More greeting ecard spam and what to do about it

More bogus electronic greeting cards in my mailboxes, but luckily Hotmail and Outlook catch most if not all of the offending mail… supposedly from “a friend.” 

Some friend. I’ve never heard of the sender.

My ISP catches many bogus mails as well in their own spam filter before it every touches my Outlook In box.

According to the Wikipedia wiki on Email spam, most spammers get e-mail addresses of their victims through the purchase of direct marketing email address databases and lists, from newsgroups, company staff directories, though the use of spambots, and through the WHOIS listing available through most domain name registrars (which is where I believe most get my email addresses).

To combat spammers from getting my regular email addresses, I use a separate, unique email address for the technical contact listing on my personal Internet domains and – and the majority of spam targets those addresses.

I also route email from my personal Internet web addresses to Hotmail, using the MSN postmaster to block most if not all spam and attack mails.

For more, see my previous post on spam and what to do about it here… which last year would have weighed more than 750 pounds if converted into regular snail mail junk mail. (See the post for more on the weight of spam. 😉 

More info:

• Stopping spam with the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
• Microsoft home magazine article on “spam proofing your in-box”
• Bill Gates’ 1998 column on spam
• More in the Wikipedia on E-mail spam
• For more on how vendors and governments are fighting spam, check out eWEEK’s Special Report on Canning Spam.
• For more on stopping unwanted printed junk mail, visit the The Direct Marketing Association Consumer Assistance site and The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

Tags: spam, antispyware, security.