Follow-on to hacked email thread

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I have used Hotmail for years. I also have a RoadRunner email account, which automatically forwards email from there to my Hotmail account. Please bear with me, and follow the bouncing emails:
When softie migrated me from Hotmail to Outlook, I installed Windows Live Mail, and set that up to use Hotmail (which still has RR email forwarded directly to it.)

Here’s my problem: a few years back, a major publisher of “world events” had it’s subscriber database hacked. Both my Hotmail and RR email addresses were part of what was hacked.

Since then, every day, I get dozens of spam emails sent to my Hotmail junk folder, where I dutifully delete them.

I have avoided changing accounts (though I have changed p’words multiple times) because I thought it would be a big undertaking to switch email addresses.)

Has anyone done such a change; and, if so, can you suggest any “easier” way to do this other than brute force?

Thanks for any help,
Dick

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Replies

Hasn’t anyone faced this issue? Any help in how you resolved it would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Dick

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Have you added the senders’ domains to blocked senders at Outlook.com?

Bruce

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BruceR:
Yes, I now have 100’s added; but it’s like shoveling s!@# against the tide. Because my addresses are “out there” newly generated spam comes in every day. ironically, it was Stratfor that was hacked, and all their subscribers’ emails were dumped into the wild.
Dick

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methinks you are overreacting

i get a couple hundred a day at both my email accounts
no big whoop

i scan the junk folder for anything i want and move it to the white list and the inbox
then delete the rest

under a minute to do it

spam happens
you cant stop it
you cant run
you cant even hide

set up a white list for good messages
scan the rest
delete the junk
its not that big a deal

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that is very bad

there are many valid senders at every domain

blacklisting a domain is like killing flies with an A-Bomb
you get the flies but do a lot of collateral damage too

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that is very bad

there are many valid senders at every domain

blacklisting a domain is like killing flies with an A-Bomb
you get the flies but do a lot of collateral damage too

If you’re going to reply to specific posts, you should click Reply With Quote not just Reply; otherwise we can only guess which specific point you’re trying to address in each post.

There are many domains with no valid senders.

Bruce

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There is no way to solve it, really, other than changing email addresses and trusting any spam measures available with your current provider. No easy way to deal with it.

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R4:
Thanks. That’s what I was afraid the answer would be. I have many useful contacts that would have to be notified of any change I make. Also, many newsletter providers, etc. etc. would have to be changed.
I guess I’ll just have to keep shoveling . . .
Dick

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shovel smarter

you are making this out to be far worse than it really is

we all have this problem
it is nto that big a deal except that you are working yourself up over it

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far easier to delete spam than change emails and notify everyone you want to get mail from

then it will just happen again and again and again

try an email client with white/black lists
move good mail to the white list
delete the spam that is left
repeat

unless you get a new person sending that you want
you do nothing more but scan teh junk folder for new good mail and delete the spam daily

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Here is something I did for my wife.

I have my own domain and she had a free email address elsewhere and was getting endless spam. I set her up an email account on my domain and as I host my own domain and ensure that SpamAssassin comes with it and is turned on, she falls under that. I redirected all email from her account to her new account. The spam, naturally, followed but SpamAssassin is the greatest anti spam program there is and unfortunately doesnt run on Windows (or for Macs either). She doesnt get them anymore. My own email address gets approximately 3000 spams a day. I rarely see the spam but when it is brand new it does get through around 4 to 6 times and then I never see it again and it doesnt matter if they change subject or FROM email address or both or whatever combination they choose. The gist of their email is able to be worked out and auto deleted by SpamAssassin once it has gone through those 4 to 6 spams.

In your case with Hotmail, many years ago you could do a redirect but I am unsure if you can, now. Probably not. However, it is worth asking the Hotmail help people if it can be done for the account. That way you still receive the email at your new address and if the new address includes the email going through SpamAssassin, every single day your spam will drop off to the point where you will rarely see any, within a few weeks.

I dont know if that helps you – I hope so – because the only other REAL option is kill the account and start another with another email address. Sadly, very annoying.

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In your case with Hotmail, many years ago you could do a redirect but I am unsure if you can, now. Probably not. However, it is worth asking the Hotmail help people if it can be done for the account.

You can forward mail from Outlook.com to another email account at More mail settings, Email forwarding.

Bruce

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I went about it in a different way:

1. I created a new Gmail account. (Gmail has the best spam filters in the world.)

2. Rather than forward the emails in my problem account, I “pull” them from my problem account using Gmail POP3 access. (See
https://support.google.com/mail/troubleshooter/1668960?hl=en#ts=1665119
for more information.) The reason for “pulling” from Gmail using POP3 rather than forwarding from your compromised account is that it’s more reliable. If forwarding happens to fail for any reason, it never tries again. If Gmail POP3 fails for any reason, it just keeps trying forever. Now Gmail collects the spam in your new Gmail account spam folder.

3. If you use client email software, set it up to access your emails from your new Gmail account. If you don’t, access your email directly online at your new Gmail account.

But here’s the BEST part:

4. Setup an account at http://www.knujon.com/ where they collect spam and go after the spammers to shut them down. (FYI: “knujon” is “no junk” spelled backwards.)

5. Go to http://www.submanifold.be/triade/misc/gknujon/gknujon.html and download the “StandAlone_gKnujOn.zip” file near the bottom of the page and set it up as per the instructions included. Each time it’s run, this program will zip all of your spam in your Gmail spam folder, send it to Knujon, and then delete the spam in your Gmail spam folder.

6. Run the gKnujOn “.bat” file once each day. It runs very quickly. No matter how many spams you have, it will zip them into one file, send it to Knujon where they will take care of eliminating the spammers, and then delete the spam in your Gmail spam folder.

Problem solved.

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now that sound interesting, how do they manage to shut them down? how successful are they?

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I went about it in a different way:

1. I created a new Gmail account. (Gmail has the best spam filters in the world.)

2. Rather than forward the emails in my problem account, I “pull” them from my problem account using Gmail POP3 access. (See
https://support.google.com/mail/troubleshooter/1668960?hl=en#ts=1665119
for more information.) The reason for “pulling” from Gmail using POP3 rather than forwarding from your compromised account is that it’s more reliable. If forwarding happens to fail for any reason, it never tries again. If Gmail POP3 fails for any reason, it just keeps trying forever. Now Gmail collects the spam in your new Gmail account spam folder.

