[Scotttheking]

In the last year, my private email address, which I use for correspondence and other things that need a more professional address, has begun getting spam. I know this is because I used it for school groups and some of the students were so brilliant as to mass email, getting the address on spam lists. In the last few months, the spam has picked up a bit.
It's now bad enough that since Dec 18th, my private account has received 180 spams, while the public one has received 186.
I'm not sure what to do. I can't just shut this address down and start over, sadly.

Garr. I think I just needed to rant, but if anyone has some useful constructive suggestions, I'm reading.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Garr. I think I just needed to rant, but if anyone has some useful constructive suggestions, I'm reading.

So, the obvious question is: What kind of spam filters do you use and how successful (or not) were you with it ?

My suggestion: get your own domain with a hoster that allows SSH access and installation of server-sided anit-spam-software.
I am using dreamost.com, and I run SpamAssassin server-sided to sort my IMAP mail.

In addition, I installed a catch-all address *@mydomain.com, forwarded to my email account. I did this so I can give out unique email addresses to people or online shops, like paypal@mydomain.com, amazon@mydomain.com, mybuddyjoe@mydomain.com etc..., which all reach my nonetheless.

Once I realize that one email address got compromised, I know *WHO* the leak was, and I can dev/null it, if necessary.

-t

[Mastrap]

It doesn't get rid of spam, but Junkmatcher Central works very well for me.

Catches pretty much everything.

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by turtle777:
My suggestion: get your own domain with a hoster that allows SSH access and installation of server-sided anit-spam-software.

This is also reasonably good if you can run it: http://assp.sourceforge.net/

[AssassyN]

Bummer...spam never bothers me. I use Yahoo Mail and absolutely EVERY piece of spam hits the Bulk Mail folder and never worries me. Nice.

[willed]

Apple Mail sorts out mine pretty well.

[jersey]

yeah it sucks....

i just got my 1st "office whores" in gmail.

damn.

[TheJoshu]

SPAM has ruined my ability to use catch-all e-mail addresses.. I have had to eliminate all of them, because once spammers latch on to your domain they'll hit every possible address -OR- they'll start using random addresses at your domain as their RETURN-TO address, leaving you with hundreds of mailer daemon messages. ugh.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by TheJoshu:
SPAM has ruined my ability to use catch-all e-mail addresses.. I have had to eliminate all of them, because once spammers latch on to your domain they'll hit every possible address -OR- they'll start using random addresses at your domain as their RETURN-TO address, leaving you with hundreds of mailer daemon messages. ugh.

Nothing a good spam filter can't handle.
I have no problems with loads of spam AND catch-all addresses.

-t

[The Windozer]

I've signed up my emailadress for stupid stuff left and right and I only get a few spam mails a month. I'm actually almost a bit insulted. It's like no spammer finds me worthy of being on his list.

I once got a weird newsletter about job openings in Sweden, but that was no problem cancelling. Turns out there is someone in Sweden whos first name begins with the same letter as mine and whos surname is the same as mine. I'm suspecting that's where all my spam mail goes.

[Kernel Angus]

Once you get tagged with some spam, it will just continue to grow.
Sucks, but even training and retraining my Apple Mail filters still doesn't eliminate the constant barrage of wet whores and penile enhancement messages. Good for me that I'm satisfied in those two departments, fortunately.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by The Windozer:
It's like no spammer finds me worthy of being on his list.

Maybe Norwegians don't need P3n!5 enlargments as much as Americans do ?

-t

[Athens]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
In the last year, my private email address, which I use for correspondence and other things that need a more professional address, has begun getting spam. I know this is because I used it for school groups and some of the students were so brilliant as to mass email, getting the address on spam lists. In the last few months, the spam has picked up a bit.
It's now bad enough that since Dec 18th, my private account has received 180 spams, while the public one has received 186.
I'm not sure what to do. I can't just shut this address down and start over, sadly.

Garr. I think I just needed to rant, but if anyone has some useful constructive suggestions, I'm reading.

You can move your email address hosting to a server that has spam rating protection so you can use rules to filter it out, unless its a hotmail type address. I get 800 spams PER DAY in my main account.

[alphasubzero949]

Like you, my private school account was also compromised. However, Mail still catches the spam. When it doesn't? They're automagically deleted.

These are the rules I set in Mail.app. Each rule is told to stop evaluating rules if it fits certain criteria. YMMV.

Apple confidential stuff
Groups in Address Book.app
Certain e-mails from school

...
...
...
Junk

The top rules sort my mail into the assigned folders. No spam ever reaches them. Ever. Using Address Book.app also helps in sorting mail from the people you know.

