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Spam & Scum mail

Discussion in 'Internet Explorer & Microsoft Edge' started by indutch, 2003/06/02.

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  1. 2003/06/02
    indutch Lifetime Subscription

    indutch Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Hi All,

    This may very well be moved to some other thread. If so, please follow!

    It has been a while since I have been able to post here and I now feel like a 'newbie' having to start from scratch. Please bare with me.

    For starters - I am using "MailWasherPro" each and every time I check my e-mail. We're using OE6 and Win98SE, obtw.

    For the past several months both my wife and I have been getting dozens of e-mails weekly, via our POP3 server, to either "enlarge ", "refinance ", "get out of debt ", "spy on teens" or . . . Well, pick any other annoying subject matter and we have received it, ad infinitum !!!! And . . . to the point of revulsion and madness !! :mad:

    I fell in love with MW when it was a 'freebie' so I sent a check for $20 to Nick Bolton. I have never used the 'bounce' feature of MW because I read here on "WindowsBBS" that 'bouncing' with MW could possibly invite even more "spam ".

    I believe MWPro to be a good program and it has served me well in identifying "possible spam" or 'viruses' along with our other 'defined' filters to identify 'mail' we don't want to receive. :)

    However, my problem now is the fact that I have (identified by MWPro) more than 250 IDs of spam senders and there seems to be no end in sight.

    Is there a way to stop all of this nonsense or REMOVE our 'addresses' from these "spammers" lists??

    Any, and ALL help and/or suggestions will be heartily entertained !!

    TIA :),


    Mike
     
    indutch,
    #1
  2. 2003/06/02
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    I don't see that as a problem?


    Nope. As you might know, requesting to be "unsubscribed" will only confirm you as a "live" email address, and so will get you even more spam....
     
    Arie,
    #2


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  4. 2003/06/02
    mflynn

    mflynn Inactive

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    InDutch

    You are in dutch! Lol!

    I also use mailWasher.

    No Dutch there is not an immediate way to get your name off these lists. If some one could write a program to do that they would make more money than Bill Gates. This will take Gov legislation and laws I am afraid.

    But you are in error about the Bounce. The bounce function sends an undeliverable back to the sender. The same as you get from your ISP if you send to an eroneous email address, it is basically returned as "undeliverable ".

    Now if you open and use the unsubscribe of these types of email, yes, they use that as a confirmation of a legit email address and say "Oh boy" I got me a confirmed. Then they sell it to others for cash now you are on even more lists.

    Even if you bounce it may not clear you off all lists and if it does it takes many bounces before they finnally do begin to clean their lists. But it is worth it, no more effort than it takes, to bounce in MailWasher so do it.

    Mike
     
    mflynn,
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  5. 2003/06/02
    brett

    brett Inactive Alumni

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    Out of curiosity, I once decided to click on the unsubscribe links contained in spam addressed to a throw-away account which I was about to ditch. The spam to that account halved within a month.
     
    brett,
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  6. 2003/06/02
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

    BillyBob Inactive

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    I also use MailWasher.

    I have tired unsubscribing which only seems to double mail from that address.

    I have tried Bouncing only to get a message of it being an invalid address.

    So I just delete the trash. And then let Eudora go get the rest.

    BillyBob
     
    BillyBob,
    #5
  7. 2003/06/02
    indutch Lifetime Subscription

    indutch Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Thank you, one and all, for the replies.

    I guess it boils down to which is the lesser of the evils. Live with all of this junk or change e-mail addresses with my ISP and all the hassles of notifying everyone I know about the change. Sheeesh :(

    Thanks again.
    Mike
     
    indutch,
    #6
  8. 2003/06/03
    doubleu

    doubleu Inactive

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    Indutch ... perhaps you do this already, although your comments make me wonder if you do....but, MW has a blacklist function to which spam can be added, and then a 'wildcard' function which by placing an '*' in front of the domain name, then identifies any email with that domain name embedded. Further, under 'options' you can have MW automatically delete stuff on your blacklist so that you never see it...not even in MW preview. And, you can also set up MW to remove blacklisted items after 'x' number of days of inactivity so that your blacklist isn't a mile long.
     
    doubleu,
    #7
  9. 2003/06/03
    indutch Lifetime Subscription

    indutch Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Duh . . . ?

    doubleu -

    Thanks for the 'heads up'! :)

    I 'knew'(?) all of that stuff. Well, I read it - somewhere. :eek:

    I'll check out the "Help" and make adjustments accordingly. Maybe that will 'unfluster' me.

    We will be leaving for the Pacific NW on June 19th for about 18 days and I'm having my ISP close my account while we're gone. Maybe that will help a little, too. :D

    Thanks again for the reply. I'll work on it tommorrow.


    Mike
     
    indutch,
    #8
  10. 2003/06/04
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    NO.

    This works with legit email, but in 99,999% not with Spam!

    In (nearly?) all cases spam is send:

    • From a 'highjacked' account (someone got his computer hacked, and it's used to send out Spam)
    • From a temp. 'throw away' account (by the time you bounce, the account will most likely have been closed)
    • Return-Path information is falsified (innocent people get the bounces)

    Here at InfiniSource (WindowsBBS is part of InfiniSource.com) we have had several instances where a (non existing) return address on our server was inserted in Spam mail.... Boy is that fun :(

    Spam is send in the Mayority of cases using poorly configured Internet Servers in Asia, which allow open relaying of email. But in order not to attract attention, the return address is in most cases falcified, so email that fails to deliver isn't reported back to the senders server.... instead to some innocent 3rd party.

    Bouncing Spam email is just adding to the problem!
     
    Arie,
    #9
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