3. If you use client email software, set it up to access your emails from your new Gmail account. If you don’t, access your email directly online at your new Gmail account.

But here’s the BEST part:

4. Setup an account at http://www.knujon.com/ where they collect spam and go after the spammers to shut them down. (FYI: “knujon” is “no junk” spelled backwards.)

5. Go to http://www.submanifold.be/triade/misc/gknujon/gknujon.html and download the “StandAlone_gKnujOn.zip” file near the bottom of the page and set it up as per the instructions included. Each time it’s run, this program will zip all of your spam in your Gmail spam folder, send it to Knujon, and then delete the spam in your Gmail spam folder.

6. Run the gKnujOn “.bat” file once each day. It runs very quickly. No matter how many spams you have, it will zip them into one file, send it to Knujon where they will take care of eliminating the spammers, and then delete the spam in your Gmail spam folder.
why
Problem solved.

Out of all the discussion and suggestions regarding unwanted and unsolicited email I definitely like this solution the best. Why have so many people become complacent regarding this intrusion into your life? It’s no big deal; There is nothing you can do about; you are overreacting; suck it up is what I am seeing in many of the responses. Our email accounts are ours. Although it’s our personal cyber space, it is still ours, not the spammers. To continue to suck it up is to let the spammers win.

If I own a home with nice landscaping and try to keep my yard looking presentable, what would I do if I had 3000 visitors a day cutting through my yard or through my garden, or using my newly paved drive way as their personal U-turn spot? Besides being a little miffed I would defend my turf. I’d put up a fence or gate and even put in a walk way so that my lawn and garden don’t get ruined by trampling. I may even put up a ‘no trespassing’ sign. I would locate my physical mail box in an area where the post person can deliver my mail with out trampling through my garden. I personally would not be complacent or suck it up if i had ten ‘trespassers’ a day let alone hundreds or thousands. Cyber space or real space, defend your turf.

I like what I read about gknujon and plan to use it. I did not know such a company existed. Thanks for the post and thanks for the gknujon post. That certainly made my day.

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I really love the gknujon idea. Death to SPAM! My husband & I are thinking about making a bumper sticker:
The more SPAM I receive
The more I question one man, one vote

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I went about it in a different way:
…
2. Rather than forward the emails in my problem account, I “pull” them from my problem account using Gmail POP3 access.
……

Hi SB, your ‘pull and spam filter’ approach sounds great and I want to use it on my account.
If my email ID is xzy@my.com how do I ‘pull’ it from the my.com external server into Gmail.
Initially I want to use IMAP so the files stay on the my.com server and I can manually delete when all is working ok.
Please give a bit more detail as I cant find any Gmail tool or setting to do the pulling.
Thanks in anticipation.
Graeme.

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Hi SB, your ‘pull and spam filter’ approach sounds great and I want to use it on my account.
If my email ID is xzy@my.com how do I ‘pull’ it from the my.com external server into Gmail.
Initially I want to use IMAP so the files stay on the my.com server and I can manually delete when all is working ok.
Please give a bit more detail as I cant find any Gmail tool or setting to do the pulling.
Thanks in anticipation.
Graeme.

To Graeme,
“Pulling” your emails into Gmail only works using POP3, but you can choose to leave the original email on the server from which you are pulling. To do that, follow these instructions:

1. When you are in Gmail, click on the gear in the upper-right corner and then click on “Settings”.
2. Click on the “Accounts” tab.
3. In the “Check mail from other accounts (using POP3)” section, click on the “Add a POP3 mail account you own” link.
4. In the next window, enter your xzy@my.com email address and click on the “Next Step” button.
5. In the next window, enter your password and use the pull-down to enter the POP server name. Also make sure the box in front of “Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server” is checked if you want to leave the email there. Also choose any of the other options you want and then click on the “Add Account” button.

The “pulling” process runs about once each hour. Sometimes I can’t wait for that hour. Then, instead of having to get into settings to kick-off the “pulling” process from my several accounts I have listed, I use one of the Gmail Labs additions to add a button to the main Gmail page to make it a lot more convenient to force the “pulling” process. To do that, go to gear – Settings – Labs. NOTE: I just tried it and found that they no longer have it as a separate Labs application. I assume that means that anytime you create a “pull” account it automatically adds a button on the main Gmail page to kick off “pulling” from all your “pull” accounts. The button looks like a rectangle with an arrow forming almost a complete circle. It is positioned immediately to the left of the “More” button. Please let me know if you get that new button after you add a “pull” account. Thanks!

That should do it. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Stu

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In reply to rdgc1: This is from the Knujon website:

“KnujOn accepts abuse data in the form of spam and other security threats to develop a clear picture of conditions facing the Internet. KnujOn builds profiles of online criminal groups, evaluates the quality of Registrars and Internet Service Providers, issues WHOIS challenges, documents policy failures, tests compliance mechanisms, issues reports to law enforcement, and educates the public about complex Internet security issues. We see our role as one of assisting the ordinary Internet user in navigating the complex technical bureaucracy of the global network and augmenting public services in the face of rampant illicit electronic traffic.”

Knujon is attacking spam on all fronts. For years they were just going to the URL registrars and Internet Service Providers to have them shut down illicit websites. That didn’t work as well as you might expect because many of those registrars and ISPs were making money off the illicit website spammers and wouldn’t shut them down. It also became a game of “whack-a-mole”. Now they are also going right to the top. They are working through the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Who is ICANN? This is from their website:

“In more technical terms, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) coordinates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions, which are key technical services critical to the continued operations of the Internet’s underlying address book, the Domain Name System (DNS). The IANA functions include: (1) the coordination of the assignment of technical protocol parameters including the management of the address and routing parameter area (ARPA) top-level domain; (2) the administration of certain responsibilities associated with Internet DNS root zone management such as generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domains; (3) the allocation of Internet numbering resources; and (4) other services. ICANN performs the IANA functions under a U.S. Government contract.”

What that means is that ICANN is responsible for policing the Internet. Through ICANN, Knujon is attempting to tighten the ICANN rules for registrars and ISPs such that, if they DON’T stop facilitating spam, THEY will be shut down. Currently the rules are quite lax.