If any of the rules at the top do not fit the criteria I specified, they will either end up in my inbox, Junk, or be completely deleted. The default Junk rule seems to work fairly well most of the time, but it could even use a little update as the spammers have been getting a little more sophisticated. However, I say it has been effective approx. 95% of the time.

These are the two rules I use at the end:

If To: does NOT contain youre-mail@address.com, delete the message.
If To: does NOT contain @, delete the message.

Note that if you are signed onto list-serves, the first rule may delete legit messages.

With those two rules? I rarely get spam...maybe once every month (if that) if I get a clever spammer.

Edit: Disclaimer about listserves

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by TheJoshu:
SPAM has ruined my ability to use catch-all e-mail addresses.. I have had to eliminate all of them, because once spammers latch on to your domain they'll hit every possible address -OR- they'll start using random addresses at your domain as their RETURN-TO address, leaving you with hundreds of mailer daemon messages. ugh.

Use aliases instead. I do this whilst not running any other spam protection than Mail.app's internal filters and I don't get problems with spam. Get a problem - just delete the alias (note - my catch-all is off).

[Mafia]

Originally posted by willed:
Apple Mail sorts out mine pretty well.

same i never see my spam messages.

[Scotttheking]

I'd say the spam filters have a 99.x% catch rate, but it's still annoying, because I have to check the list (today I found an invoice in there, caught by mail).
I use spamassassin on the server, and mail's filtering to catch what it misses. Mail's spam setup is a bit annoying when you have multiple email addies, though. It's a bit of a pain to set it up when you want spam treated differently depending on the account.
Still, I know I'll keep getting more, and some will get thru.
I do use aliases (well, a catchall right now) for the public domain, but it's not something doable for the private one, at least not to the same extent. Oh well

[Apple Pro Underwear]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
I'd say the spam filters have a 99.x% catch rate, but it's still annoying, because I have to check the list (today I found an invoice in there, caught by mail).

yeah, it sucks because you still have to check the Spam/Bulk folder Just in case and that defeats the purpose.

be thankful a spammer is not spoofing your domain. i got 10,000 bounce backs a day!

[Miniryu]

Even if you have a Spam filter, the spam still enters your computer and hogs your bandwith. I just wish that crap was gone forever.

What ever happened to Bill Gate's promise to rid the world of spam forever? I was willing to purchase a copy of Windoze (to run on VPC, of course) if he could get rid of it all. I guess I should spend my dough somewhere else, huh?

[paully dub]

hey minryu, what was that other thread you posted about? what's funny?

[Oisín]

I have been extremely lucky with my domain mails. For about 2½ years now, I have received perhaps 4 or 5 spam mails all in all. Then all of a sudden yesterday, I get 6 mails throughout the day, all of them from Chinese addresses (most of them from 163.net, which is a free webmail), and all of them infected with some W.32 Love something-whatever Bot or Virus (didn't check too carefully, just told Avast! to get rid of it). Bugger.

[Xeo]

I stopped trying to hide my e-mail address. Instead I just invested time into making my spam filter work well. A combination of TMDA and Spam Assassin on my own mail server and the only "spam" I get is the returned mail when someone uses my address as the "From" when sending spam to others, and that's only a few per week. I could filter those too but I don't want to miss real bounces.

[MilkmanDan]

Get Mail to actually filter for you.

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by MilkmanDan:
Get Mail to actually filter for you.

[Miniryu]

Originally posted by paully dub:
hey minryu, what was that other thread you posted about? what's funny?

What happened to my post? I thought my mind was playing tricks on me- I made it during a break between classes. I go back just now and its not there anymore. I'll repost it, but FYI i just thought it was funny that's Apple's own spell checker doesn't identify "iWork" as a correctly spelled word (I was using Pages when I discovered this). It identifies iChat, iTunes, iMac, iPod, and various other iProducts as spelled correctly.

[Buckaroo]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
In the last year, my private email address, which I use for correspondence and other things that need a more professional address, has begun getting spam. I know this is because I used it for school groups and some of the students were so brilliant as to mass email, getting the address on spam lists. In the last few months, the spam has picked up a bit.
It's now bad enough that since Dec 18th, my private account has received 180 spams, while the public one has received 186.
I'm not sure what to do. I can't just shut this address down and start over, sadly.

Garr. I think I just needed to rant, but if anyone has some useful constructive suggestions, I'm reading.

