SPAM

merchanb · 03-17-2003, 01:41 PM

I just received the usual Sierra Leone millions of dollars scam SPAM from a Mr. Raphael Maloney (raphmaloney-at-starmedia.com) It was identified as being sent to the disposable email address which I only use for ITYT.

Either the ITYT database has been compromised or a member is sending SPAM to other members. If there is a Raphael Maloney who is a member he should be dismembered.

ghewgill · 03-17-2003, 02:24 PM

I would find it hard to believe that an ITYT member is sending such spam messages to other members, or that the ITYT member database has been compromised in some way.

Rather, I suspect that your email address was simply collected by an automatic program that happened upon the ITYT forum pages. Your email address is available in the "email" link at the bottom or each of your posts, as well as from your Profile page.

Your email address is available in the ITYT forums to provide an easy way for other members to contact you privately if desired. However, exposing it in this way makes it vulnerable to collection by automated programs.

ghewgill · 03-17-2003, 02:35 PM

Actually, it looks like you can hide your email address by going to the "Profile" link at the top of the forum page, and setting the "Always show my Email Address" option to No. I don't know whether changing this option will affect past posts, though.

merchanb · 03-17-2003, 03:07 PM

True.

However, if a WebCrawler did pick up the address I would expect to receive a whole potfull of SPAM rather than just one.

Likewise it is unlikely that a random email generator just happened to come up with "vyfvk0702@sneakemail.com" (Not to worry, I just changed my address to something else.

)

Gee, if that wasn't really SPAM I just lost a chance to get millions of dollars just for sending them my bank account information.

tycoonjack · 03-19-2003, 11:44 PM

SPAM help

maybe ityt should impliment some of these ideas such as converting all email addresses into their HTML equivalent

klyve1 · 03-22-2003, 12:20 PM

I'm afraid that using HTML equivalent email addresses doesn't stop email spiders. About the only thing that does is using javascript to separate each component - I've not come across a spider that can read that yet.

merchanb · 03-28-2003, 07:15 PM

I just received another Nigeria SPAM from CHUKWUBUEZE JIM, 2003-at-breathe.com or urgentwork@netscape.net. giving me an account and pin number to see the 150 million dollars.

This was sent to the ITYT address I changed to (swslmk502@sneakemail.com) after getting SPAM to the previous ITYT address.

I'm going to change it again and, if any more shows up, will just post no email address on ITYT.

Sigh, I just passed on another opportunity to make jillions of dollars.

dbaker · 03-28-2003, 09:25 PM

You're making millions and complaining?

merchanb · 03-28-2003, 09:31 PM

Some people like me are just never satisfied.

I NEVER said I wasn't a malcontent.

merchanb · 06-02-2003, 11:14 AM

Just got news of a surefire 400 million dollar deal from Engr.Daniel Ochuko , a Director General in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) at ochukodan-at-telstra.com but I would only get $16 million of it if I reply to contractreviewp2@yahoo.com.

Be my guest. What cheapskates . . . they should offer at least 10%.

It was sent to the third disposable email address I posted only on ITYT so someone is getting addresses off of the ITYT WEB site.

It doesn't appear to be a big operation and apparently the email addresses aren't being sold as only a few "offers" come through at infrequent intervals . . . probably not worth doing anything about.

You can get disposable email addresses at sneakemail.com. Any mail sent to one of those addresses comes to your regular address and shows you who you gave that address to. If you start getting a lot of spam to that address you can have it automatically bounce, deleted, or you can just cancel that address. Sneakemail would like you to pay for the service but, on the other hand, you don't have to.

Highly recommended.

ghewgill · 06-02-2003, 05:39 PM

This doesn't have to be a problem for you - all you have to do is turn off the display of your email address on ITYT.

Go to the "Profile" link at the top of the forum page, and set the "Always show my Email Address" option to No. Voilà, no more spam from people scraping email addresses from the ITYT forums.

In my opinion, it's better to use a generic spam filter program and not to worry about specific sources of spam. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to track down the precise source of every 400 million dollar offer you get. I get well over 100 spam messages per day but I never have to see them because they're automatically moved to another folder.

merchanb · 06-02-2003, 06:17 PM

It's no problem at all to me, I can just terminate any address that gets SPAM and each email tells me who I gave that address to so I know who the culprit was.