How successful are they? I have noticed a sizeable decrease in my spam since joining Knujon. However, my experience alone is far from a controlled experiment. Please read this http://knujon.com/abuseddomainstudy.html#statsChart webpage to get a better idea of what Knujon is doing and the potential for reducing spam greatly.

Stu

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live with it

white list black list works best

filtering spam in the middle will always throw away good messages
friend lost a job offer because his isp filtered out ‘spam’ that was vital message to him

if you get anything good in the junk folder
then mark it to be sent to inbox in future
delete the rest

not that big a deal to check it once a day for any real messages
and just delete the rest

if you know you get no good messages in the junk folder ever
then ignore it

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Two things, first my anti-virus program will not accept the downloader needed to download the knujon app. Love it!!
Second, changing e-mail addresses is a huge pain especially if everything goes into that one bucket. The answer is to set up a number of e-mail accounts. One for family and close friends. Another for established business relationships (banks, stores, suppliers, etc). Another for unverified contacts (I have one for trash@[domain name]). And so forth. If the trash account gets hit, look over the sites which are worthy of moving to a new address and then blow that address away away. Meanwhile your really important addresses are much less likely to get hit.

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Two things, first my anti-virus program will not accept the downloader needed to download the knujon app. Love it!!
Second, changing e-mail addresses is a huge pain especially if everything goes into that one bucket. The answer is to set up a number of e-mail accounts. One for family and close friends. Another for established business relationships (banks, stores, suppliers, etc). Another for unverified contacts (I have one for trash@[domain name]). And so forth. If the trash account gets hit, look over the sites which are worthy of moving to a new address and then blow that address away away. Meanwhile your really important addresses are much less likely to get hit.

You do not need a “downloader” to download the gknujon app (at http://www.submanifold.be/triade/misc/gknujon/gknujon.html). Just click on it and download. You really don’t even need the gkunjon app. You don’t even need an account a knujon. Anyone anywhere can just forward all their spam to KNUJON@COLDRAIN.NET . It’s just that using gknujon automates the process by zipping, sending, and deleting in seconds.

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The only download for use with Thunderbird, that I have found, requires a “downloader” with attached “options” for “extras”. I’d like to work through Thunderbird since it already has a Spam flag. Nothing worthwhile in life comes easily.

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Further to the great post from sb06794

Register your own domain name, which is cheaper than you probably think, then you can create a unique email address for anything you sign up to; this facilitates tracking who has been hacked and who has sold on your email details… then if (and when) this happens you can direct those spam targeted email addresses straight to the bin. + you never have to advise anyone of a new email address, if you change ISP etc, as the email is setup to forward on to your domain address.

I have used this technique for about 7 years now (and other tricks like never posting your email address online for harvesting) and see only a few spam emails per week? Even with a family of five 😉
Although I am in no way affiliated or on commission, I can’t recommend this company enough for domain names etc because their service has been faultless over the years: Virtualnames

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The only download for use with Thunderbird, that I have found, requires a “downloader” with attached “options” for “extras”. I’d like to work through Thunderbird since it already has a Spam flag. Nothing worthwhile in life comes easily.

Have you seen this http://www.knujon.com/sendusspam.html#Thunderbird write-up on using Thunderbird to report spam to Knujon? I haven’t tried any of the different methods for Thunderbird, but they should work.

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Anyone anywhere can just forward all their spam to KNUJON@COLDRAIN.NET.

I’m not sure this works. I just tried it and my email bounced with the same error message as I get if I try to send a link to a friend’s gmail account without a paragraph of explanation surrounding it. (Doesn’t match some prescribed format or something like that.)

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I’m not sure this works. I just tried it and my email bounced with the same error message as I get if I try to send a link to a friend’s gmail account without a paragraph of explanation surrounding it. (Doesn’t match some prescribed format or something like that.)

I tried it myself in my Gmail account.
1. I opened an email in my Spam folder.
2. I clicked “Forward” which was in a drop-down at the upper-right corner of the email.
3. I put “KNUJON@COLDRAIN.NET” (without the quotes) in the “To” field.
4. I clicked the “Send” button.

It worked perfectly and I didn’t receive any bounce back. However, Gmail “thinks” forwarding an email in the Spam folder is a little strange, so it does give you this message near the top of the window at the time you click the “Send” button:

34247-Gmail-Message

Note: You will have to click on the image above to be able to read it. It’s just an informational message. It’s not an error.

Stu

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There is no easy way to clear spam. There are ways to reject emails that look like some template and then it manages to reject something you really wanted. Or you can accept only emails from certain URL’s and it will pass thru an occaiaional piece of %$#^*)P(^$#, brown colored spam.

There is something else you can try and it’s called MailWasher. This is programming with an attitude. You can “bounce” emails and the spammers don’t like pawing thru their emails for addresses that no longer exist. So bounce appears to the spammer as an email address that no longer exists. So when they get an email back because the address no longer exists, their program that receives their email sees that flag and automajically goes thru their address book and removes your address. Some times the spammer even will check a few additional times before their program deletes your email address. I think it’s kind of fun getting the spammers software to do the work for me!

For those who ignore what MailWasher does, you can start sending all such spam to their ISP and the ISP will get tired of that shortly and take some action. Of course spammers usually spoof the return address and then you send the spam to every domain in the email. It will hit the correct spammer’s ISP.

I used their free version for years and they don’t seem to have that anymore. I’ve since purchased a lifetime license for US$59.95. I’ve probably used them for 20 years. They are in NZ and I have no business interest with them.

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This thread has covered the gammit of SPAM fighting techniques — both NEW and OLD, GOOD and BAD. I have been a pro-active SPAM fighter since I first started using email some 30-years ago. I still have a “compuserve.com” account that is now part of the AOL free email. I rarely get spam — no more than 3-4 per month total — on all of my accounts including gmail, compuserve (aol), earthlink and my ISP’s account.

While most people will not be as proactive as I am, everyone can al least contribute to the battle against spam. Here is my short summary of EFFECTIVE ways to combat spam. Most of these ideas have already been expressed in this thread:

DO:

BE PROACTIVE!

