Who is selling our names?

... subject. The trouble is you usually have no way to know what triggered the spam.

I live in Europe (UK) and receive mostly US-derived emails. (Second honeymoon cruises, viagra, ***** enlargement, and debt being the most common - you can make up your own jokes).

I had thought the "source" was an online purchase of a well-known brand of flash diffuser from the US, but I may well be wrong on that one.

The spam is currently at nuisance level rather than a major pain in the backside, but I don't hold out much hope for any improvement in the near future...

--
David Barker

Same here, but not in amount like yours. I also cannot connet those spams with this forum as I do not get spams to email I use for this forum.

Still, I get spams with very much same subjects like You and it gives me pain. I traced down that all started after I sent few emails to one closed mailing list. The problem was that anyone subscribed to it could browse archive on web and see email addresses. Second issue was that anyone subscribed could send query to listserv and obtain list of subscribed people and their email addresses. Ouch! Since than I'm fighting with enlarging my *****, B. Spears, viagra and others. Trying to unsubscribe doesn't really give any results. I speacially like those on which I click unsubscribe and after few seconds I get their spam once again. Makes me crazy. There should be really a good law against that.

Cheers,
Hrvoje
---
F717; http://www.imagestation.com/members/hcrvelin

Hrvoje Crvelin said:

I speacially like those on which I click
unsubscribe and after few seconds I get their spam once again.
Makes me crazy. There should be really a good law against that.

Cheers,
Hrvoje

Click to expand...

Do not click on those unsubscribe links all that does is tell the spammer they have a good e-mail address and once they know they have a good addy they will sell it to other spammers. And I do beleive there is law in the US anyway that requires an unsubscribe link. Shows you how well laws will work. We could slow it down a little if spamming where made criminal offense and they started locking up spammers but would not stop it. A great majority of spam comes out of Asia and a law in the US won't mean diddly.

--
Anorfir
http://www.anorfir.imntb.com
http://anorfir.imntb.com/galleries/tgallery/albums.php

Mark U said:

Steven W. Bennett said:

A word to the wise: don't click on the "unsubscribe" links in
spam emails. They just use that to verify that yours is a valid
email address so they can use it or sell it to others.

Steve

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Yep. What I do is delete spam right off the server(s) before downloading my e-mail. I run a little tiny e-mail check program that will also allow me to read the message source if I want. Even though I get several hundred e-mails a day, a large percentage of which are spam mostly on one account that I have had for 7 years, it only takes a couple of minutes to run through the list and delete the junk. Filters do not work, they let too much junk through and kill too much good and blacklists I am deeply opposed too as they take the option away from me as to what I get or do not get. I also use throw away web based e-mail accounts, like hotmail to subscribe to things or register on sights etc.
--
Anorfir
http://www.anorfir.imntb.com
http://anorfir.imntb.com/galleries/tgallery/albums.php

Either through selling the names, or in bots scanning the email contact info on the image submitted. I get hundreds of emails a day in just spam.

Well first of all, publishing your address on the net is pretty much the most stupid thing one could do, as webcrawlers will pick it up (and yes most of tehm have learned the REMOVETHIS-trick by now).

a good way to atleast track spam is having your own domain. (let's say yourdomain.com) and having a catch-all for that domains e-mail forwarders.

and then whereever you sign-up sign up with let's say
[email protected], and tell your friends to use [email protected]

servicename being the webservices name.

Then if you start getting a lot of spam just check the enveloped-to address in the mail-headers and voila, you know where they got your mail!, next you can block all mail sent to that account (i don't know if you can get your isp to do this, but i have done it as i am my own e-mail isp).

This is how i have blocked spam all untill i once forgot doing this when commenting somewhere with just [email protected]...

the war against spam is infinite you know

Hiding your name from onliine posting might help, but it will not eliminate the problem. Spammers also use techniques, one of them I call spambombing, where they will mail a whole dictionary of terms at a domain so they'll send mail to hundreds of potential (but not verified) people at once.

At least 30% of the spam I see filtered out are from my ISP email which I have never once used, and I know the ISP and know they wouldn't sell addresses.

I've always taken the post-filter approach and don't obscure my email address. Even the spam address I ususually sign up with things on I receive directly, but all is filtered. I use Spam Assassin and it filters out the hundreds of spam I get a day. Recently I've received perhaps 2-3 a week out of the 1500-2000 a week I get sometimes.

And usually more important than catching all the spam is NOT accidentally marking non-spam as spam. Spam Assassin hasn't marked a spam incorrectly for me in over 6 months, and when it did it was pretty spammy stuff, just happened to be from a friend. Such things can be whitelisted so that it doesn't happen again.

