Is It Possible to Win The War on Spam?

EightImmortals on 20/10/2017 - 08:31
Last edited 20/10/2017 - 08:55 by 1 other user

arrrg, I reckon it's getting worse this year. I have an outlook/hotmail account that I use as a secondary account to try and limit the amount of email spam I get on my main account. I got a spamcop account at the start of this year and have been dutifully forwarding all my spam to them but it doesn't seem to be having any effect. After I forward to spamcop I then go to outlook and 'block' them all. Which is also useless as they use/spoof different email addresses everyday. For the last week I've been getting around 30 a day…….

Granted they all do end up in the spam folder rather than my inbox so that's one positive. Also, they are not spams from legitimate sites where I can simply unsubscribe. It's nice to know there are so many sexy Russian girls waiting to meet me and so many generous philanthropists wanting to give me money and don;t get me started on the 'bitcoin code'…. :)

Does anyone have any tips on how to stop it altogether without getting a different email account?

Cheers

Computing

Comments

  • altomic on 20/10/2017 - 08:40
    +2

    Hello Eightimmortals, don't delay! click here to maintain erections with Viagra, cervis, etc. Lowest internet prices!!!

    • PJC on 20/10/2017 - 08:57
      +2

      My Nigerian contacts offer me the real stuff, named Vigara. I'll add you to their email list. I knew you'd be pleased.

    • whodidthat on 20/10/2017 - 09:00

      Can't get Viagra, I'm hard up.

    • EightImmortals on 20/10/2017 - 10:43

      :) Yeah, I get those too. I now have a hard-on that a Rottweiler couldn't put a dent in…GUARANTEED!

      • whodidthat on 20/10/2017 - 12:03

        :O

      • Forfiet on 21/10/2017 - 10:21

        (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

  • RockyRaccoon on 20/10/2017 - 08:51
    +2

    Does anyone have any tips on how to stop it altogether without getting a different email account?

    NOPE, that's the only way, and then have 3 accounts min.

    1. For close family and friends, AND threaten to cut off anyone who sends you cute dog pictures etc
    2. For Financial transactions
    3. For general use - so when it gets spammed you just delete

    BTW if anyone does solve your original plan, they will make more money than Gill Bates or Jeve Stobs ever had

  • whodidthat on 20/10/2017 - 09:02

    Doesn't help when the likes of ebay, Paypal, Yahoo and Dominos get hacked!

    • scotty on 20/10/2017 - 09:31
      +1

      Or somewhere deep in their privacy policy & terms of use, that they are selling your personal information to 3rd party data warehouse (which then might get hacked or resold).

      • Diji1 on 20/10/2017 - 10:53

        Or they're just selling you information without your permission.

  • pegaxs on 20/10/2017 - 09:04
    +2

    I am similar to what Rocky outlined above. 3 accounts.

    • Family, strict no shit, no reply all, forward all memes. I get all the memes I need elsewhere and it's too late mum!!! I've already seen it! (like 3 months ago…)
    • Work/Banking account. only work and bank know this one.
    • Garbage/signup account. Easily disposed of once it gets to critical mass on incoming spam :D

    Another thing I do is use the "allow only" section of my email client. I put in the addresses of the places I want email from, ebay/OzB/etc and blacklist everything else. If you're not on the list, you dont get in… It's a nice simple way to just auto junk spam.

    • tomsco on 20/10/2017 - 09:14

      Just out of interest, what do you use for online purchases.

      I like your setup. I have one that is family/utilities/work and another that is everything else. But because the other one is everything else, it's a combo of spam plus all my old receipts/purchases.

      I monitor it, but am not too stressed about spam (spam filter deals with most), but couldn't just delete it as don't want to lose out on all my old stuff… Maybe I'm just a hoarder :p

      • pegaxs on 20/10/2017 - 09:32

        Online purchases depends. Ebay/Myer/Target/Big chain stores and things like that, that goes to family account mostly. Paypal goes to banking account. Shopping sites like Banggood/Gearbest/Anything out of China goes to disposable. Once disposable gets too spammed out, i just go to those account I am keeping, change the address in my account to the new disposable and the cycle starts again.

        I dont use spam filters, but run my email like a nightclub. If your name's not on the list, you dont get in. Once a week i might go to the junk folder and run the mouse over it and scroll down just to make sure nothing has gone in unexpectedly.

        As for hoarding, you can archive all your old emails before you set up another disposable account. And unless it's for tax, sentimental value or blackmail, then i cant really see the sense in keeping all those cat memes anyway…

  • PJC on 20/10/2017 - 09:07
    +1

    OP just accept Olga is all mine because she'll be booking the flight around lunchtime. It's not my fault nobody else wants a lithe athletic kind-hearted 22-year-old genius.

