Jane Lewis's Weblog

Self Spamming - Can it be me ?

I was reading the blog Forensic Focus, which talks about an article posted on the BBC which talks about how Spam email is often tied up with sophisticated online crime.This got me thinking about the visibility of my own email address. My own personal email address is very "old" in the sense it is "old" on the Internet. I have had this email address since 1995. Because of this found I received alot of "Spam" email, due to the fact this email address has been around for some time and has some visibility on the Internet. However over the past couple of years I have adopted a series of strategies to cut down on the number of  Spam mails this address receives.

Therefore here are my recommended lists of Strategies to cut down your Home  Spam.

1. Utilise the Outlook 2003 Junk email filter.

2. Utilise the Outlook 2007 Junk email filter and anti-phishing techniques

3. Utilise the anti-phishing and extra Security techniques as employed in IE7.

I also came across this list of  "do not's"  and "Dos" recently , which has further cut down on my Spamming and phishing emails.

DONT

• Open an e-mail from someone you don’t know or from a sender that seems to be yourself. Responding to spam also tells the spammer that they have a valid e-mail address. Each time you respond or do business with a spammer, your e-mail address is likely to be sold to other spammers. To avoid this, delete these e-mails and never respond. 
• Use the "unsubscribe" option. Unsubscribing lets spammer know your e-mail address is valid and that your account is active. If e-mail is spam, the "unsubscribe" link is more likely to increase the amount of spam you receive.
• Advertise your e-mail on your website. If you list or link to your e-mail address, expect to be spammed. Address-harvesting robots spider your site to extract them.
• Use your real name for your e-mail address. Don’t let spammers make use of word lists to generate e-mail addresses. Make it difficult for them by choosing long e-mail address (8+ characters).

 DO

• Keep up-to-date virus and spyware. Installing Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware software and keeping your virus and spyware definition files current, can prevent exposure to online threats.  
• Use your filters. Most e-mail applications allow you to block specific messages. When an offending e-mail comes in, simply set your filter to block the address.