For those of you who can't control your email path it won't help, but those of you who control your own domain or mail servers could consider Spam Assassin or some other spam filter. It can be done on the server globally or done for yourself on your own machine, it's worth investigating.

Spambayes is a freeware, open source program for Microsoft Outlook that is "trained" to recognize your SPAM. Works great, and integrates right intot the full version of Outlook. Close to 100% accuracy, and sends your mail to SPAM, NOT SPAM, or UNSURE folders. Learns further as you correct its mistakes.

Highly recomended.

By the way, any email address that's posted or listed in any shape or form seems to be fair game for the SPAM gatherers.

"If no one responded to SPAM no one would send it"

I use to get those when I was on hotmail!

Another thing, if you ever use Micro-Center don't even give them your home address! I went to the local MC and bought an item only to find out that I started receiving all these offers from stores in that general area! I'm glad I didn't give them my email address!

Shutter. said:

I used to think the spam email I received was received by everyone.
Then I started noticing that a lot of the subject lines included
the words "picture" or "I saw your gallery"... but when opened up I
find out that I'm either in debt or desperately horny. I'm talking
like 20-30 of these a day, often more.

I started asking friends who also use hotmail how many they
received, and they would respond with "sometimes". Then, I started
hearing from a couple of frequent forum members (not just this
forum, but many forums) and just in passing they would make
comments like "once I deleted all my viagra emails..." or "wow,
look at that, I'm in debt and didn't know it".... then reading Mike
Johnston's Sunday Photographer article on Luminous-lanscape.com, he
referred to it...

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-03-08-31.shtml
snip
"If anyone’s interested in the data, I got 1500 e-mail messages in
the twelve days I was on vacation, only about a tenth of which were
for me. But even that pales against the new record: 145 spam
messages in the space of about 15 hours. Apparently, modern,
computerized market research has urgently pinpointed me as someone
a) who is in need of another mortgage and a larger *****, b) who
honestly believes that some Nigerian dude needs my bank account to
transfer $20 million, and c) who enjoys an endless stream of
dirty-talk about “teens” and (I’m guessing here) male chickens. I
plead innocent of all these concerns — or would, if I had any say
in the matter."

Do all of you receive these emails? Do your friends who don't
participate on the forums?

I guess I'm just wondering which one(s) if any are selling my name
all over the place... it could be many.

Curious to read your replies. I likely won't respond to all of
them due to time constraints lately.

Thanks

Jim

--
Jim Fuglestad
Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase.
-Percy W. Harris
Our existence is determined by the truths we tell.
Why simply live and let live? Live and help live.
http://www.pbase.com/jfuglestad/galleries

Click to expand...

Hi Jim,

I passed this National Association of Realtors e-Pro Certification course. As part of the course, we had to join their listservs. (Listservs are special e-mail groups that participate in discussions via e-mail).

Before that time I had NO spam on my private cable e-mail. Now I have some. I believe it is coming from some of the members of this Listserv.

Also, let's talk about spyware!

I also just downloaded Ad-Aware 6.0. I was horrified to see that I had 864
items of spyware in my computer!!! Mind you, I have been online with this
computer since 9/99, so there has been plenty of opportunity for
installation of this kind of stuff.

Have you ever gone to a website and you hear a lot of noise in your computer and wonder what it is? Well, it's the website installing spyware in your computer. Now I can track which websites are doing this since I am "clean" now. Pretty interesting stuff.

Here is the link to download it if you so choose:

http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/3000-2144-10214379.html?tag=lst-0-1

There have been over 2 million downloads with it.

Also, when I sign up for something and give them my e-mail address, I use a specialized e-mail address which I can do because I have my own website.

My website is http://www.SOCEstates.com (South Orange County Estates).

So say if I sign up for Photospin e-mail, I can set my e-mail address at [email protected]. No matter what I put on the front, it will always go to my website and then to whatever e-mail address I have chosen for my website. I have mine set up to go to my cable e-mail address - not my AOL Address.

Anyway, with this specialized address, I will know if my e-mail address was sold because the spam will come with this special address. It's pretty cool =)

D.

Shutter. said:

I used to think the spam email I received was received by everyone.
Then I started noticing that a lot of the subject lines included
the words "picture" or "I saw your gallery"... but when opened up I
find out that I'm either in debt or desperately horny. I'm talking
like 20-30 of these a day, often more.