Keep separate accounts for business if possible and use DISPOSABLE email addresses to register at free game or other questionable sites.
Earthlink offers multiple addresses as *random*@mypaks.net

Be vigilant about email attachments. There are trojans out there that will share your entire address book with the world. Often the malware will come from someone you know whose system has already been compromised.

Report spam using your email client or the website for the account. If you download to your client (I still use Outlook Express) you should consider “leaving a copy on the server” so that you can later go to the website and report any spam.

Make use of ADD-ONs to your browser or third party “interceptors” such as MailWasher. Many are out there.

If you want to do more, report spam to Spamcop, Spam@uce.gov, report_phishing.com, and the new (to me) knujno@coldrain.com. Most of these require that you formulate the forwarded email with complete HEADERS, so this method requires a bit more dedication.

DO NOT:

PUT UP WITH SPAM, NOR CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEM!

Use WHITE/BLACK lists. Whether you blacklist individuals or entire domains, you are not likely to make a dent in SPAM. And whitelisting virtually guarrantees you’ll have to go through your spam folder friequently. Exception: Use a whitelist for Grandma with all the grandkids on it. Then you won’t have to show her how to delete the spam or worry that she might send money to Nigeria.

Use “challenge response” mechanisms, which require that the sender ask to be added to your whitelist. These challenge emails add untold traffic to the web as every spam you receive will generate another email, which many consider just as bad as the spam.

Forward those “chain” emails to “all your friends” with dozens of email addresses shown. They are often designed to do nothing more than “harvest” all those valid email addresses. If you must forward one of those, at least be sure to DELETE ALL the email addresses in the BODY of the message. Better yet — Delete the whole thing!

Reply to spam or use any UNSUBSCRIBE links in spam. They NEVER work, but will often confirm that your address is valid.

Use the PREVIEW pane, or if you do, then DO as I do and turn off AUTO download[/COLOR] of images, etc. Links embedded in emails that download from illicit websites can harvest your valid email address this way. Better to download images ONLY if you trust the base message.

Use “OOO” (Out-of-Office) or any other autoresponder to tell the recipient that you “… will respond when I return…”, especially if you are only OUT for a few days. If you are on vacation, either check your mail periodically or arrange for your colleague to do so. Autoresponders should ONLY be used to respond to INFO requests or other routine responses where the recipient is EXPECTING a particular auto response. Out-of-Office responses are just more JUNK in our crowded inboxes.

Use “BOUNCE” mechanisms, including the feature in Mailwasher, which try to send a FAKE response as if your email was not valid. These bounces don’t work because the “sender” is rarely the spammer himself, and the sending ISP can’t/won’t do anything. Many ISPs now detect and reject such attempts to impersonate your ISPs mail sender. BOUNCES are just more JUNK on the web.

A final note: One reason that your ISP’s spam filter is better at detecting spam is because of multiple reporting of a given spam. Identical spam messages hit millions of inboxes. If only tens or dozens of people report them, it is relatively easy for the filter to catch future spams of that type. Your individual spam filter has to “learn” over several received spams, which is not nearly as effective. There are also third-party filters that attempt to collaborate among users, but they can’t compare to the widespread watch that your ISP can attain.

In a nutshell: TAKE precautions and USE your ISPs Spam Button! You, too, can acheive a nearly spam-free inbox. -RonR

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RonR, I agree with most of what you’ve said. However, there are a couple of “DO NOTs” that I’d take issue with. I have an email account from my university. I supplement their use of SpamAssassin with a Sieve file which acts on the mail after SpamAssassin but before the mail comes to me. For several years, I’ve been quite successful at using whitelists and blacklists in the Sieve file. I’ve prevented lots of spam that way, as well as by tweaking the Sieve files to recognize certain spam patterns in the email headers. And though for years I would have agreed with you about not using any UNSUBSCRIBE mechanism, increasingly I’ve found that legitimate companies are offering this possibility, perhaps because they’re sending a lot more mail to addresses they’ve bought. So now, if a company looks legitimate, I will make use of their UNSUBSCRIBE mechanism, and so far I haven’t noticed any bad effects, just the effect I wanted: no more mail from that company.

Other than that, I agree with your DO NOTs, especially not using “challenge response” mechanisms, not forwarding chain emails, and NOT automatically downloading/viewing images in email. One more thing: the Out-of-Office messages can be dangerous. Especially these days, when it is relatively easy to get information about where someone lives, announcing to the world that you are out of the office or on vacation can be an invitation to burglars.

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… I have an email account from my university. I supplement their use of SpamAssassin with a Sieve file which acts on the mail after SpamAssassin but before the mail comes to me. For several years, I’ve been quite successful at using whitelists and blacklists in the Sieve file. I’ve prevented lots of spam that way, as well as by tweaking the Sieve files to recognize certain spam patterns in the email headers.

Cyberdiva, I’ve used Mailwasher’s filters successfully with sophisticated expressions to check headers and body content. Once identified as spam, the sender is blacklisted. The problem is, these days, networks of spam bots spew email from so many sources simultaneously, you’d have to blacklist half the planet to be effective. Whitelists are effective, but not everybody wants to block email from strangers, especially if you want to get new customers. While you may be preventing “lots” of spam by “tweaking,” most people don’t have the expertise or the inclination to put that much work into it. I no longer “tweak” Mailwasher filters. It just isn’t expedient anymore given the new nature of spam.

… And though for years I would have agreed with you about not using any UNSUBSCRIBE mechanism, increasingly I’ve found that legitimate companies are offering this possibility, perhaps because they’re sending a lot more mail to addresses they’ve bought. So now, if a company looks legitimate, I will make use of their UNSUBSCRIBE mechanism, and so far I haven’t noticed any bad effects, just the effect I wanted: no more mail from that company.

Legitimate companies do NOT send spam. By all means you should use a legitimate company’s UNSUBCRIBE link. Every Windows Secrets Newsletter has an unsubscribe link. So did the email advising me of your reply to my post because I am SUBSCRIBED to this thread. Some semi-legitimate websites will ask you to register your email address and then begin spamming you without asking. Even if there is a functional unsubcribe link for that particular sender, chances are your email has already been shared with several other semi-legitimate “partners.” That’s why you should use a disposable email address to register at such sites. Then, when you want to stop them from sending, you discard the email address. You may never be fully unsubscribed, otherwise.

