Help needed with a spam problem!

[tenshi816]

I'm hoping somebody can help me with a recent problem I'm having with Outlook Express (yes, I know I shouldn't use it but I do). About a month ago I began receiving a tremendous amount of porn spam, like about 300 messages a day (I've received 21 porn e-mails in the last 5 minutes).

I've never had much of a problem with spam at all until now, let alone the porn variety.

I'm the only person who uses my computer and I never, ever visit porn websites. Never have, never will.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening? Is there anything I can do about it? As of now I'm simply deleting everything, but I'd like to stop receiving it at all if that's possible.

Thanks in advance for any forthcoming advice. My inbox seems so dirty (and yes, I do realize that sounds like some kind of double entendre...).

[charlie]

1. As to why it's happening

Do you use your address in public venues? Is it listed in forum profiles, signature lines, usenet groups? Have you submitted it to sites in exchange for access, downloading files, etc? A good rule to abide by is to never use your primary email address for anything other than correspondence with people you trust. For everything else, use others that you can dispose of without suffering much disruption. Web bots harvest publically accessible addresses and they'll often wind up in the hands of porn merchants.

As for what you can do, not much. You'll have to keep deleting, whether by filter or manually until it abates.

[Berserker]

2. The best advice

is to not use it at all. There are so many free e-mail programs to use that fight spam like Thunderbird and gmail why stick with that one?

[tenshi816]

4. I didn't know about Thunderbird!

I've now installed it - it can't get any worse, and with Thunderbird's junk mail filter, it should be a lot better.

Thanks!

[RoyGBiv]

3. You can't stop it ...

At best you can minimize it. If your ISP (or the company that you use for you e-mail address) offers a SPAM filter service, turn it on. Most do nowadays, but some of them have it turned off by default, or at least have different levels of filtering requiring you to turn on the most drastic level, because filtering SPAM on the server doesn't allow you to indicate what is and is not SPAM to you. This is how people end up having mass e-mailed newsletters and the like they've subcribed to caught in a SPAM trap. Server-side SPAM filters are necessary and mostly very good, but they aren't perfect.

After that, you need to start using an e-mail client that lets you teach it what SPAM is. Thunderbird is good. I believe there are several applications that work as a layer between your e-mail account and your e-mail client that would work for Outlook, but since I've never used Outlook except at work, I don't know.

Still, the SPAM will come. Once your e-mail address has been sold to a list, it will stay on that list or be sold off to other lists. You can ask to have it removed, and it might be, from that one company, or it might not. Regardless, the 10,000 other companies that have your address won't know or care. Since it's porn SPAM you can pretty much forget even trying this. Asking to be removed doesn't work. Ironically, the more legitimate businesses will remove your e-mail address for their database, which means you might stop getting stuff that is clearly labeled as adult material in a way that would let you easily filter anyway, but it's the scam sites that account for most of this, and they simply do not follow any sort of rules or standards of ethical behavior.

I personally would suggest you get another e-mail address and start using it for your personal business and never, ever give it to anyone you don't trust or want to use it. Don't use it to sign up for mass e-mails or newsletters. Don't use it to sign up to commercial sites or for online purchases. Then, make your other, SPAM-filled e-mail a SPAM bucket and don't even check it after you've successfully informed everyone that needs to know of the change in your e-mail address. It will eventually get full and be dumped by your ISP.

Gmail has excellent SPAM controls, and you can configure Outlook to download all the e-mail to your system as well as use the webmail feature to view e-mail online. If you need an invite for a gmail account, let me know. I have a bunch I'll never use.

[Old and In the Way]

5. It's a sad fact of life, I'm afraid.

I get a stady 50-100 a day. Porn, Hoodia, hot stock tips, Via-GaRa, work at home, etc. I wonder why, though. I mean, is there any actually responding to these? If not, what's the point?

[Lowell]

6. About the Porn Spam

I remember a few years ago we had a manager who had the uncanny ability to piss off nearly everyone she came in contact with. Suddenly her inbox at work started filling up with porn daily. Apparently a few disgruntled workers had been signing on to these sites and using her email address when ever they could. It all came back to her by the tons. You haven't pissed anyone off lately have you?

If so get gmail. It has great filters.

[Berserker]

7. How not to get spam...................

Keep and e-mail addy for your friends and family on Gmail and keep a e-mail addy on hotmail for whatever that you use for everything else on the net. If you use outlook or your IP provider they will fill your box with bullshit.