I started asking friends who also use hotmail how many they
received, and they would respond with "sometimes". Then, I started
hearing from a couple of frequent forum members (not just this
forum, but many forums) and just in passing they would make
comments like "once I deleted all my viagra emails..." or "wow,
look at that, I'm in debt and didn't know it".... then reading Mike
Johnston's Sunday Photographer article on Luminous-lanscape.com, he
referred to it...

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-03-08-31.shtml
snip
"If anyone’s interested in the data, I got 1500 e-mail messages in
the twelve days I was on vacation, only about a tenth of which were
for me. But even that pales against the new record: 145 spam
messages in the space of about 15 hours. Apparently, modern,
computerized market research has urgently pinpointed me as someone
a) who is in need of another mortgage and a larger *****, b) who
honestly believes that some Nigerian dude needs my bank account to
transfer $20 million, and c) who enjoys an endless stream of

dirty-talk about “teens” and (I’m guessing here) male chickens. I
plead innocent of all these concerns — or would, if I had any say
in the matter."

Do all of you receive these emails? Do your friends who don't
participate on the forums?

I guess I'm just wondering which one(s) if any are selling my name
all over the place... it could be many.

Curious to read your replies. I likely won't respond to all of
them due to time constraints lately.

Thanks

Jim

--
Jim Fuglestad
Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase.
-Percy W. Harris
Our existence is determined by the truths we tell.
Why simply live and let live? Live and help live.
http://www.pbase.com/jfuglestad/galleries

Click to expand...

--
DeeDee G.
http://www.pbase.com/deedee_g/root

Shutter. said:

I used to think the spam email I received was received by everyone.
Then I started noticing that a lot of the subject lines included
the words "picture" or "I saw your gallery"... but when opened up I
find out that I'm either in debt or desperately horny. I'm talking
like 20-30 of these a day, often more.

I started asking friends who also use hotmail how many they
received, and they would respond with "sometimes". Then, I started
hearing from a couple of frequent forum members (not just this
forum, but many forums) and just in passing they would make
comments like "once I deleted all my viagra emails..." or "wow,
look at that, I'm in debt and didn't know it".... then reading Mike
Johnston's Sunday Photographer article on Luminous-lanscape.com, he
referred to it...

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-03-08-31.shtml
snip
"If anyone’s interested in the data, I got 1500 e-mail messages in
the twelve days I was on vacation, only about a tenth of which were
for me. But even that pales against the new record: 145 spam
messages in the space of about 15 hours. Apparently, modern,
computerized market research has urgently pinpointed me as someone
a) who is in need of another mortgage and a larger *****, b) who
honestly believes that some Nigerian dude needs my bank account to
transfer $20 million, and c) who enjoys an endless stream of
dirty-talk about “teens” and (I’m guessing here) male chickens. I
plead innocent of all these concerns — or would, if I had any say
in the matter."

Do all of you receive these emails? Do your friends who don't
participate on the forums?

I guess I'm just wondering which one(s) if any are selling my name
all over the place... it could be many.

Curious to read your replies. I likely won't respond to all of
them due to time constraints lately.

Thanks

Jim

--
Jim Fuglestad
Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase.
-Percy W. Harris
Our existence is determined by the truths we tell.
Why simply live and let live? Live and help live.
http://www.pbase.com/jfuglestad/galleries

Click to expand...

Jim hello,

Yea i feel your pain - on the average - 150 or more emails in one day. prob
1 or two them are valid. Crazy. And that is only my pers. inbox, I have
about the same from my work email. Of course my email is easy to find
so I am an easy target.

--
Regards, -David
http://www.pbase.com/dcappello/

Your e-mail address is freely available! I don't post my e-mail address for this exact reason. I get 2 or 3 spam messages a week, and that's from Micorsoft. When you create a hotmail account, you will begin to recieve spam automatically. The day I signed up for hotmail, without giving my e-mail to anyone, I had three spam messages. One for Viagra, on for diploma's and one for a house mortgage.

Microsoft is an evil company, no one can argue that.

Remember when Hotmail was cool? Yeah, when there was no spam. Then, Microsoft bought it, and destroyed it. Microsoft is involved in a spam ring of its own, no surprise there. Hotmail accounts get more spam then any other.

Personally, I use pop based e-mail. I get ZERO spam messages on my pop accounts. Not ONE! Pop based e-mail is free, and you check it with an e-mail program, as opposed to web based e-mail. It's faster, and simpler. I have one hotmail account for international travel. Hotmail is easy for people to remember, and since it's web based, you can easily check your account anywhere in the world without any setup.

