Getting Spam???

[Admin]

Hi All

 

I have noticed the last few months a huge increase in spam coming into my inbox. I was thinking that somehow my email address has got out but with further analysis I have found that it simply a direct result of having my own domains. I would receive spam at my address of say [email protected] from a [email protected] yet there was no such email address of susi.

 

I have also just found out the full reason why there has been a huge increase in my inbox and that is since June spam has increased dramaticaly on the internet. Have a look at this graph and stats on spam over the internet and see that spamming has increased:

 

 

 

What can we do about it - not much:

 

- Spammers continually refine their methods to defeat SPAM blockers

 

- If a SPAM blocker stops all SPAM it also stops legitimate emails (false positives)

 

- There is nothing that can stop all SPAM without stopping real emails – this could be worse than dealing with the SPAM

 

So if you have found an increase in spam over the last few months as well then take comfort in knowing that the same is for everyone.

 

 

[hiperlight]

I thought I had spam pretty well under control until around June this year. Then it went beserk!

 

My anti-spam software removes normal spam, which now equates to about 20-25% of my emails. An occasional legitimate email is intercepted, but that is OK.

 

The real problem I have is spam advertising viagra etc and investment advice (often written in unintelligible english). I tried 'blocking senders' but the emails seem to originate from different sources each and every time.

 

I have tried 'message rules' e.g. delete any message with 'viagra' in the body of the message. Very few of the messages are trapped because they come in a variety of colours and I assume this trick enables them to slip through.

 

Another, probably unrelated, problem I have is with forum post from 'captain'. My Internet Explorer 7 chucks a fit each time I try opening his posts...something to do with 'security certificates'.

 

What with a firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam, etc etc etc, a high percentage of the software in my computer is security related and still the 'little baskets' get through.

 

Bruce

 

 

[Admin]

Chris, this is why I am so hell bent on security with these forums. Email addresses can be posted if the user wants to but NOT in the Announcements, Aircraft Knowledgebase or Incidents and Accidents forums here as theseARE NOT LOCKED.

 

All the other forums where you need to be a member to enable you to view the posts in them are locked so bots etc can not get in and scan them - this is why the guests in the number of current users on-line is high as they are bots etc. When they try and get in andfail they try again as a different guest and again and again etc until they are cut out as well by the server time of 20mins.

 

Many steps have been taken here to protect your information even to the point that I even as the Administrator can not even find out what your password is - actually this is proving to be a problem on the test imports that I have done into the new forums that are being developed.

 

 

[Guest danda]

Ian I think it's great how you try to protect this forum, over the years I have been the victim ofsomeunscruplous people and their emails. As a minister I have received porno emails to those who are always trying to get my money (the jokes on them I haven’t Got any )

 

Thanks again for the protection.

 

Don

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

General rule for spam. If an offer seems to be too good, asks for your bank details to be confirmed, says you have won some money/international lottery,dating services,astrology etc etc just DELETE it. Never ever open these emails. You will get more and more. Unfortunately I get spam on a daily basis. These people are creeps. I get them on my weather forum all the time. As a general rule no bank will EVER ask you for your passwords/account info via email so be careful of this scam.

 

 

[Guest danda]

Darren that dating one gets me, this year I had some woman send me an email wanting to date me I killed myself laughing I have a head like a Romanian robbers dog and she wanted to date me, all I can say is the joke would have been on her.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><O:P></O:P>Don danda

 

 

[pylon500]

About 80% of my incoming mail is SPAM, however being on a MAC, I only see about 5% of it.

 

The rest goes straight into the Junk file, where I quickly scan the headers, then dump the lot.

 

One thing I did learn was, if you know it's spam, NEVER open it as half of them will mail back out with your address! :ah_oh:

 

If you have a mail browser that shows all mail headres with the first in line already open below the headers, try grabbing the line between them and dragging it to the bottom thus closing the read window.this stops 'auto oppening' each time you delete the previous.

 

Then you can delete without reading the obvious spam, and double click to read safe mail.

 

I hope this works on PC's? :confused:

 

Arthur.

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

Same sort of principle Arthur yes. In some email clients you can disable the preview email which is a good idea. You can't be that bad Don but I had a laugh:laugh:

 

 

[Guest David C]

I use http://www.mail2web.com . Theres no registration , and you can view all your incoming emails and choose to delete or otherwise before downloading them via your email provider . I delete approx 80% of incomings , not all spam though , just undesirables . Seems to work for me .

 

Dave

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

Is that what happened to my emails Dave?

 

 

[Guest Redair]

I too hate spam, (the email type anyway!) but I was wondering... surely, if there are enough people out there who are as sick of this junk as we all seem to be... couldn't pressure be put on the ISPs either by customers, or by the government, to find some means of reporting spammers back to the ISPs so that their addressescould be deleted? I realise that this would involve some kind of watchdog to ensure that genuine email addresses were not being stopped, but I'm sure that if there was the threat of fines for the spammers as well as the ISPs that allow them to operate, there would be a lot less junk out there, and a lot more happy emailers.

 

Redair.

 

 

[Guest David C]

Darren ,

 

Ha Ha ....... No not yours Darren !!!

 

Santa .

