Here's what I do. I've been using Internet e-mail for over a decade now,
and watched the volume of crap rise (and then fall with the measures I
use).
I Never, Ever use a good e-mail address to register with any public
service. Most public services, if they don't need to get back to you to
verify something, with be more than happy taking the address "x@x.x", so I
use that first. I have a largely-ignored Hotmail account if I really need
to hear back from an untrusted source. Registering for the New York Times
Online, for example, got me a buttload of junk for years until the address
I used expired. Now I use one of several "public" registrations available
to read the Times.
I filter all incoming mail that isn't To: or CC: the addresses I have
(including list addresses) into a separate folder. So, they immediately
get put out of the way and I view them with suspiscion from the start.
This can be done in every major mail program. Over time I have noted
patterns and added them to my filter rules to, for example, delete all
mail coming from several different Asian ISPs.
I also turn off the ability to display HTML in mail, because I generally
don't want to hear from anyone that would use such blaoted bumpf in e-mail.
And best of all, I don't use Outlook or any Microsoft mail product, ever.
And, to do my little part to help get back at spammers I report all spam I
get to SpamCop (http://spamcop.net/sc), a free service that notifies the
appropriate admins for the ISPs used for the spams.
For my websites, I used a munged address that a human should be able to
correct to reach me. I also refuse access for various address-harvesting
SPAMbots, instead redirecting them to a page of address links for members
of the American Direct-Mail Marketing Association.
I have a half-dozen addresses, and am on 5 different mailing lists. I get
5 or 6 spams on a bad day now, and can enjoy reporting them to SpamCop.
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= J e r o m e Y u z y k | jerome@supernet.ab.ca
= Sunbeam Alpine Series II #9118636 | www.bss.ab.ca/sunbeam
|