And, lastly, if you don't want to get spam, don't give your e-mail address to any site. Don't reply to any spam message, or try to "remove" yourself from there lists. All that does is tell them there messages are getting through. Also, clear your cookies, history and cache before using a web based e-mail. Microsoft is as unsecure as it gets. if you are privledged enough to use a Mac, just hit the "reset" button in Safari, and it does all of this for you instantly. With a windows based machine, you can manually do all of this, but it takes a minute or two. Personally, I "reset" my browser after each use. And I use Entourage to check my Hotmail and POP accounts, not my web browser.

Lastly, DO NOT USE MSN MESSENGER!!!! This is important! AIM is fine, but using MSN will give you bad spam. Again, if you use a secure computer, like OS X for instance, iChat is great. The next version of iChat will work with AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, etc.

-¥akuza

I've had the same email address for a number of years. Re-doing it means contacting many hundreds of people. But it's about to the point of necessity; I'm so sick of being told I'm broke, need viagra, or can contact horny housewives that I could retch.

What is most bothersome is the stuff that pretends to be a message from someone you might know, whose content has no connection with the headline. Worse still, my own name has been appropriated by these slimy spawners of spam.... so I've been blacklisted on several ISPs as a spammer, which I'm not.

Grrrrrrr.

Shutter. said:

I used to think the spam email I received was received by everyone.
Then I started noticing that a lot of the subject lines included
the words "picture" or "I saw your gallery"... but when opened up I
find out that I'm either in debt or desperately horny. I'm talking
like 20-30 of these a day, often more.

I started asking friends who also use hotmail how many they
received, and they would respond with "sometimes". Then, I started
hearing from a couple of frequent forum members (not just this
forum, but many forums) and just in passing they would make
comments like "once I deleted all my viagra emails..." or "wow,
look at that, I'm in debt and didn't know it".... then reading Mike
Johnston's Sunday Photographer article on Luminous-lanscape.com, he
referred to it...

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-03-08-31.shtml
snip
"If anyone’s interested in the data, I got 1500 e-mail messages in
the twelve days I was on vacation, only about a tenth of which were
for me. But even that pales against the new record: 145 spam
messages in the space of about 15 hours. Apparently, modern,
computerized market research has urgently pinpointed me as someone
a) who is in need of another mortgage and a larger *****, b) who
honestly believes that some Nigerian dude needs my bank account to
transfer $20 million, and c) who enjoys an endless stream of
dirty-talk about “teens” and (I’m guessing here) male chickens. I
plead innocent of all these concerns — or would, if I had any say
in the matter."

Do all of you receive these emails? Do your friends who don't
participate on the forums?

I guess I'm just wondering which one(s) if any are selling my name
all over the place... it could be many.

Curious to read your replies. I likely won't respond to all of
them due to time constraints lately.

Thanks

Jim

--
Jim Fuglestad
Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase.
-Percy W. Harris
Our existence is determined by the truths we tell.
Why simply live and let live? Live and help live.
http://www.pbase.com/jfuglestad/galleries

Click to expand...

--
Share the beauty in the commonplace

I have a Yahoo account which gets about 20 spams a day. I opened another Yahoo account with the intent of abandoning the first one, and it gets no spam (yet). You just have to be really careful about giving up your email address. If I need to give an address, I give them my spam account.

Isabel Cutler said:

I too have been bombarded with invitations to enlarge my male
member, improve my sexual stamina with Viagra, and watch dirty
little websites. It's really sickening and a pain in the
neck...interesting that all of these invitations go to my dsl
provider website and not my yahoo email address. I get next to no
spam at all with Yahoo.
I think I've chosen not to reveal my email address here but it
hasn't done much good.
Isabel

http://www.pBase.com/isabel95
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipets/?yguid=11497599
pBase supporter

Click to expand...

Shutter. said:

Do all of you receive these emails? Do your friends who don't
participate on the forums?

Click to expand...

Hi Jim,

Yes, I get them all! I get offered on average about a foot of extra ***** per day, larger breasts, and endless opportunities to refinance my mortgage in America.

The email address that gets most of the spam has never been given to any web forum, but does appear in quite a number of places on the web (mostly mailing list archives), so it's not hard to find.

I've never had anything that I could attribute to my participation in a web forum.

Dave

They are the worse at protecting your privacy. As a matter of fact they promote those advertisers that would spam you. if you have Internet Explorer 6.0 set you options in the privacy tab to prompt you for all cookies. Then you can decide which cookies to allow and disallow. You will see just how many people are getting access to your email address.

Not to mention with services like hotmail potential spammers can search the hotmail member list for addresses. The next time you get spam look in the to:,cc, and bcc and see how many email addresses are close to yours.