The message
from (jane) contains these words:

/snip/

Unfortunately, occasionally I delete a genuine mail from someone who
hasn't mailed me before. *sigh*

I think I'm going to have to switch to a different username and bin
anything to jane. That should remove the rest of the spam or at least
make it 100% filterable.

Having a genuine address and using it for usenet posts is asking for
trouble. Having a valid address and using it as a spamtrap is an
excellent idea, but remember to code a reply-to ad somewhere near your
sig if you want any genuine replies.

--
Rusty Hinge http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm

Dark thoughts about the Wumpus concerto played with piano,
iron bar and two sledge hammers. (Wumpus, 15/11/03)

Subject: OT. new antispam laws in the US
From: Jaques d'Alltrades
Date: 24/11/2003 11:17 GMT Standard Time
Message-id:
snip
That list has been superceded by new ones. I can promise you that you
*WILL* get spam on it from time-to-time, when a random address generator
aims at your ISP.

As an experiment a couple of weeks ago I created a new aol screen name. All I
did was create it and leave. I've never used it.

I checked it on Sunday, there were of 50 bits of spam, to a name never used.
It just shows how much is random generation on the "someone must have that
name" principle.

--
Rhiannon
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rhiannon_s/
Q: how many witches does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: depends on what you want it changed into!

On 24 Nov 2003 12:00:21 GMT, emon (Rhiannon S)
wrote:

Subject: OT. new antispam laws in the US
From: Jaques d'Alltrades
Date: 24/11/2003 11:17 GMT Standard Time
Message-id:
snip
That list has been superceded by new ones. I can promise you that you
*WILL* get spam on it from time-to-time, when a random address generator
aims at your ISP.

As an experiment a couple of weeks ago I created a new aol screen name. All I
did was create it and leave. I've never used it.

I checked it on Sunday, there were of 50 bits of spam, to a name never used.
It just shows how much is random generation on the "someone must have that
name" principle.

What did you call yourself?

We have 4 e-mail addresses based on our family christian names.
My daughter's christian name is not so common, her unused account was
overflowing with spam within a few weeks. My son has a very common
christian name and his mailbox created at the same time was still
empty a year after I created the account for him.
--
Martin

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 23:25:27 -0000, David Hill wrote:

.......So how do you account for the fact that we now receive no Spam on
that mail box? ........"

I'd say that you were lucky.
I've been bouncing Spam now for almost 2 months and in that time it has more
than doubled.Many of the spamers use a different address and name 2 or 3
times a day.
What gets to me are all the offers we get that when you check say Residents
of US only, I think that this sort of thing makes up around 20% of what I
get, You ask to be removed, you bounce it and still it comes daily.
Oh yes..I am using Mailwasher.

I too used Mailwasher, bouncing all the emails. Most of the were
undeliverable, and I still kept receiving the same from the same . If I
had taken up all certain offers I would no longer be able to get out of bed
as I'd be front heavy and topple over! ;-))
Also I found that I had blacklisted myself. So I have reverted to Spam
Buster, which does not have the ability to bounce but is better at
blacklisting.
I am also experimenting with 40tude, but not bottomed it yest.

Cheers
John T

--
To reply direct please remove the wet from the towill

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:26:58 +0000, John Towill
wrote:


I am also experimenting with 40tude, but not bottomed it yest.

I think Agent is easier to use. The format of the 40tude's windows
keeps changing and I can't find out why. In most respects Agent and
40tude are very similar.
--
Martin

The message
from martin contains these words:

I checked it on Sunday, there were of 50 bits of spam, to a name
never used.
It just shows how much is random generation on the "someone must have that
name" principle.

What did you call yourself?

We have 4 e-mail addresses based on our family christian names.
My daughter's christian name is not so common, her unused account was
overflowing with spam within a few weeks. My son has a very common
christian name and his mailbox created at the same time was still
empty a year after I created the account for him.

Luck of the draw. I'd guess that it randomly generates a numeric address
rather than guessing at usernames.

--
Rusty Hinge http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm

Dark thoughts about the Wumpus concerto played with piano,
iron bar and two sledge hammers. (Wumpus, 15/11/03)

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:54:56 GMT, Jaques d'Alltrades
wrote:

The message
from martin contains these words:

I checked it on Sunday, there were of 50 bits of spam, to a name
never used.
It just shows how much is random generation on the "someone must have that
name" principle.

