Interesting thoughts on spam

[Alma J Wetzker]

Collins wrote:
> My trash box is now receiving up to 200 pieces of spam per day.  Fortunately, 
> a few simple filter rules have banished 99% of these from sight.
> 
> I used to just delete them as they came in, but then I discovered that nearly 
> all the atrocious stuff shared common characteristics:
> 
> 1. An older form of my email address.  My isp changed the domain name for my 
> email about 8 months ago, but continued to forward the old domain to the new 
> domain.  No one I value is using the old address, so bang - they're gone.
> 
> 2. Most of the rest came from subscriptions to two linux user groups that I no 
> longer monitor, so bang any mail from these two are gone.
> 
> Since the spammers obviously harvested my email address from one or the other 
> of these two groups a long time ago, it makes me wonder:
> 
> 1. Is it really safe to subscribe to any group?
> 
> 2. Why haven't they harvested my current address?
> 
I suspect that it is not safe to subscribe to any group.  I also suspect that 
Doug and company did some work to keep the email addresses on this list from 
easily being harvested.

My best guess is that this list just doesn't generate the volume to interest a 
spammer.  What was the volume like on the lists that got scarfed?

Spam will be a way of life for the next few years.  Then something in ipV6 or 
some added mail security will make it a minor nuisance for the rest of the 
life of the net.  The best defense is careful use of email addresses and to 
keep multiple email addresses (most disposable).  That keeps the filters easy.

     -- Alma