18x since Dec 18th? Heck, I get over 500 spams/day. It sucks. Although it fluctuates. When ever it is reported that some spammers have been arrested, the spams drop down to 100/day for a couple weeks.

[E's Lil Theorem]

Originally posted by turtle777:
...

In addition, I installed a catch-all address *@mydomain.com, forwarded to my email account. I did this so I can give out unique email addresses to people or online shops, like paypal@mydomain.com, amazon@mydomain.com, mybuddyjoe@mydomain.com etc..., which all reach my nonetheless.

Once I realize that one email address got compromised, I know *WHO* the leak was, and I can dev/null it, if necessary.

-t

I used to do this but pretty soon I had about 10 email addresses from different places and they were all getting spam. So, I went back to one email addy for the public and one private.

Nevertheless, in theory, if you have your own domain, it is a nifty way of solving your spam problem.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by Miniryu:
Even if you have a Spam filter, the spam still enters your computer and hogs your bandwith. I just wish that crap was gone forever.

Nope, not with server-sided spam protection. See my post above.

-t

[Miniryu]

Originally posted by turtle777:
Nope, not with server-sided spam protection. See my post above.

-t

sweeet :-D

[KP*]

My private/business e-mail has also been receiving an increasing amount of spam. The funny thing is, the address that I give out online to businesses and forums and stuff has never received a single piece of spam, so it's pretty clear how the spammers got my address: from my friends and coworkers. Gee, thanks guys.

Like you, I can't change the address because it's what I use for business. I use SpamSieve with Entourage to block spam, and it's pretty good at it once it's trained, but I still have to occasionally check and delete my junk mail folder.

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by KP*:
My private/business e-mail has also been receiving an increasing amount of spam. The funny thing is, the address that I give out online to businesses and forums and stuff has never received a single piece of spam, so it's pretty clear how the spammers got my address: from my friends and coworkers. Gee, thanks guys.

Like you, I can't change the address because it's what I use for business. I use SpamSieve with Entourage to block spam, and it's pretty good at it once it's trained, but I still have to occasionally check and delete my junk mail folder.

Same here, the email addy that's compromised is the one friends got. The "public" domain spam comes to webmaster, info, and sales, which are addresses you are supposed to have, but aren't used.

As for server side filtering, it doesn't save bandwidth because many people can't delete the email without checking first.
Besides, I pay for the bandwidth on the server, too
I need to go back to running my own server, but I don't have time. *sigh*

[Apple Pro Underwear]

Originally posted by KP*:
My private/business e-mail has also been receiving an increasing amount of spam. The funny thing is, the address that I give out online to businesses and forums and stuff has never received a single piece of spam, so it's pretty clear how the spammers got my address: from my friends and coworkers.

yup!!!

my SPAM address gets very little spam. HOW FU ING ANNOYING IS THAT!


are those bastards at Washington DC doing anything about this?

[turtle777]

Originally posted by Apple Pro Underwear:
yup!!!

my SPAM address gets very little spam. HOW FU ING ANNOYING IS THAT!


are those bastards at Washington DC doing anything about this?

So the obvious solution is to use "spam_yourname@somedomain.com" as your address ?!?!

-t

[Buckaroo]

Wow, it's been great these last couple days. Very little spam. I realize it won't last. I'm down to less than 30 spams/day. It's almost a miricle.

You know, if no one would ever respond to spams, then it wouldn't be a problem. The reason we have spam is because idiots actually respond to that crap.

I treat 100% of all spam as if they are illegal scams.

I do receive some advertising from certain retailers and I respond to them, but that is because I have agreed to allow them to mail me those advertisments.

[Buckaroo]

[RAILhead]

Between Media Temple's Mail Protect and SpamSieve, I don't get any spam at all in my Inbox. At the most, I'll receive 2 or 3 a week via SpamSieve -- but those are sent to my Junk folder. All the rest are killed by Mail Protect before I ever see them (unless I add the MAPI folder so I can browse them for whatever reason).

Maury

[legacyb4]

Agreed. I've got my domain parked behind a pair of mail gateways running the old Spamassassin/ClamAV/Amavisd-new combination and with some basic tuning of Postfix parameters (namely relay_recipient_maps), mail bound for a valid email address is every actually passed on through the system to be filtered and cleansed.

End result? A lot less spam and a happier mail gateway that spends its time actually processing mail and not getting swamped under undeliverable bounce messages...

Originally posted by Athens:
You can move your email address hosting to a server that has spam rating protection so you can use rules to filter it out, unless its a hotmail type address. I get 800 spams PER DAY in my main account.

