Spam Help!!!

[Lisa Salberg]

OK I have an NON HCM related post...
I am so sick of SPAM it is not even funny. Today alone I recieved over 300 SPAMS and about 25 "real" emails. While I do have a system that lets me know it is SPAM and all I have to do is delete them - it still takes up time to delete each one...
Does anyone know of a better SPAM blocker?
Thanks!
Lisa

[Reenie]

Re: Spam Help!!!

Do you have to open each one? I don't know of anything to block them. Sorry. I'll let you know if I can come up with anything.

Reenie

[Tim Stewart]

Re: Spam Help!!!

Lisa ... call me. I made a change on the server which should reduce the clutter in your inbox.

Thanks, Tim

[Lisa Salberg]

Re: Spam Help!!!

THANK YOU TIM... my delete key thanks you too!
Lisa

[Darren1]

Re: Spam Help!!!

Lisa,

What is your server running? If you use Linux, I can (and would be happy to) help you setup spam-assasin. It's free and catches 99%+ of spam before it touches your mailbox. If you don't use Linux, you should consider migrating 4HCM.org to it (again, I'd be happy to assist). There are so many great Web-Forums available for free that it is truly mind-boggling. I use "postnuke" (http://www.postnuke.org") and it even has a module to add PHPbb to it (so the forums you have here would fit right in!). If you'd like to discuss this with me offline, feel free to send me an email (or reply to this) and I'll give ya a call.

-Darren

[sandylevitt]

Re: Spam Help!!!

for outlook there is spambayes which is free. it learns what is spam
and then assigned a 100%age to emails if it thinks they might
be spam as well. I want to get this on our home computer as earthlinks
spam catcher sucks.

oh and by the way, I finally decided to stop waiting for felix to set up
our home network and did it myself last night. I must say that I am
very proud of it. It does help that I do computers for a living , but
unix and windooze are two different things. I can do unix in my sleep,
but have lots of problems with windows , suprisingly.

sandy

[Darren1]

Re: Spam Help!!!

I ditto the Unix in my sleep comment. Windows is "easy" to navigate, but difficult to keep running (I have UNIX systems with years of uptime.. my longest running Windows system is about 2 weeks. Afterall, every time I patch the windows box I have to reboot).
Linux has caught up with Windows on the ease of use without inheriting the instability and insecurity! I'd also recommend looking into http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/ Mozilla thunderbird as a replacement for Outlook. Outlook is virus-prone and has pretty poor spam filters, Thunderbird is lightweight, has built in spam filtering and relatively virus-resistant. Oh, and Thunderbird is FREE!
I know this thread has nothing to do with the heart, but maybe we should start a "geeks" section for HCM'rs with computer disorders? Actually, computers do have something to do with my heart... Linux is close to my heart and windows may be the most dangerous thing to my bloodpressure/heartrate!

[Fred]

Re: Spam Help!!!

Darrin,

What you say about Windows, I can say about Linux, and then some.
In the end it comes to what a person is used too and 'grown up' with.
But that is besides the matter of this SPAM issue.

The main reason for receiving SPAM is your e-mail address being out there. The more places that you sign up on-line, the more places you buy stuff on-line, and need to supply your e-mail address the more SPAM you will recieve. Selling e-mail addresses is a big bussiness with a lot of $$.

The cheapest way to handle SPAM is to have 2 e-mail addresses. One that you give to your friends etc. to use for e-mail etc. And a second that you use for on-line stuff. You can use a hotmail or yahoo or any of the other free ones out there for that purpose.

If this is not an option then you can always go with the freeware/comercial linux/windows SPAM filters that will do a good job getting rid of most of your spam. But in the end this will cost you hardware /software and maintenance to maintain /control it.

No matter what Bush and Bill Gates say, SPAM will not go away. SPAM is here to stay..... unfortuanally.

Fred

[Burton Borrok]

Re: Spam Help!!!

I use Norton AntiSpam on Outlook Express. I get around 40 Spams a day so it meets my needs. The down side is you have to identify and tag the first spam from a source and it will then automatically dump all additional spam from that source in the spam folder. This also slows down your system in that you have to import all the email entries before the program can divert the stuff identified as spam. It’s a lot better then deleting the spam item by item, but if you can dump the spam prior to importing it you would be a lot better off.

I also use the Norton Internet Security program, Norton Anti Virus, and Spybot – Search and Destroy, to keep my system clean. Spybot is freeware.
Check it out at http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10...ml?tag=lst-0-1
Burt

[Darren1]

Re: Spam Help!!!