 

 

[Ross]

I don't seem to get any spam nowadays. I am not really sure what I have done to get to this desirable state. But here are a few suggestions.

 

I run two antivirus programs

 

1. Nortons Antivirus program with daily

 

auto updates - runs on a yearly license

 

scan of incoming and outgoing email

 

periodic scanning of the whole system

 

2. AVG free edition version 7.5

 

dailyauto updates

 

scanning of in and out email (turned off because it is slow)

 

auto dailyscan of whole system every day (but you can stop it)

 

The non free version of AVG has more options and I do not know the price.

 

Auto daily microsoft updates-which mainly cover security of the system.

 

Go to Control Panel

 

Pick the Security Centre

 

Set Firewall ON

 

Set Automatic Updates ON

 

Set Virus Protection ON

 

If the protection is causing too much extra button pushing to make programs go to the next step in the

 

Windows Firewall Exceptions and add the names of progams to be exceptions.

 

I have listed a number of programs like

 

the antivirus programs

 

the various auto-update programs that run on your computer for the Microsoft updates and the antivirus update programs.

 

I also add the various programs that Quicken runs for getting ASX share prices.

 

There are a number of other internet settings which I have foregotten that raise the default barriers against pornography.

 

I have not seen a ad for any kind of sex aid for ages - touch wood. A year or two ago I was getting twenty or thirty of them per day.

 

Turning off the preview on emails (although inconvenient) will protect you against hidden problems in unwanted emails.

 

Previewing emails is actually opening the email and exposing you to the any hidden junk in the email.

 

I leave my email preview turned on, a risk, but I am not getting the spam mail to make it a problem.

 

Regards

 

 

[Guest danda]

I use mail washer and you can view your email before you download itever since that horror wanted to take advantage of my innocence. although I wishsomeone could stop this sort of thing altogetherbetween these spams and virus'they are a pain in the you know whatsomeone is making a packet from them.

 

don danda

 

 

[slartibartfast]

I have not seen a ad for any kind of sex aid for ages - touch wood.

Haha - that's a classic.

 

Thanks for that Ross.

 

I'm still chuckling as I post.

 

Oh - and to try to add value to the thread:

 

I too would recommend MailWasher. It allows you to screen the emails before you dowload them from the mailserver. If you determine it's spam, you can add it to the list. Anything on the list can be bounced back to the sender as if it had been sent to an invalid address. This goes a long way toward reducing the spam.

 

I changed email addresses about 12 months ago and haven't had a single bit of spam since (don't need MailWasher anymore).

 

If you are careful where you put your address, you can live spam free.

 

Another Ross

 

slartibartfast

 

 

[mlpinaus]

I too use mailwasher. Works well . Its shareware too.

 

Marcus

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

AVG free edition will be discontinued around Jan 07. I'm looking for some other options now as it has served me very well as a virus scan (especially a free one).

 

 

[Admin]

AVG free edition will be discontinued around Jan 07. I'm looking for some other options now as it has served me very well as a virus scan (especially a free one).

- Darren, the fine print says that only v7.1 is being discontinued so upgrade to v7.5 which will keep going:GRISOFT is announcing a new version of the AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition. This new 7.5 version with improved performance and full compatibility with the latest Windows Vista version is available. Users that are using AVG Free 7.1 will be provided with a specific dialog, within the next few weeks, with the opportunity to choose the right option fulfilling their needs. AVG Free 7.1 version will be discontinued on 15th of Jan 2007.

 

 

[slartibartfast]

Yes Darren - there is still a free version, but they do try to make it look like there isn't so you will upgrade.

 

I have updated 3 or 4 PCs in the last couple of weeks, and each time it took me a while to locate the link to the free download even though I had found it before (I swear they kept moving it).

 

I highly recommend AVG Free to those who haven't tried it.

 

I have had PCs where commercial software had been running and reporting nothing, but when I installed AVG bad things were found.

 

Ross

 

(happy to post help on IT matters while I have no skill or knowledge worth contributing on aviation matters)

 

 

[Ross]

Hi Crew

 

If you look at my previous post you might notice that I said I had installed AVG free edition version 7.5 (a few weeks ago I thnk it was).

 

Regards

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

I will have to get the new one.

 

 

[Guest Leonardo]

My favourite free AV software is downloadable from here ...

 

http://www.avast.com/

 

I prefer it to AVG. YMMV! :)

 

 

[Guest sypkens]

Ian,

 

Same problem here regarding the domain emails. I spoke to my ISP about implementing spf (Sender policy framework) and they have implemented a half hearted attempt of it which seemed to reduce it. If you suffer from this "force" your ISP into it. basically SPF causes a check between a sending and receiving mail server to understand the true origins of where an email CAN originate from.

 

The more organisations and ISP's that subscribe to this will hopefully reduce spam in the long run.

 

Either way it makes me fume to delete the amount of email every day.

 

Jan

 

 

[Guest danda]

I agree with you skypen I alsoget upsetat this invasion of my privacy to have to go to such length to simply enjoy your computer is wrong and I believe that it’s the responsibility of the ISP to put in place antivirus and anti spam programs in place to protect their customers goodness knows they charge enough for what they claim is a service.Don