The return address on that last SPAM was ochukodan-at-telstra.com|ITYT #3 which tells me that it was sent to the third email address I had posted on ITYT.

Even if you don't see your spam, it gets relayed, downloaded, takes up resources, clogging up your computer, your ISP and the Internet in general. Wouldn't it be better to not receive any SPAM at all?

I was just offering the sneakemail info for anyone (like you maybe?) who gets SPAM.

Nugget · 06-02-2003, 09:06 PM

In the past 30 days I've received 14,073 spam emails. I must agree with gregh that there's very little value and a great deal of effort involved in trying to determine where each of the thousands of spammers may have obtained my email address.

The rate at which I'd have to cycle through disposable addresses would be at least daily and doing so would be to the detriment of my ability to receive legitimate emails from people I do not correspond with regularly.

If someone digs up an old usenet post of mine, or finds a forum posting I made a year ago I want for them to be able to email me if they wish to follow up on the subject. If I'd recycled that particular address, I'd never get to see the mail they send.

The only scalable method of dealing with spam that I've found is exactly as greg describes -- good filters that can accurately identify and discard the mails during delivery. The burden of delivery and storage is far less than the burden of tossing potentially good, nonspam emails into the trash just because I threw away the address the sender has for me.

merchanb · 06-02-2003, 10:31 PM

O.K. . . . Different strokes for different folks.

Your thousands of spammers might just have gotten your address from just one source and you have no way of knowing which one that was. I always know and have found it to be a very minor effort.

I have installed the commercial "I Hate Spam" software for other people and it appears to be one of the best SPAM filters but some will still always creep through.

I do get maybe one or two SPAMs every week or so (never anything I am interested in) and still do hear from everyone I care to hear from. If, for instance, someone wants to contact me by email via ITYT, I'll get it.

I've tried your method; have you tried mine?

Enjoy your SPAM.

We're getting sorta off subject for ITYT right?

Nugget · 06-03-2003, 12:03 AM

Perhaps I was unclear. I don't actually received those 14,000 emails in my inbox. the filter takes care of them. With the added benefit that I do not need to lose emails from people I don't regularly correspond with, which is an unfortunate consequence of your method.

I'm not willing to lose that ability, whereas you seem not to mind. Therein lies the difference.

The fact that you haven't yet found your method to be more than a minor effort is likely a byproduct of the low volume of email you receive. It simply doesn't scale to anything beyond a small email volume.

merchanb · 06-03-2003, 03:53 PM

Point of order . . . seems to be a misunderstanding.

I used to get a lot of SPAM. I don't anymore. The reason I don't should be obvious.

I know the original source of almost any SPAM I might receive. Having only just received two SPAMS to my present ITYT address I won't do anything. If I start getting hundreds, I'll know it's been sold and I will simply take a moment to change it. Anyone that I care to hear from will have a working address.

Just before I retired, the Engineering Department was outsourced and I switched over to manning a help desk for over 1,200 users. I often had to argue with a lot of computer users. Now I no longer have to.

I've tried your way . . . you haven't tried mine. I no longer care.

Day after tomorrow I catch a flight back home!

It's a free country . . . Happy SPAM!

I'm done with this subject.

Nugget · 06-03-2003, 04:30 PM

1. I have tried your way, I don't know why you think I haven't. In fact, being the owner of my own domain the overhead of creating scratch addresses is even less work than you undergo. Even still, it proved to be an unreasonable amount of work for absolutely ZERO benefit.

2. People you want to hear from might not have your newest address, and search engines and web caches mean that they may think that they do have your address when in fact they have an address which you have rendered unworkable. Since you discard all mail to stale addresses you are potentially missing non-spam emails that you would want to receive. You'll never know for sure if this is happening or not, of course so perhaps you're just unaware that the problem exists.

It's not safe to retire an email address just because it has begun receiving spam because to do so means you also lose the ability to receive legitimate mail from people who associate that address with you. There's no magic technique by which you can proactively update everyone's address books and all the archives that statically store the old address. People will continue to try to mail you at the old address and you will never see their mail.