Fred,

While I agree spam is not going away, I disagree that Linux and Windows have similiar problems. Spam on a Unix platform can be controlled using free software. I receive less than 5 spam mails per day and I am subscribed to 50+ newsgroups and many many mailling lists (mozilla-thunderbird email automagically removes the 5 spam messages that get past my spam-assasin filter). On Windows it costs big $ (at least to have a commercial product on your server). Of course, as far as comparisons of stability, features, security, these are areas that people will debate for years.. the facts remain that Microsofts IIS webserver is not even 1/3 as popular as Apache (see www.netcraft.com) and is BY FAR (see www.attrition.org) the most hacked. Ditto for Exchange and Sendmail. I've yet to meet someone that really knows Unix and Windows who prefers Windows. I have however met many many Windows users that assume it is the "best" OS... How they can make this assumption without knowing both OS's is beyond me (seems kinda empty). I personally don't care what OS people choose to use Windows/Mac/Unix/Linux/BSD, I just don't like to be TOLD what OS to buy by a company that has been found to be a monopoly and to have practiced unfair business time and again by the US Supreme Court and the European Union. Unfortunately as we all know, If you want to buy a "name brand" computer in the USA it is very difficult to purchase one without Windows (even if you request it not be installed to save $). Being very conservative in my beliefs and pro-capitalism, this troubles me. Additionally, the fact that Microsoft is in the business of imitating other companies innovations and not discovering it's own is scary. What has made America the most powerful economy and most successful nation in the world (from a technology standpoint) is it's ability to engineer new ideas (think IBM, Silicon Valley, Apple, Word Perfect, Sun (Java), Novell, Real Networks, Netscape - How many of these companies has Microsoft put out of business or crippled using it's monopoly on the desktop? and then taken their technology, cloned it and released it under Microsofts name?). We need to be rewarding the innovators, not just the immitator with the best marketing budget. That's my 2 cents. It's worth what you paid for it (nothing). Oh, and if you can show me a Windows server with more than a month of uptime, I can show you that it is either running unpatched or has not been rebooted to have the patches properly applied. I'd hate to think of what would happen if national security relied on that type of reliability... things like blackouts could occur from failure of electrical system monitoring software (oops.. they have occured). Things like worldwide internet slowdown could occur due to worms and viruses slowing down the entire internet (oops.. this has occured too). Good thing ALL of the internet "ROOT" servers (the servers that run the domain names for the entire internet) are Unix based.

[Darren1]

Re: Spam Help!!!

Burton,

For Spyware detection on Windows, I recommend "Ad-Aware" from www.lavasoftusa.com. It is free for personal use and is excellent at detecting spyware. Also, if you need a good Windows personal firewall, then www.zonelabs.com has it's freeware version of zone-Alarm which is fantastic. They offer a "pro" version but the freeware one works great for 99.999% of attacks. Another nifty tool to help secure the ever insecure Windows "OS" is called popup-blocker (to disable pop-ups and prevent the execution of malicious scripts in Internet Explorer). With all these tools and good antivirus (ie: Norton), you should be reasonably safe. If you want free pop-up blocking, checkout www.google.com and download the "googlebar" for IE (under tools) or go to www.mozilla.org and download the mozilla or firebird web browsers for free (both have built in popup blocking, banner ad blocking and are great web-browsers). If you try out Mozilla or Firebird, make sure you try the "tabbed browsing" select "file, new, tab", Tabs are similiar to the ones you would find in a spreadsheet program allowing one webbrowser to be open to multiple sites without the need for multiple copies of the browser. Good luck! Have fun on the net!

[Burton Borrok]

Re: Spam Help!!!

Hi Darren,
Thanks for the suggestions. I hope a bunch of our readers take advantage of the post and improve their computer’s protections.

I used to use Zone Alarm, and in fact still have it on my back-up OS. It is a very good product in my view – and you can’t beat the free price – but I prefer the Norton product. I also am running Google and make great use of that happy little look-up box sitting there on my bar. I also now have very little pop-up problems with that pop-up blocker in place.

Before I retired I used to work on the biggest mainframes while my son became an expert on the PC side. He is quite conversant on Windows, Unix, Linux and a number of other more esoteric OS’s, and has good things to say about most of them, yet he runs Windows on his home PC, and has me on it too. My PC is Skuzzy, (pardon the pun) and was built for me personally, so I had my choice of the operating system to be installed. It’s over five years old now, and has acquired a number of IDE accoutrements – a new hard drive in particular (price you know), but we’re still running under Windows. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Keep smiling.
Burt

[Burton Borrok]

Re: Spam Help!!!

By the way, I just checked my overnight e-mail. I got four letters, one new spam, and 27 pieces of spam automatically diverted to the spam folder. Of course I tagged the new spam too.
Burt

[liona]

Re: Spam Help!!!

I NEVER have any spam. When I started on the computer about 10 years ago someone told me that starting your E-mail address with an x told them not to send spam. Ever since I have always started my E-addresses with xcp, and I rarely get anything other than the mail I want!

[smelly_cat1234]

Re: Spam Help!!!

it bedents what your with eh hotmail ect
post emails you sound be able to sit up a safe list so the only emails you get are form plls emails in ur safe list
*m*