Change of address

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I am about to change ISPs and with that a change of address. Is there any advantages to using a combination of digits and letters and symbols in the new address to try and deflect some of the spam, hackers and viruses. Any suggesstions most welcome.

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My first thought was that this would cause you to lose more mail you want to get (from friends who can’t figure out your username) than spam that you don’t want to get (since computers don’t care about the characters once they’ve stored them). But my second thought is that there are very common names that should be avoided, since spammers do sometimes use a “dictionary” attack of common names as part of their arsenal.

Incidentally, you won’t be able to use many symbols, maybe just a period or a hyphen.

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My first thought was that this would cause you to lose more mail you want to get (from friends who can’t figure out your username) than spam that you don’t want to get (since computers don’t care about the characters once they’ve stored them). But my second thought is that there are very common names that should be avoided, since spammers do sometimes use a “dictionary” attack of common names as part of their arsenal.

Incidentally, you won’t be able to use many symbols, maybe just a period or a hyphen.

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Have several different addresses. One a throw away at a free service that you can use to fill out on-line forms, enter contests, etc. Another throw away, you can use to shop online – that way you’ll get all the newsletter from merchants there. A third, you use for people you trust. That will help somewhat. You’ll still end up getting junk as your friends and/or business associates may not be as well protected as you are trying to be.

Joe

--Joe

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Have several different addresses. One a throw away at a free service that you can use to fill out on-line forms, enter contests, etc. Another throw away, you can use to shop online – that way you’ll get all the newsletter from merchants there. A third, you use for people you trust. That will help somewhat. You’ll still end up getting junk as your friends and/or business associates may not be as well protected as you are trying to be.

Joe

--Joe

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I second Joe’s suggestion strongly. Protect your new, “real” address and rarely give it out. Never post it to newsgroups, on website forms or registrations, or anywhere else. Save it for your friends and family. There are many free services around that you can use, among them Hotmail and Yahoo for starters. I also have a liking for Sneakemail, which provides disposable addresses that will forward to your real, hidden email address. You create a new address any time you need one, and if it starts getting spam you know the source – and you can shut it off if you need to.

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That’s also the reason I have Yahoo and Hotmail ( and others ) on the TOP of my Spam blacklist. Anything from them is automatically dumped.

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That’s also the reason I have Yahoo and Hotmail ( and others ) on the TOP of my Spam blacklist. Anything from them is automatically dumped.

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FWIW: I have multiple email addresses and have noticed that the one consisting of my initials and numbers gets less spam than the one containing initials and last name; i.e., jfk6329@whatever.com gets less than jkennedy@whatever.com

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FWIW: I have multiple email addresses and have noticed that the one consisting of my initials and numbers gets less spam than the one containing initials and last name; i.e., jfk6329@whatever.com gets less than jkennedy@whatever.com

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