At 08:11 PM 9/15/2004, you wrote: At 05:02 PM 9/15/2004, Byron wrote: >I use mailwasher, my 5 year attempt with using IE/OE methods increased >my spam from 80 the day I signed on the a new server to over 600. ( plus >several $100 with other spam blockers) >Right. I'm sure that posting messages in insecure locations, registering products, accepting cookies, filling out web forms, participating in chats or mail lists, getting messages from friends (with long CC lists) and viruses harvesting address books had nothing to do with it. Well, I'm not sure who doesn't do that, though I've reduced my cookies dramatically. I'm not sure that it's possible to function on the net without doing those things. After all, Scott, you are on an email list yourself. So working to decrease spam is not an ignoble task, it's just difficult, because these spammers are creative folks. As obnoxious as they are, I have to give them that. >Reporting to spam cop or spamhaus amounts to a waste of $$, >Reporting the UCE@FTC.GOV is almost as useless. >Spamcop is a good way to report spam. UCE@ftc.gov is obsolete, but it has led to prosecutions of a number of large spam >operations. The new address is Spam@uce.gov >Unfortunately the amount of spam you are getting is rising almost expnoentially. Like Byron, I've never seen any good from this. They don't get back to YOU, so how would you know? And unfortunately it is rising exponentially. What I will do if it's really bad is report the email addy to my ISP. >Once your addesss is known to one, you can be assured it's on a CD somewhere and being sold repeatedly. I have one address that I >have not used since 1990. I still see reports that spammers are attempting to email their junk to it. >After using Mailwasher my spam went from over 600 a day to about 12 that >gets auto deleted, black listed and bounced. >I can certainly believe that from deleted or blacklisted, but not from bounced. As I said, the spammer will never see those bounces so >it's impossible for it to have any effect. Even Bolton admits that. Also, to reiterate, if you use the bounce feature, you are really >forwarding your email to POSTMASTER@TELLINK.NET. I'm sure he thanks you for it. Well, I've gotten RETURN bounces from mailwasher saying "this address doesn't exist" for about HALF of the emails that I bounced when I used it, because most of those addresses are fly-by-night one time deals. So I think they are really bouncing them. Unfortunately, that's annoying as well... >At least between Mozilla and Mailwasher 99.99% of my computer time is >mine, not spammers. >I can say the same thing and I use neither of those programs. My only reason for speaking up was to point out the abusive issues of the Bounce feature and try to persuade you not to use it. Other than that, if you're happy with the program, fine. There are equally effective filters that work without having to be involved all the time, some of the are even free. Eudora, which I use, has a built in Baysean filter that identifies spam and segregates it without my involvement. I have that filter. It puts it into "junk mail" so I still get it. That's hardly filtering it out, I just don't see it in my inbox. It also doesn't work worth a squid. Yes it segregates SOME of the email, but you still get it in your box, so you are still getting it on your computer. I don't even want that. >If I wanted a browser based mail system, I'd probably be looking at Opera. It looks like it has a lot more flexibility. >Another thing I like about Mailwasher over Mozilla, Is I can delete a >message at server. If I recieve a message from someone I don't know with >a big attachment I can delete at server. That doesn't work with IE. >Do you think that's a unique feature of Mailwasher? It works fine with Eudora too. I have a permanent filter in place to limit large downloads and allow me to delete them or download them....my choice. And I can do it within Eudora without having to fool around in another program. In fact, lots of email programs will do that, including current versions of Outlook and Outlook Express. I just looked at my Eudora options. I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Eudora doesn't give you an option to delete the email on your server before you download it to your computer. Mailwasher does. So does earthlink's spaminator. Eudora gives you an option to filter it into "junk". I have that folder in my Eudora directory, and yes, there's junk in it, after I've manually tagged it. It says in options... "delete junk from server" but I don't usually leave my email on the server. I could, and actually am going to try that, but in general I find that rather rude. >Personally I don't have the time to look at my mail twice and that's a major flaw in the Mailwasher approach. But that's my opinion, for you, if it works and you're happy with it, enjoy it. the only reason for that is that computer programs are not "intuitive" or "smart" Both of these have a means to permanently blacklist these addresses so you never have to tag them. You get the address once, and then can put it on a permanent bounce/blacklist. Have you ever tried mailwasher? >If you don't like Neil Boltons methods, then maybe you can pay Billy Gate$ >the 1/2 billion $ to block open relays in his server programs. >Thats where 99% of this crap is coming from. >Bolton/Mailwasher is not doing anything to reduce the spam problem. He simply provides a filter so you don't see it. The only time spam is reduced is when it's blocked before you receive it. Right. And Eudora does it even less efficiently. >Open relays are a much smaller piece of the pie these days. They're far too easy to blacklist. According to the most recent stats I've seen, most spam is either from countries like China that simply ignore all complaints or from trojan "owned" machines or open proxies. What is true is that most of the latter two are Windows based systems. >2/3rds of my spams are from MSN.COM or Hotmail.com >So unlikely that I'd be willing to put money down that this is not true. You may receive a lot of spam with a forged from or reply-to address at MSN or Hotmail, but if you check the email headers it almost certainly did not come from there. It's almost impossible to send any significant amount of spam from an MSN or Hotmail account because the accounts are rate-limited. You can only send a small number of emails per hour. Here you are most likely right. I've noticed that most of the "from lines" do NOT reflect the real email address. I'm not sure about Mailwasher, but Spaminator gives you three options of "from" addresses to delete, including the domain address. What is it with this list, anyway? I inevitably have to type in the to: address after hitting reply. I don't participate on a list to only reply to the sender, I participate to post to the list. If I want to reply privately, I'll type in the individual email address, at least with most lists. This is really clutzy and antiquated and rather trite. Most lists don't do that now. I know some old-timers prefer that, and that's probably why it's set up this way, but "reply to all" function ends up sending a message twice to the person you are responding too, unless you manually delete their name. So I don't like having to remember that either, because I don't want to set up my Eudora with that function automatically. Replying to the list is nice and neat. If I really feel the URGE to respond privately it's less of an effort to do that then having to delete the personal email and put in the list address. Maybe this is all just a matter of style, but I really don't like the reply to function on this list. Regards, Scott Peterson -- The trouble with most folks isn't so much their ignorance. It's know'n so many things that ain't so. -- Josh Billings. 572/588 Bright Blessings! Joy