    • PJC on 20/10/2017 - 21:01
      +1

      She couldn't book it due to a technicality and she needs me to send more cash.

  • boomramada on 20/10/2017 - 09:14
    +1

    I got hotmail and gmail accounts which I had for years but I haven't seen spam in ages. Both hotmail and gmail pretty good at blocking them.
    Maybe you subscribe for spam bot ;)

  • biozet on 20/10/2017 - 10:17

    I fought the spam and the spam won

  • Diji1 on 20/10/2017 - 10:55
    +3

    As much as I dislike recommending Google services due to their mission of collecting every single piece of data they can about you in order to serve unwanted advertising and to create circumstances where you are unconsciously manipulated into spending money with other businesses … Gmail has spam beat pretty much.

    Occasionally something gets through but it's pretty rare.

    • EightImmortals on 20/10/2017 - 10:57
      +2

      Yeah my main account is gmail and it's rare that I get spam in there.

      • scrimshaw on 20/10/2017 - 11:27
        +1

        It makes sense that the company that is best at analytics and data collection also has the best anti-spam filters.

        Yahoo is pretty terrible at filtering spam — not that a lot of spam gets through, but it puts a lot of genuine emails and newsletters into your spam box, which isn't helpful as you have to read your spam box and fish out the genuine stuff.

        • whodidthat on 20/10/2017 - 12:02
          +1

          Yahoo is dreadful these days. Not only for the spam reason but it constantly goes insecure and their so called customer service is about as helpful as a flat tyre.
          To think, Yahoo was once a leader in so many areas.

    • Noblejoker on 21/10/2017 - 13:27

      This - never see spam anymore
      Redirect your old email to Gmail and collect through there - problem solved

  • Cheeper on 20/10/2017 - 11:41

    Ditch hotmail, stop dragging emails into your computer (ie using outlook, etc) and get Gmail.
    Get a yahoo one as a secondary for signing up to web sites and dodgy crap.

  • peterpeterpumpkin on 20/10/2017 - 12:52
    +1

    This year Outlook has let a lot of spam through.

  • EightImmortals on 20/10/2017 - 13:01
    +3

    Oooh, here's neat trick, I'll try it out.

    http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/say-goodbye-hotmail-spam/

    "Use Gmail to Filter Spam From Hotmail

    In fact, there is a way to use Gmail’s spam tool to tidy your Hotmail or Outlook.com inbox. This is done by using Gmail as a client application, literally opening your Outlook.com webmail account with Gmail.

    This means that you can apply Gmail’s antispam tools to the task of sorting out your spam-heavy Microsoft webmail inbox."

  • MeesusEff on 20/10/2017 - 14:54

    My Hotmail recently got phished and I'm getting 20 emails from 'myself' for noods and lonely girls around my area. Probably more suited for my husband to be targeted 😆

  • adante on 20/10/2017 - 18:58

    Yes. It'll be next in line after the war on drugs and then the war on terror.

    • EightImmortals on 20/10/2017 - 19:01
      +1

      gawd, so you mean to say it's going to get worse?

  • bobbified on 20/10/2017 - 20:31
    +1

    I was thinking "what?? there's a war on Spam?"

    Thought someone was having a dig one of my favorite foods! haha

    (I blame the capital "S" in the word "Spam"!)

  • Almighty Dollar on 21/10/2017 - 08:22
    +1

    I dunno, I'm trying to win the only war against spam I can win - the internal one, where I try to not care so much. Results so far: mixed.

  • furys12 on 21/10/2017 - 09:48
    +1

    Granted they all do end up in the spam folder

    That's it you've won then, unless you whitelist your email there's no way to stop random emails coming to your email address, they are just so open and easy to get, by design, it wouldn't even be that hard to brute force a list of e-mail addresses that did a decent job but no one bothers because it's so easy to get a curated list of active ones.

    If all the spam goes to a spam folder that's the best you can do, just ignore that folder unless you have to check it for a miss flagged email.

    I have Gmail, who just take all the data instead of me sending it to another service, I get maybe 1 or 2 spam emails end up in my inbox a year, hundreds into the spam folder buy that's where they belong

  • SlartiBartFozz on 21/10/2017 - 22:50

    I switched to Gmail, which slashed my spam/junk massively after using Hotmail and Yahoo!, I get zero spam now, while my better half who has stuck with Yahoo! now gets over 100 junk emails a day, (despite my suggestions to switch).

    At work we use Outlook with our Gmail hosted addresses, but Outlook ignores Googles filtering and downloads everything even the spam/trash folders, then applies it's own filtering which is not nearly as effective (many email clients are much worse TBH).

    There are also disposable email tools around like MaskMe which is a browser extension that creates new email addresses for your surfing needs that are forwarded to you without revealing your real email address.

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