What did you call yourself?

We have 4 e-mail addresses based on our family christian names.
My daughter's christian name is not so common, her unused account was
overflowing with spam within a few weeks. My son has a very common
christian name and his mailbox created at the same time was still
empty a year after I created the account for him.

Luck of the draw. I'd guess that it randomly generates a numeric address
rather than guessing at usernames.

not in this case, it randomly guessed user names, it didn't even bcc,
I could see all the combinations of my christian name plus random
letters.
--
Martin

Subject: OT. new antispam laws in the US
From: martin
Date: 24/11/2003 12:06 GMT Standard Time
Message-id:

On 24 Nov 2003 12:00:21 GMT, emon (Rhiannon S)
wrote:

Subject: OT. new antispam laws in the US
From: Jaques d'Alltrades
Date: 24/11/2003 11:17 GMT Standard Time
Message-id:
snip
That list has been superceded by new ones. I can promise you that you
*WILL* get spam on it from time-to-time, when a random address generator
aims at your ISP.

As an experiment a couple of weeks ago I created a new aol screen name. All
I
did was create it and leave. I've never used it.

I checked it on Sunday, there were of 50 bits of spam, to a name never used.

It just shows how much is random generation on the "someone must have that
name" principle.

What did you call yourself?

We have 4 e-mail addresses based on our family christian names.
My daughter's christian name is not so common, her unused account was
overflowing with spam within a few weeks. My son has a very common
christian name and his mailbox created at the same time was still
empty a year after I created the account for him.

A varient on my forename with a couple of letters bolted on at the end.
--
Rhiannon
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rhiannon_s/
Q: how many witches does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: depends on what you want it changed into!

On 24 Nov 2003 15:08:40 GMT, emon (Rhiannon S)
wrote:


What did you call yourself?

We have 4 e-mail addresses based on our family christian names.
My daughter's christian name is not so common, her unused account was
overflowing with spam within a few weeks. My son has a very common
christian name and his mailbox created at the same time was still
empty a year after I created the account for him.

A varient on my forename with a couple of letters bolted on at the end.

exactly the same in my case.
--
Martin

In article , Jane Ransom
writes
Nope . . . . you are WRONG.
After bouncing the mails that came to us after my husband's little
lapse, WE DO NOT RECEIVE ANY SPAM on that mailbox.

Most spam that I've seen has forged return addresses, i.e. the bounce
message will not reach the perpetrator.

However, I've seen it said that a lot of spam nowadays has web bugs in
it. (The archetypal web bug is a one pixel GIF image.) Given this, it is
plausible that if spam to an address is not read (bounced or deleted
unread) or read in such a fashion that embedded, remote, images are not
accessed, that the address will be recognised as not active and removed
from the spammer's list.

However, an email address that I used for one mailing list escaped into
the wild towards the beginning of this year (I think a virus infection
caused a participant to spew his address book across the net - it
occurred at the same time as a virus storm). I'm still getting spam to
that address, even tho' it's been bounced for months.

Bouncing the mails appears to have worked for you in this instance, but
it would seem to be an unwarranted assumption to conclude that it works
as a general rule.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

"Jane Ransom" wrote in message
...
In article , David david.simp
writes

But just about all the return addresses are false Jane,

So how do you account for the fact that we now receive no spam on that
mail box?

You seem to be the only one for whom bouncing leads to reduced spam. I did
not benefit from bouncing, and neither does any of my acquaintances.

Franz

"Jane Ransom" wrote in message
...
In article , David david.simp
writes

But just about all the return addresses are false Jane,

So how do you account for the fact that we now receive no spam on that
mail box?

You seem to be the only one for whom bouncing leads to reduced spam. I did
not benefit from bouncing, and neither does any of my acquaintances.

Franz

In article , martin
writes
So how do you account for the fact that we now receive no spam on that
mail box?