My advice stands. NEVER use an unsubscribe link in any unsolicited email, even if it LOOKS legitimate.
If you DID NOT subscribe — DO NOT unsubscribe!

Bottom line is you are being proactive, and that’s what really counts. Thanks for your comments. ~RonR

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Cyberdiva, I’ve used Mailwasher’s filters successfully with sophisticated expressions to check headers and body content. Once identified as spam, the sender is blacklisted. The problem is, these days, networks of spam bots spew email from so many sources simultaneously, you’d have to blacklist half the planet to be effective. Whitelists are effective, but not everybody wants to block email from strangers, especially if you want to get new customers. While you may be preventing “lots” of spam by “tweaking,” most people don’t have the expertise or the inclination to put that much work into it. I no longer “tweak” Mailwasher filters. It just isn’t expedient anymore given the new nature of spam.

Thanks, RonR, for your detailed response. If I used a whitelist as my only tool, I agree that I wouldn’t be happy with the results. But I use a whitelist simply to be sure that addresses on the whitelist get through even if Spam Assassin’s criteria mark them as spam. I accompany the whitelist with various blacklists/tweaks. Addresses that are not on my whitelist and are not caught by my blacklists/tweaks get through, so I get lots of mail from strangers but relatively little from spammers. I don’t spend enormous amounts of time on this, but I confess that I do enjoy finding ways to keep spam out of my INBOX without zapping legitimate mail from strangers.

Legitimate companies do NOT send spam. By all means you should use a legitimate company’s UNSUBCRIBE link. Every Windows Secrets Newsletter has an unsubscribe link. So did the email advising me of your reply to my post because I am SUBSCRIBED to this thread. Some semi-legitimate websites will ask you to register your email address and then begin spamming you without asking. Even if there is a functional unsubcribe link for that particular sender, chances are your email has already been shared with several other semi-legitimate “partners.” That’s why you should use a disposable email address to register at such sites. Then, when you want to stop them from sending, you discard the email address. You may never be fully unsubscribed, otherwise.

My advice stands. NEVER use an unsubscribe link in any unsolicited email, even if it LOOKS legitimate.
If you DID NOT subscribe — DO NOT unsubscribe!

I should first make clear that I agree with you about not providing my primary email address to the majority of websites and forums that ask me to register. I have several less important email accounts that I use for such purposes. But my experience with unsubscribe links seems to have been different from yours. I receive a good deal of mail from companies with which I have had no prior contact. Sometimes, they’re informing me about webinars or other services in which I have absolutely no interest, sometimes they’re asking to meet to discuss their products because they think, incorrectly, that I have some influence over the IT purchases of the university for which I used to work, etc. etc. etc. These are not fly-by-night spammers but legitimate companies that are nonetheless sending me email that I did not request and do not want. As far as I’m concerned, this is spam. If I feel that the company is legitimate and it provides a way to unsubscribe, I will use it. So far, this has worked out well.

Even though our methods may differ, I think you and I are very much on the same page.

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This thread has covered the gammit of SPAM fighting techniques — both NEW and OLD, GOOD and BAD. I have been a pro-active SPAM fighter since I first started using email some 30-years ago. I still have a “compuserve.com” account that is now part of the AOL free email. I rarely get spam — no more than 3-4 per month total — on all of my accounts including gmail, compuserve (aol), earthlink and my ISP’s account.

While most people will not be as proactive as I am, everyone can al least contribute to the battle against spam. Here is my short summary of EFFECTIVE ways to combat spam. Most of these ideas have already been expressed in this thread:

DO:

BE PROACTIVE!

Keep separate accounts for business if possible and use DISPOSABLE email addresses to register at free game or other questionable sites.
Earthlink offers multiple addresses as *random*@mypaks.net

Be vigilant about email attachments. There are trojans out there that will share your entire address book with the world. Often the malware will come from someone you know whose system has already been compromised.

Report spam using your email client or the website for the account. If you download to your client (I still use Outlook Express) you should consider “leaving a copy on the server” so that you can later go to the website and report any spam.

Make use of ADD-ONs to your browser or third party “interceptors” such as MailWasher. Many are out there.

If you want to do more, report spam to Spamcop, Spam@uce.gov, report_phishing.com, and the new (to me) knujno@coldrain.com. Most of these require that you formulate the forwarded email with complete HEADERS, so this method requires a bit more dedication.

DO NOT:

PUT UP WITH SPAM, NOR CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEM!

Use WHITE/BLACK lists. Whether you blacklist individuals or entire domains, you are not likely to make a dent in SPAM. And whitelisting virtually guarrantees you’ll have to go through your spam folder friequently. Exception: Use a whitelist for Grandma with all the grandkids on it. Then you won’t have to show her how to delete the spam or worry that she might send money to Nigeria.

Use “challenge response” mechanisms, which require that the sender ask to be added to your whitelist. These challenge emails add untold traffic to the web as every spam you receive will generate another email, which many consider just as bad as the spam.

Forward those “chain” emails to “all your friends” with dozens of email addresses shown. They are often designed to do nothing more than “harvest” all those valid email addresses. If you must forward one of those, at least be sure to DELETE ALL the email addresses in the BODY of the message. Better yet — Delete the whole thing!

Reply to spam or use any UNSUBSCRIBE links in spam. They NEVER work, but will often confirm that your address is valid.

Use the PREVIEW pane, or if you do, then DO as I do and turn off AUTO download[/COLOR] of images, etc. Links embedded in emails that download from illicit websites can harvest your valid email address this way. Better to download images ONLY if you trust the base message.

Use “OOO” (Out-of-Office) or any other autoresponder to tell the recipient that you “… will respond when I return…”, especially if you are only OUT for a few days. If you are on vacation, either check your mail periodically or arrange for your colleague to do so. Autoresponders should ONLY be used to respond to INFO requests or other routine responses where the recipient is EXPECTING a particular auto response. Out-of-Office responses are just more JUNK in our crowded inboxes.

Use “BOUNCE” mechanisms, including the feature in Mailwasher, which try to send a FAKE response as if your email was not valid. These bounces don’t work because the “sender” is rarely the spammer himself, and the sending ISP can’t/won’t do anything. Many ISPs now detect and reject such attempts to impersonate your ISPs mail sender. BOUNCES are just more JUNK on the web.