[The Oracle]

I have had the same hotmail address for 5 years now, and have used it for scores of purchases across dozens of merchants, and many friends have it. I don't post it online, however. In those five years, I have received zero spam.

Go figure.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by The Oracle:
I have had the same hotmail address for 5 years now, and have used it for scores of purchases across dozens of merchants, and many friends have it. I don't post it online, however. In those five years, I have received zero spam.

Go figure.

I have a hard time believing it.
Just from my own experience.\

I have a hotmail address that I very rarely used, mostly only as a backup address. I have very rarely given it out to anyone. If I was suspicious of potential spamers, I had given out other addresses. Nonethelss, my hotmail address is swamped with Spam.

Go figure...

-t

[Sherwin]

Slightly related:

I've had to openly post an email address to UseNet in order to get some spam in - 'coz I wasn't getting any and I'd like to train Mail up a bit more. Even after wildly posting the address to everywhere I could think of, I'm still only getting one spam a day.

For the record, I'm running CommuniGate Pro with no filtering (i.e. SpamAssassin) other than a single honeypot, rDNS lookups and sbl-xbl.spamhaus lookups. Mail.app as client.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
I've had to openly post an email address to UseNet in order to get some spam in - 'coz I wasn't getting any and I'd like to train Mail up a bit more. Even after wildly posting the address to everywhere I could think of, I'm still only getting one spam a day.

I sometimes have that creepy feeling that Spam is intelligent.

-t

[E's Lil Theorem]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
Slightly related:

I've had to openly post an email address to UseNet in order to get some spam in - 'coz I wasn't getting any and I'd like to train Mail up a bit more. Even after wildly posting the address to everywhere I could think of, I'm still only getting one spam a day.

For the record, I'm running CommuniGate Pro with no filtering (i.e. SpamAssassin) other than a single honeypot, rDNS lookups and sbl-xbl.spamhaus lookups. Mail.app as client.

Maybe it has something to do with the email addy itself. If it's John_Doe@hotmail.com, the spam bots will take it and use it. If it's something like Jasdlfjasl2j29979345@yahoo.com, it might "think" it's a fake addy and just forget about it.

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by E's Lil Theorem:
Maybe it has something to do with the email addy itself. If it's John_Doe@hotmail.com, the spam bots will take it and use it. If it's something like Jasdlfjasl2j29979345@yahoo.com, it might "think" it's a fake addy and just forget about it.

Arhh. This might be it. It's actually "trainme@*".
I'll make another one with a real(ish) name, see how that goes.

Thanks.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
Arhh. This might be it. It's actually "trainme@*".

Yeah, that is as effective as "spam_me" or anything that contains "spam" (see my post above).

I have actually seen people use addresses like nospam@mydomain.com
Maybe that really catches significantly less

-t

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by turtle777:
Yeah, that is as effective as "spam_me" or anything that contains "spam" (see my post above).

I have actually seen people use addresses like nospam@mydomain.com
Maybe that really catches significantly less

I've just posted the new name to everywhere, so I'll let you know how the two accounts go.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
I've just posted the new name to everywhere, so I'll let you know how the two accounts go.

Hey, post the address here, too.

I'll forward you some of my old spam. That's how I tested my filters...

-t

[Apple Pro Underwear]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
I've just posted the new name to everywhere, so I'll let you know how the two accounts go.

ARE YOU INSANE?!?!!?!?!?!?


it's like getting stabbed to find out how to rehab!!!!!


spam is not a game, once you have it is like crabs!!!!

[turtle777]

Originally posted by Apple Pro Underwear:
ARE YOU INSANE?!?!!?!?!?!?
it's like getting stabbed to find out how to rehab!!!!!
spam is not a game, once you have it is like crabs!!!!

Ahhh, RTwholeFP !

-t

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by turtle777:
Hey, post the address here, too.

I'll forward you some of my old spam. That's how I tested my filters...

Thanks but I'll leave it as is - I'm on an experimental "trainme" vs "realish.name" kick now and that'd skew the results.

[legacyb4]

I was going to ask, but saw this and would agree; unless you have control over your own mailserver, server-side spam filtering abilities are somewhat limited.

I enabled the catch-all for a few days to see what would happen since I was seeing massive bounce queues and was just shocked by the random name spam attacks on my domain. Realizing that bouncing them was futile, I opted to have Postfix simply drop the connections without spending lots of time processing the mail.

GOod luck.

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
I need to go back to running my own server, but I don't have time. *sigh*