Enjoy your flight.

Leto · 06-03-2003, 04:57 PM

Are you aware that your current email n7d6qky02@sneakemail.com is in the email link below your posts, for any webspider there to grab? The ITYT db wasn't compromised. No member is sending spam. Anyone in the whole wide world can read your email address from the page.

If you're bothered with the spam you get from posting on the ITYT page, why don't you do what ghewgill said in his very first post, disable the email link, and change your email once more.

merchanb · 10-22-2003, 04:16 AM

Quote:

It's not safe to retire an email address just because it has begun receiving spam because to do so means you also lose the ability to receive legitimate mail from people who associate that address with you. There's no magic technique by which you can proactively update everyone's address books and all the archives that statically store the old address. People will continue to try to mail you at the old address and you will never see their mail.

Not so my dear Nugget . . . I simply give everybody a different email address. If I do get spam to that address it's a mouse click to generate a new one and, if the old address was one I gave to someone I care to hear from, it's a simple matter to give that person my new address.

Be that as it may, the reason for this post is that I was getting tired of all the spam to my ITYT address and changed it just yesterday. I've already received a fabulous offer (to the new address) from the son of the late president of Democratic Republic Of Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko about US$30,000,000.00 being up for grabs. It would appear that they have found ITYT to be a fertile ground to till.

I will continue to have my current email address visible on ITYT as I have received some nice legitimate email from ITYT members.

Now, any advice on how can I avoid or at least minimize the taxes on my share of that $30,000,000.00?

P.S. Don't associate that old address with me. It won't work any more.

Leto · 10-26-2003, 03:43 PM

As long as you don't start hiding your email from ITYT, I plan to keep posting that your current email is 261kr8v02@sneakemail.com and for every spider out there to grab. I assume you'll get spam on it tomorrow, and you'll change it. No doubt you'll post here that you've changed it, which then implicitely mentions your email in the "email" link beneath your post, after which I'll be happy to reply again.

Just change your profile, dude. And stop bothering us with your semi-funny (let me correct: REALLY LAME) jokes about the Nigerian spam.

This is a forum about travelling, not about you whining on and on and on and on on how you get 2 spams a day.

03-17-2003, 01:41 PM	#1
merchanb Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: GUM Posts: 136	SPAM I just received the usual Sierra Leone millions of dollars scam SPAM from a Mr. Raphael Maloney (raphmaloney-at-starmedia.com) It was identified as being sent to the disposable email address which I only use for ITYT. Either the ITYT database has been compromised or a member is sending SPAM to other members. If there is a Raphael Maloney who is a member he should be dismembered. __________________

03-17-2003, 02:24 PM	#2
ghewgill Junior Member ITYT Cabin Crew Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 26	I would find it hard to believe that an ITYT member is sending such spam messages to other members, or that the ITYT member database has been compromised in some way. Rather, I suspect that your email address was simply collected by an automatic program that happened upon the ITYT forum pages. Your email address is available in the "email" link at the bottom or each of your posts, as well as from your Profile page. Your email address is available in the ITYT forums to provide an easy way for other members to contact you privately if desired. However, exposing it in this way makes it vulnerable to collection by automated programs. __________________

03-19-2003, 11:44 PM	#5
tycoonjack Senior Member ITYT Navigator Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: AUS Posts: 690	Suggestions SPAM help maybe ityt should impliment some of these ideas such as converting all email addresses into their HTML equivalent

10-26-2003, 03:43 PM	#20
Leto Member ITYT Cabin Crew Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: AUS Posts: 34	As long as you don't start hiding your email from ITYT, I plan to keep posting that your current email is 261kr8v02@sneakemail.com and for every spider out there to grab. I assume you'll get spam on it tomorrow, and you'll change it. No doubt you'll post here that you've changed it, which then implicitely mentions your email in the "email" link beneath your post, after which I'll be happy to reply again. Just change your profile, dude. And stop bothering us with your semi-funny (let me correct: REALLY LAME) jokes about the Nigerian spam. This is a forum about travelling, not about you whining on and on and on and on on how you get 2 spams a day. __________________

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03-17-2003, 02:35 PM	#3
ghewgill Junior Member ITYT Cabin Crew Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 26	Actually, it looks like you can hide your email address by going to the "Profile" link at the top of the forum page, and setting the "Always show my Email Address" option to No. I don't know whether changing this option will affect past posts, though.