A final note: One reason that your ISP’s spam filter is better at detecting spam is because of multiple reporting of a given spam. Identical spam messages hit millions of inboxes. If only tens or dozens of people report them, it is relatively easy for the filter to catch future spams of that type. Your individual spam filter has to “learn” over several received spams, which is not nearly as effective. There are also third-party filters that attempt to collaborate among users, but they can’t compare to the widespread watch that your ISP can attain.

In a nutshell: TAKE precautions and USE your ISPs Spam Button! You, too, can acheive a nearly spam-free inbox. -RonR

challenge lists fail when both sides use them

there is no way for anyone to get through the first time

and using them is arrogant and obnoxious

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I tried to click the “Report Post” button on that rikiSEO message (just before this one) but was refused permission to do so. Ironic that someone can post spam in a thread about controlling spam and yet I can’t report it…

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I tried to click the “Report Post” button on that rikiSEO message (just before this one) but was refused permission to do so. Ironic that someone can post spam in a thread about controlling spam and yet I can’t report it…

That’s probably because it was deleted just before you reported it.

Someone reported it, since I received the email and came here to delete the post and ban the user.

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I got that rikiSEO message also, of course.

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Looks like someone more awesome than I was able to delete it.

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The never ending struggle.

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I think one reason so many put up with it is similar to mine: we don’t trust automated spam filtering, no matter how good someone else might say it is. Everything that goes into my spam is not spam. Yeah, Spam Assassin is pretty good at learning spam and so is Thunderbird’s junk filter. But I still find one or two non-spam emails when I go through my junk folder weekly. Sometimes they are personal, but frequently they are business – sometimes even legitimate communications from the “sales” department at my own company. I cannot just automatically delete it or forward it all to knujon, no matter how much I would like to. Especially not if my legitimate business and social acquaintances are going to be gone after by knujon. That wouldn’t be right.

But I am interested in forwarding real spam to knujon’s email address. I wonder if I can go through the junk filter and then highlight it all and forward it all to them in one package? Or maybe I can use their zipper/forwarder on the folder after I’ve gone through it?

Someone has recently started sending a whole variety of spam emails to one of my addresses and they are so varied and so legitimate in their format that Spam Assassin is not marking them and my junk filter is not filtering them. I’d sure like to see them taken down.

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I think one reason so many put up with it is similar to mine: we don’t trust automated spam filtering, no matter how good someone else might say it is. Everything that goes into my spam is not spam. Yeah, Spam Assassin is pretty good at learning spam and so is Thunderbird’s junk filter. But I still find one or two non-spam emails when I go through my junk folder weekly. Sometimes they are personal, but frequently they are business – sometimes even legitimate communications from the “sales” department at my own company. I cannot just automatically delete it or forward it all to knujon, no matter how much I would like to. Especially not if my legitimate business and social acquaintances are going to be gone after by knujon. That wouldn’t be right.

But I am interested in forwarding real spam to knujon’s email address. I wonder if I can go through the junk filter and then highlight it all and forward it all to them in one package? Or maybe I can use their zipper/forwarder on the folder after I’ve gone through it?

Someone has recently started sending a whole variety of spam emails to one of my addresses and they are so varied and so legitimate in their format that Spam Assassin is not marking them and my junk filter is not filtering them. I’d sure like to see them taken down.

Of course you don’t just automatically forward whatever goes in your Gmail spam folder to Knujon. I didn’t specifically describe it, but I look through my Gmail spam folder and click the check box in front of any email that’s NOT spam and then click the “Not spam” button. Gmail moves those emails to your Gmail Inbox. I do that once a day, just before I run the gKnujon program that automates the zipping, sending to Knujon, and deleting all emails in the Gmail spam folder. The gKnujon program makes it simple. Why try to do it manually???

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Oooh. Now I see. I’ll have to give it a try. Thanks!

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Now that our lounge is using vBulletin (which is going to to be a ‘set in my ways’ learning curve for me), how are we to go about reporting spammers on our lounge? Just yesterday I posted a new thread under Windows General forum which now has one reply. It is a spam reply, written in Chinese (?). If someone is familiar with this vBulletin layout will you kindly post the method for reporting spam in our threads? I liked (not) spam a lot more when it was still something you could buy in the grocery store and then slapped between two pieces of bread! Where was that ‘death to spam’ bumper sticker back then? LOL

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Just click the triangle with the exclamation point at the lower right corner of the post.

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I liked (not) spam a lot more when it was still something you could buy in the grocery store and then slapped between two pieces of bread!

Chop up spam and Velveeta cheese, put into a hot dog bun, wrap in foil, toss into hot coals (campfire when I was young, BBQ now) and Voila! Instant supper. 🙂
(Is it legal to use the fancy French word Voila! in relation to a spam sandwich? Don’t they have food police or something?)

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Now that our lounge is using vBulletin (which is going to to be a ‘set in my ways’ learning curve for me), how are we to go about reporting spammers on our lounge?

It’s been vBulletin for 2.5 years now though.

Just yesterday I posted a new thread under Windows General forum which now has one reply. It is a spam reply, written in Chinese (?). If someone is familiar with this vBulletin layout will you kindly post the method for reporting spam in our threads?

Click the exclamation mark triangle “Report Post” icon at bottom left of each post, then type Spam and click Send Report.

Bruce

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Spam is a pain for everyone and just a reflection of our society I guess. About 2/3 of the mail I receive is spam.

I use a Eudora to fetch my mail from a POP account. The ISP’s mail server has a pretty awful antispam function that, unfortunately, you can’t even opt out of. Every few days I check the spam folder to make sure nothing’s been wrongly filtered. I have noticed that the ISP-side antispam does tend to make fewer mistakes if you regularly delete the spam folder contents.

Client-side, I have installed K9 from keir.net which is a neat little antispam that works in the background. Once you have “taught” it to recognize what is and isn’t spam for you, it is pretty much infallible. I have had maybe 2 “false spams” in the last year. Maybe once a week it will let a spam through, in which case you can easily re-classify it.

One way you can stop all spam is to have it pass through a third-party gateway. I’m not sure if this is possible for personal use, but some businesses I know use a local company (mailinblack) that receives your mails, then sends out a confirmation request. If that request isn’t answered, the the mail doesn’t go through. The sender only has to reply to the request for the first mail to be added to the white list. Obviously, the service isn’t free.