I don't know, unless something else has changed but it is a fact that
the spammers don't send from valid addresses (unless they're using an
unsuspecting host) they really *don't* see any replies (bounced or
otherwise).
The bit about they only use valid email addresses, well, they would say
that anyway wouldn't they
When the huge increase in junk started a while back I set up the
rejection rules to bounce most of it but it's still coming, 138 rejected
this morning with 7 getting through, I'm continually reviewing the rules
to fine tune.
One of the most popular addresses is which
is an easy one to block, I reject anything from aol and yahoo plus a few
smaller ones and unrecognised email names. I must admit there is a small
amount of satisfaction is seeing stuff bounced, is that sad?

Don't Demon offer a spam tagging service David?

How does that work Martin? I've had a text chat with them and they
didn't mention it, they suggested bouncing or deleting but were very
sorry there was nothing they could do...
--
David

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 21:22:03 +0000, David
wrote:

In article , martin
writes
So how do you account for the fact that we now receive no spam on that
mail box?

I don't know, unless something else has changed but it is a fact that
the spammers don't send from valid addresses (unless they're using an
unsuspecting host) they really *don't* see any replies (bounced or
otherwise).
The bit about they only use valid email addresses, well, they would say
that anyway wouldn't they
When the huge increase in junk started a while back I set up the
rejection rules to bounce most of it but it's still coming, 138 rejected
this morning with 7 getting through, I'm continually reviewing the rules
to fine tune.
One of the most popular addresses is which
is an easy one to block, I reject anything from aol and yahoo plus a few
smaller ones and unrecognised email names. I must admit there is a small
amount of satisfaction is seeing stuff bounced, is that sad?

Don't Demon offer a spam tagging service David?

How does that work Martin? I've had a text chat with them and they
didn't mention it, they suggested bouncing or deleting but were very
sorry there was nothing they could do...

Some ISPs have software that identifies 99.999% of spam.
The ISP inserts ***SPAM*** in front of the subject. On your PC you set
up a filter to either store ***SPAM*** messages in a folder, until you
are confident that they don't mark good messages as spam. Later if you
like you can filter ***SPAM***messages to be deleted directly. At work
all SPAM is removed before we see it, so we have no way of knowing if
we sometimes lose messages.

Some ISPs seem a bit reluctant to publicise this option. I pay a euro
a month extra for it.

Clara, Gradwell and BTopenworld are amongst the UK ISPs that offer
Spam tagging.

In NL Planet and Wanadoo both offer the service.

Demon appears to believe that Spam tagging is not possible

http://www.demon.net/helpdesk/spam/index.shtml
"Why doesn't Demon filter my email messages for UCE?

Filtering email, to discard the unwanted junk, often sounds like an
attractive option and indeed some people find that systems installed
on their own machines and tweaked for their own situation can work
very well. However, there are very significant challenges in setting
up a centralised system for a customer base as diverse as Demon's and
providing assurances that no-one's legitimate email will be discarded
by mistake.

We are also mindful that filtering is essentially a stop-gap solution
and that the "spammers" are already modifying their material to make
it harder and harder to distinguish from legitimate email. To fight
back, filters become more and more "fuzzy" and this increases the risk
of blocking the email that our customers want to receive.

Demon has investigated email blocking solutions and at present we do
not believe that we could offer a general system that would be
suitable for customers. However, this is not a final judgement, and we
will continue to monitor what is available as systems are improved and
updated."

Perhaps it's time for Demon users to put pressure on Demon to do a
real investigation.


--
Martin

In article , martin
writes
So how do you account for the fact that we now receive no spam on that
mail box?

I don't know, unless something else has changed but it is a fact that
the spammers don't send from valid addresses (unless they're using an
unsuspecting host) they really *don't* see any replies (bounced or
otherwise).
The bit about they only use valid email addresses, well, they would say
that anyway wouldn't they
When the huge increase in junk started a while back I set up the
rejection rules to bounce most of it but it's still coming, 138 rejected
this morning with 7 getting through, I'm continually reviewing the rules
to fine tune.
One of the most popular addresses is which
is an easy one to block, I reject anything from aol and yahoo plus a few
smaller ones and unrecognised email names. I must admit there is a small
amount of satisfaction is seeing stuff bounced, is that sad?

Don't Demon offer a spam tagging service David?

How does that work Martin? I've had a text chat with them and they
didn't mention it, they suggested bouncing or deleting but were very
sorry there was nothing they could do...
--
David