03-17-2003, 03:07 PM	#4
merchanb Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: GUM Posts: 136	True. However, if a WebCrawler did pick up the address I would expect to receive a whole potfull of SPAM rather than just one. Likewise it is unlikely that a random email generator just happened to come up with "vyfvk0702@sneakemail.com" (Not to worry, I just changed my address to something else. ) Gee, if that wasn't really SPAM I just lost a chance to get millions of dollars just for sending them my bank account information.

03-22-2003, 12:20 PM	#6
klyve1 Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 13	I'm afraid that using HTML equivalent email addresses doesn't stop email spiders. About the only thing that does is using javascript to separate each component - I've not come across a spider that can read that yet.

03-28-2003, 07:15 PM	#7
merchanb Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: GUM Posts: 136	I just received another Nigeria SPAM from CHUKWUBUEZE JIM, 2003-at-breathe.com or urgentwork@netscape.net. giving me an account and pin number to see the 150 million dollars. This was sent to the ITYT address I changed to (swslmk502@sneakemail.com) after getting SPAM to the previous ITYT address. I'm going to change it again and, if any more shows up, will just post no email address on ITYT. Sigh, I just passed on another opportunity to make jillions of dollars.

03-28-2003, 09:25 PM	#8
dbaker Senior Member ITYT Captain Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: IAH/HOU Posts: 2,354	You're making millions and complaining?

03-28-2003, 09:31 PM	#9
merchanb Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: GUM Posts: 136	Some people like me are just never satisfied. I NEVER said I wasn't a malcontent.

06-02-2003, 11:14 AM	#10
merchanb Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: GUM Posts: 136	Just got news of a surefire 400 million dollar deal from Engr.Daniel Ochuko , a Director General in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) at ochukodan-at-telstra.com but I would only get $16 million of it if I reply to contractreviewp2@yahoo.com. Be my guest. What cheapskates . . . they should offer at least 10%. It was sent to the third disposable email address I posted only on ITYT so someone is getting addresses off of the ITYT WEB site. It doesn't appear to be a big operation and apparently the email addresses aren't being sold as only a few "offers" come through at infrequent intervals . . . probably not worth doing anything about. You can get disposable email addresses at sneakemail.com. Any mail sent to one of those addresses comes to your regular address and shows you who you gave that address to. If you start getting a lot of spam to that address you can have it automatically bounce, deleted, or you can just cancel that address. Sneakemail would like you to pay for the service but, on the other hand, you don't have to. Highly recommended.

06-02-2003, 05:39 PM	#11
ghewgill Junior Member ITYT Cabin Crew Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 26	This doesn't have to be a problem for you - all you have to do is turn off the display of your email address on ITYT. Go to the "Profile" link at the top of the forum page, and set the "Always show my Email Address" option to No. Voilà, no more spam from people scraping email addresses from the ITYT forums. In my opinion, it's better to use a generic spam filter program and not to worry about specific sources of spam. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to track down the precise source of every 400 million dollar offer you get. I get well over 100 spam messages per day but I never have to see them because they're automatically moved to another folder.

06-02-2003, 06:17 PM	#12
merchanb Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: GUM Posts: 136	It's no problem at all to me, I can just terminate any address that gets SPAM and each email tells me who I gave that address to so I know who the culprit was. The return address on that last SPAM was ochukodan-at-telstra.com\|ITYT #3 which tells me that it was sent to the third email address I had posted on ITYT. Even if you don't see your spam, it gets relayed, downloaded, takes up resources, clogging up your computer, your ISP and the Internet in general. Wouldn't it be better to not receive any SPAM at all? I was just offering the sneakemail info for anyone (like you maybe?) who gets SPAM.