If you have a lot of time on your hands, there is another way (doesn’t always work). In the spam message header, try to find the originating URL and check who is registered as the owner of the offending domain (I use Hurricane Electric to trace them). Call them and tell them to take your e-mail addresses off the list. This has worked several times for me.
If there’s no useable phone number, go to their website home page and see if there are any e-mail addresses listed (contact@ info@ etc.). Send a message to one of them telling them you are fed up receiving their spam mails with a return receipt. Most times, you will see the return receipts come back with the company e-mail addresses of people to whom the message has been forwarded internally. You now have the names of employees (and sometimes -by deduction- the boss) to whom you can send an e-mail telling them to leave you alone.

To avoid using your e-mail address in future on unknown websites, you can use a throw-away address from Mailinator or one you create yourself via your ISP.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “nothing is certain, except death and taxes…. and spam”

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If you have a lot of time on your hands, there is another way (doesn’t always work)… Call them and tell them to take your e-mail addresses off the list. This has worked several times for me.

Does this actually still work in the age of Internet anonymity? Cool. Here’s an interesting story from the days when spam was delivered by phone:
We kept getting solicitation calls from AT&T at our business. They became more and more annoying and tied up our workers during very busy times of our busy season. One day I answered while helping a whole line of people at a register. I asked the guy not to call back and hung up on him. He called right back and I told him never to call again and hung up again. He called right back and started yelling at me. I hung up again without saying anything and twice more before he gave up. The customers were very understanding when I told them it was AT&T. So I wrote a letter to the president of AT&T telling him what had happened and telling him I never wanted to hear from AT&T again, not even to apologize. Never. And you know what? I never did. Ever. To this day I know of no phone calls from AT&T or their contractors to our business phone. I don’t know what list they put me on, but I sure would like to know who else is on it with me. 😎

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Since posting what I originally suggested for handling spam, there have been some modifications for completeness. I’m showing my original posting again, but modified for completeness so that there will hopefully be no questions as to what to do:

How to Handle Spam

1. Create a new Gmail account. (Gmail has the best spam filters in the world.)

2. Rather than forward the emails in my problem account, I “pull” them from my problem account using Gmail POP3 access. (See
https://support.google.com/mail/troubleshooter/1668960?hl=en#ts=1665119
for more information.) The reason for “pulling” from Gmail using POP3 rather than forwarding from your compromised account is that it’s more reliable. If forwarding happens to fail for any reason, it never tries again. If Gmail POP3 fails for any reason, it just keeps trying forever. Now Gmail will collect the spam in your new Gmail account spam folder.

3. If you use client email software, set it up to access your emails from your new Gmail account. If you don’t, access your email directly online at your new Gmail account.

But here’s the BEST part:

4. Setup an account at http://www.knujon.com/ where they collect spam and go after the spammers to shut them down. (FYI: “knujon” is “no junk” spelled backwards.)

5. Go to http://www.submanifold.be/triade/misc/gknujon/gknujon.html and download the “StandAlone_gKnujOn.zip” file near the bottom of the page and set it up as per the instructions included. Each time it’s run by running gKnujon.bat, this program will zip all of your spam in your Gmail spam folder, send it to Knujon, and then delete the spam in your Gmail spam folder.
(Note: You will be editing the “gKnujon.bat” file for the specifics of the account you set up at Knujon and your desired options. Be sure to add the line “pause” (without the quotes) as the last line of this “.bat” file because it will allow you to see in a DOS window that everything works correctly each time you run this “.bat” file. To close the DOS window after looking that it ran okay, press any key on your keyboard.)

6. Once each day, look through your Gmail spam folder and click the check box in front of any email that’s NOT spam and then click the “Not spam” button. Gmail moves those emails to your Gmail Inbox. Do this just before running “gKnujon.bat” which automates the zipping, sending to Knujon, and deleting all emails in the Gmail spam folder.

7. Run the “gKnujon.bat” file once each day. It runs very quickly. No matter how many spams you have, it will zip them into one file, send it to Knujon where they will take care of eliminating the spammers, and then delete the spam in your Gmail spam folder.

Problem solved.

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Since posting what I originally suggested for handling spam, there have been some modifications for completeness….Problem solved.

Thank you very much!

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Exactly the method I have been very successfully using, except of course for the knujon addition, which with thanks I will now add. Whilst Spam has increased through filters of late, using the method ensures that it does all seem to end up nicely in the GMail spam folder. Mostly Casino stuff nowadays & the odd Romantic advance fee stuff, typically though only a dozen or so a month. All the more for knujon, I guess!

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Just click the triangle with the exclamation point at the lower right corner of the post.

Thank you! That was easy.

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Now if only you could get my mom to read that.

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A final note: One reason that your ISP’s spam filter is better at detecting spam is because of multiple reporting of a given spam. Identical spam messages hit millions of inboxes. If only tens or dozens of people report them, it is relatively easy for the filter to catch future spams of that type. Your individual spam filter has to “learn” over several received spams, which is not nearly as effective. There are also third-party filters that attempt to collaborate among users, but they can’t compare to the widespread watch that your ISP can attain

I find that Comcast’s spam filter is much less effective than Outlook’s (or Outlook.com). I also don’t like to enable my ISP’s spam filter for the occasional false positive. I like seeing all of the Spam filter folder on my PC so I can periodically scan it for false positives that I can then white list. I know I could periodically go to Comcast’s web mail and check for false positives buts it’s more of a pain than using my Email client.

Jerry

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To Graeme,
“Pulling” your emails into Gmail only works using POP3, but you can choose to leave the original email on the server from which you are pulling. To do that, follow these instructions:
…
Stu

Hi Stu,
Thanks for your detailed info. Unfortunately the lack of IMAP is a problem as my wife and I use separate access to the email account and the pundits seem to say IMAP is better than Pop.

Web search for alternatives got me to GetMail as a possible solution, but as noted below it seems rather complex to implement on windows.

So I am not sure what to do next.
Graeme.

