[TriLUG] alternate ways to reduce spam (was: OT: Google advertising for spammers?)

[Chris Merrill]

On 8/31/2010 12:52 PM, David M. wrote:
> Maxwell, I appreciate that you seem to legitimately care that your list was
> opt-in first.  100% of the spams I got were from people who decided I should
> be on their list for me.  If only all list creators and users of iContact,
> constantcontact, etc. services would act in such a way, but unfortunately
> this is not true and this is why I feel the iContact model stinks.  They

I'm curious what novel approaches people are using to fight spam?  (beyond the
traditional e-mail filtering)

I've been using a system for about 7 years that has almost completely eliminated
spam from my personal inbox.  It is probably not a novel idea.  The system is
cumbersome, however.  Perhaps this is an opportunity for somebody.

I run my own mail server. Every time I must provide an e-mail address (to a website,
etc.), I create a unique entry in my "aliases" file and record who that alias
was given to (and when).  When I receive spam on an address, I can then:
- know EXACTLY who gave out my e-mail address
- turn off that alias, so future e-mails to that address are rejected by the server
  (as undeliverable)

My use of this approach has led me to a few conclusions:
- it works very well
- it is mildly cumbersome to use in practice - particularly when I am not in
  front of my computer.  I _can_ SSH into my mail server via the SSH console on my
  droid and do this remotely, though it is cumbersome.
- very, very, very few sites give away their e-mail lists
- newsgroups and mailing lists are trolled actively by e-mail harvesters
- it isn't very practical for a business e-mail address, doesn't work at all
  on business cards, etc.

I get effectively zero spam in my personal inbox now - maybe 1 message per month,
usually less than that.


I've thought occasionally about a way to turn this into a useful (and usable) system
for others, but have never pursued it.



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Chris Merrill                           |  Web Performance, Inc.
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