06-02-2003, 09:06 PM	#13
Nugget Senior Member ITYT Navigator Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 610	In the past 30 days I've received 14,073 spam emails. I must agree with gregh that there's very little value and a great deal of effort involved in trying to determine where each of the thousands of spammers may have obtained my email address. The rate at which I'd have to cycle through disposable addresses would be at least daily and doing so would be to the detriment of my ability to receive legitimate emails from people I do not correspond with regularly. If someone digs up an old usenet post of mine, or finds a forum posting I made a year ago I want for them to be able to email me if they wish to follow up on the subject. If I'd recycled that particular address, I'd never get to see the mail they send. The only scalable method of dealing with spam that I've found is exactly as greg describes -- good filters that can accurately identify and discard the mails during delivery. The burden of delivery and storage is far less than the burden of tossing potentially good, nonspam emails into the trash just because I threw away the address the sender has for me.

06-02-2003, 10:31 PM	#14
merchanb Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: GUM Posts: 136	O.K. . . . Different strokes for different folks. Your thousands of spammers might just have gotten your address from just one source and you have no way of knowing which one that was. I always know and have found it to be a very minor effort. I have installed the commercial "I Hate Spam" software for other people and it appears to be one of the best SPAM filters but some will still always creep through. I do get maybe one or two SPAMs every week or so (never anything I am interested in) and still do hear from everyone I care to hear from. If, for instance, someone wants to contact me by email via ITYT, I'll get it. I've tried your method; have you tried mine? Enjoy your SPAM. We're getting sorta off subject for ITYT right?

06-03-2003, 12:03 AM	#15
Nugget Senior Member ITYT Navigator Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 610	Perhaps I was unclear. I don't actually received those 14,000 emails in my inbox. the filter takes care of them. With the added benefit that I do not need to lose emails from people I don't regularly correspond with, which is an unfortunate consequence of your method. I'm not willing to lose that ability, whereas you seem not to mind. Therein lies the difference. The fact that you haven't yet found your method to be more than a minor effort is likely a byproduct of the low volume of email you receive. It simply doesn't scale to anything beyond a small email volume.

06-03-2003, 03:53 PM	#16
merchanb Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: GUM Posts: 136	Point of order . . . seems to be a misunderstanding. I used to get a lot of SPAM. I don't anymore. The reason I don't should be obvious. I know the original source of almost any SPAM I might receive. Having only just received two SPAMS to my present ITYT address I won't do anything. If I start getting hundreds, I'll know it's been sold and I will simply take a moment to change it. Anyone that I care to hear from will have a working address. Just before I retired, the Engineering Department was outsourced and I switched over to manning a help desk for over 1,200 users. I often had to argue with a lot of computer users. Now I no longer have to. I've tried your way . . . you haven't tried mine. I no longer care. Day after tomorrow I catch a flight back home! It's a free country . . . Happy SPAM! I'm done with this subject.

06-03-2003, 04:30 PM	#17
Nugget Senior Member ITYT Navigator Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 610	1. I have tried your way, I don't know why you think I haven't. In fact, being the owner of my own domain the overhead of creating scratch addresses is even less work than you undergo. Even still, it proved to be an unreasonable amount of work for absolutely ZERO benefit. 2. People you want to hear from might not have your newest address, and search engines and web caches mean that they may think that they do have your address when in fact they have an address which you have rendered unworkable. Since you discard all mail to stale addresses you are potentially missing non-spam emails that you would want to receive. You'll never know for sure if this is happening or not, of course so perhaps you're just unaware that the problem exists. It's not safe to retire an email address just because it has begun receiving spam because to do so means you also lose the ability to receive legitimate mail from people who associate that address with you. There's no magic technique by which you can proactively update everyone's address books and all the archives that statically store the old address. People will continue to try to mail you at the old address and you will never see their mail. Enjoy your flight.

06-03-2003, 04:57 PM	#18
Leto Member ITYT Cabin Crew Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: AUS Posts: 34	Are you aware that your current email n7d6qky02@sneakemail.com is in the email link below your posts, for any webspider there to grab? The ITYT db wasn't compromised. No member is sending spam. Anyone in the whole wide world can read your email address from the page. If you're bothered with the spam you get from posting on the ITYT page, why don't you do what ghewgill said in his very first post, disable the email link, and change your email once more.