Eg. — Getmail, a python replacement to Fetchmail. This is free software licensed under the GPL v2. More information is available on the Getmail project homepage.
But running Getmail on MS Windows needs the free Cygwin package and http://cygwin.com/Running says recent versions of Python under Cygwin requires a process known as “rebasing” your Cygwin installation; see details in Python developers’ mailing list message. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-July/036932.html
—-

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Hi Stu,
Thanks for your detailed info. Unfortunately the lack of IMAP is a problem as my wife and I use separate access to the email account and the pundits seem to say IMAP is better than Pop.

Web search for alternatives got me to GetMail as a possible solution, but as noted below it seems rather complex to implement on windows.

So I am not sure what to do next.
Graeme.

Eg. — Getmail, a python replacement to Fetchmail. This is free software licensed under the GPL v2. More information is available on the Getmail project homepage.
But running Getmail on MS Windows needs the free Cygwin package and http://cygwin.com/Running says recent versions of Python under Cygwin requires a process known as “rebasing” your Cygwin installation; see details in Python developers’ mailing list message. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-July/036932.html
—-

Hi Graeme,

I don’t completely understand your specific situation. Please explain your situation in more detail.

If Gmail is to pull all your emails from multiple email accounts into the one Gmail account, then what would be wrong with both of you then accessing the one Gmail account using IMAP? How you pull the emails INTO Gmail has nothing to do with how you ACCESS the emails once they are in Gmail. In fact, that’s exactly what I do. I access my one Gmail account from 2 separate devices, my PC and my iPod Touch. Even though my Gmail account pulls emails from multiple accounts into the one Gmail account using POP3, my access to that one Gmail account is by IMAP.

Stu

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Hi Graeme,
I don’t completely understand your specific situation. Please explain your situation in more detail.
…..
Stu

Hello Stu, Thanks for your patience and help to clarify the issues.
We have several IMAP email a/cs accessed by my wife and I from different machines, and different places when one of us is travelling.
We can each read all the messages and when appropriate I delete messages for me and my wife deletes those for her. However, sometimes the wrong incoming message gets deleted and this is the problem I want to solve.
My plan is to have an account MyInboxArchive@gmail that sucks all incoming mail from all accounts and holds it to provide backup against accidental deletion. We dont need to use it for anything else, just to be a backup.
Agreed we could use the archive a/c as our working a/c but the messages from different incoming accounts are now in one large a/c making it is more difficult to review and keep clear separation for our different source accounts.
It is also essential to manage the message return addresses.
When I reply to an incoming message collected from the AA a/c the ‘sent from’ and ‘reply to’ fields should read AA. And when my wife replies to a message collected from the BB a/s the fields should read BB.
How is this done without extra hassle and risk of error and confusion to the recipient ?

A related issue which I have already solved is to automatically archive all sent messages. My solution uses the great Thunderbird setting which automatically adds a BCC on all outgoing messages. So all sent messages from any of our machines automatically includes BCC: MySentArchive@gmail. We have found this to be a great facility. When I am travelling, I can see what my wife has sent from the home computer and vv. Also if any of our computers fails, the email sent archive is preserved.
Thanks again for your comments,
Graeme.

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Hi Graeme,

Clearly you’ve given a lot of thought to your whole email system. Now I better understand what you’re trying to do. The idea of this Windows Secrets Lounge discussion is mainly centered around spam. Since your concerns are more about archiving than spam, I hope others following this discussion aren’t annoyed.

The “beauty” of Gmail, particularly as part of this Lounge discussion, is that it clearly has the best spam filters available. Although they are not perfect, I rarely find false positives or false negatives (but, of course, you ALWAYS should check the spam folder in ANY system to be 100% sure it’s all spam). That’s the main reason I use it as an intermediate email system. Your concern is focused on archiving. From your description, you’ve clearly worked out a quite clever Gmail based archive of all you and your wife’s sent email. (You taught me that Thunderbird has an automatic BCC capability that I didn’t know about.) For archiving all your received email, I still think the one “MyInboxArchive@gmail” account will meet your needs by pulling all your received email from all you and your wife’s email accounts, so long as you remember to choose the “Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server” option for each account. Then do nothing more with this new Gmail account. Because it’s just an archive, ALL the rest of your current email system stays as is and is used as you’re currently using it. Wouldn’t that work for you?
Stu

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Hello Stu,
Thanks for your comments. My apologies to others on this thread for diverging from the topic.

I agree your suggested approach will work for archiving emails from my several source accounts. But it requires changing all the source email accounts to POP because Gmail does not auto-extract from IMAP. I want to keep using the source a/cs and do not wish to change to POP for all the normal reasons, eg I often get messages with large attachments and value the option to delete them on the server without first downloading them as required by POP.

Maybe I should start another thread on archiving. Again many thanks for your help in clarifying my needs.
Graeme

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Hello Stu,
Thanks for your comments. My apologies to others on this thread for diverging from the topic.

I agree your suggested approach will work for archiving emails from my several source accounts. But it requires changing all the source email accounts to POP because Gmail does not auto-extract from IMAP. I want to keep using the source a/cs and do not wish to change to POP for all the normal reasons, eg I often get messages with large attachments and value the option to delete them on the server without first downloading them as required by POP.

Maybe I should start another thread on archiving. Again many thanks for your help in clarifying my needs.
Graeme

Email systems that I’ve seen are able to do POP and IMAP at the same time (i.e. Gmail). In other words, let’s say you have a paid Yahoo account. The last time I checked, a paid Yahoo account could be accessed by both, POP and (I believe) IMAP, at the same time. So you would be able to have Gmail pull the received emails from Yahoo using POP while you access Yahoo from other places using IMAP. Other email systems, like the free Yahoo (last time I checked), do not offer POP or IMAP access. You have to access it directly online. Please check the email systems you use to see if they offer POP and IMAP. If so, you can use them at the same time. They don’t interfere with each other, so long as you leave the emails on the server when setting up the “pull” (using POP) accounts in Gmail.

The one possible problem I DO see with what I’m suggesting for you is that, if an email comes into the inbox of one of your email accounts and you delete it via IMAP BEFORE Gmail has a chance to pull it down via POP, then that deleted email will never make it into the Gmail archive. The window of time when that could happen is about 1 hour, since Gmail pulls emails down via POP about once an hour. If you can live with that, it should work.
Stu

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Yes, please start another thread.

Dick

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