the claim. Thanks for verifying
that.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

Sam Hobbs wrote:
Using SpamCop can make things worse for you, not better.

Gordon wrote:
Eh? How do you work that one out?

Sam Hobbs wrote:
This was discussed in this newsgroup about a month ago. If you
don't fnd that discussion then perhaps I will later.

This?
http://groups.google.com/group/micro...ef3a091960a12f

Where you commented, "I used spamcop years ago until I realized that they
include our email address in their complaints. I am not totally sure that is
happening but I did read somewhere that they do. Perhaps they do not now
even if they did in the past, but if they do include our email address in
their complaints then it does not help us to report spam."

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Sun, 6 Jan 2008 15:22:44 -0800 from Sam Hobbs
:
"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Sam Hobbs" wrote in message
...

Using SpamCop can make things worse for you, not better.

Eh? How do you work that one out?

This was discussed in this newsgroup about a month ago. If you don't fnd
that discussion then perhaps I will later.

In other words, you're just making it up.

Thanks for the clarification.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/