Spam: Preventable or Unavoidable?

[SailorAlea]

We have all, in using the Internet, experienced spam. By spam, I'm only talking about Junk E-mail, though. 80% of the e-mail I get is spam.

But, Internet Service Providers go a long way to blocking spam--All sorts of messages, like ones with 'Vicoden' or 'XXX' or 'FREE SEX,' etc, are blocked out.

This has caused the spammers to send inane, garbage e-mails that don't really say ANYTHING. Are you going to buy "dr0ugs online w/n0 prescription!!" "F3EE VIAG3RA!,' etc?

It's just gotten so ridiculous, the lengths at which they go to get around spam filters, in order to get you the message. But as a result, the E-mails you get are scrambled, non-sensical and look extremely unprofessional.

Do you guys think we'll EVER be able to really stop spam e-mail? Any ideas or suggestions for doing so?

It's not even a matter of giving out your e-mail address, or going in chat rooms, etc.. They do random combinations of letters which will eventually hit your mailbox.

I think the only way to really stop it from (coming out of America, at least) would be to make unsolicited e-mail a serious crime, and give the FBI the responsibility of tracking it.

But, that would cost a lot of (EDIT)money, just to prosecute/arrest and track offenders. Plus, nothing would stop them from hiring people/servers in other countries (like China), to send the e-mail over the Internet globally, as spam king Alan Ralsky has done.

What are your guys' thoughts?

 

[Smith|]

But, that would cost a lot of funny

(lol)

Anywho, I think a good idea would be to put up a list of people who you can ONLY receive mail from. That'd be a good idea, yep, yep, yep.

 

[Soulicro]

I use hotmail and that has an option like Smith was saying - its a list of people whom you can going get email from. you can choose who to add from your contact list, and then anybody else you can add and such. Really hotmail is such a good email service, all it needs is extra storage space. Anyway against junk Id go with hotmail because it is extremely friendly and flawless. but no, i dont think spam will ever stop. its a shame the internet will be plagued with spam. oh well, we'll deal.

 

[Sonic the Vampire]

I believe that in ten or twenty years the government will take a much larger role in regulating cyberspace, and five or ten years after that happens it'll be organized and controlled, at least locally, as opposed to what it is now, which is basically unmonitored and unregulatable. Once the government or several governments decide that it's time to take some control of the internet everything will start getting regulated, from porn to spam to violence. It seems implauabile now that the government could even approach that kind of an ideal (the internet is massive and boundless) but as we become more technologically advanced eventually that's what I feel is going to happen, but until that happens, if it happens, there's really no way to stop spam, or even chase down the people who do it.

 

[Goten-son]

well i use my comcast e-mail and hardly recieve spam at all!, but i wish they would add the option to block e-mails from a certain e-mail provider (ex: Blcok any e-mail ending with @aol.com) so we could at least reduce it to getting like 20% spam since a lot of e-mails come from corporate places like fashionsgood.com or some random name like that lol.

 

[Snow]

I used to get a couple hundred emails a day, (dont know how) I clicked some spam block now i get like 50 at most.

 

[Tassadar]

Congress recently passed a law (in the U.S.) that states you MUST warn anyone of pron emails with something like 'sexually explicit' in the subject. Which makes spam filtering much easier. If they don't do this they are subject to being sued. I believe they have a date but most spam in my e-mail now says 'sexually explicit' or '18+.' Aye, btw clicking on spam alone could cause more. Only thing I could think of that being possible is putting a script in the HTML page that is clicked on or popped up after the e-mail.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

I'd say it's perfectly avoidable. My account gets nothing besides what's supposed to be there.

 

[B0Bmaster40000]

look at it this way:
sure, spam may be annoying, useless, virus infested, pronographic trash that nobody wants, but without, how boring would life be? no dayly struggle to block the latest onslaught of RAM hungry parasites jumped up on spam. No thrill of having to call up your ISP and tell them to empty your email account cause its so crammed full of unsolicited shate that it crashes your computer! DAMN YOU MAILER DAEMON!!!....sure we can complain and whinge about it all we want...but whats the pont? we're all going to die anyway.

 

[Tassadar]

Well I say it's unavoidable, no matter what you put your e-mail in now-a-days they'll probably sell your email to other companies without your knowing. Even on signing up for a account on IRC, (/nickserv register password [email protected]) so you can have a registered nick on the network, they'll probably sign your e-mail off to the pron sites.
Especially with spyware, I believe it's virtually impossible not to get spam, unless you have a very good filter, or keep your e-mail as private as your Social Security number.

 

[Hibiki]

spam is 100% preventable

its just not easy


i think a majority of the spammers would be stoped by making it illegal to spam but the rest would still continue but im sure at some point the goverment will go out and stop them it will just take a while

 

[Phatslugga]

Don't give your e-mail out online(with the exception of places you know won't send your e-mail to bunch of other places), you'll get little to no spam, and the spam you get, you just block. That's what I did, and I have no spam whatsoever.

 

[SoulStriker]

(lol)

Anywho, I think a good idea would be to put up a list of people who you can ONLY receive mail from. That'd be a good idea, yep, yep, yep.

That works for general, personal e-mail accounts, but what if you need an e-mail account where anyone needs to be able to send you an e-mail. For example, a support address, or a webmaster address?

Usually those accounts don't get hit, but you would be surprised with the crap I get on my support account, and I havn't given that out *at all*. My webmaster account gets hammered everyday with it, but I use that to register for anything that I need (programs, fourms, etc) so I expect it.

The main thing I use to get rid of some crap is to automatically block and delete anything with an attachement in it. Seems to work well, since most attachements are virii anyway. The rest, I just keep a good and functional delete key on stand-by . . .

 

[GMan]

If congress passed regulations that would make unsolicited spam punishable, it would be reduced.

 

[TehMuffinMan]

myep.. why do i only get about one non p@rn related spam message every week? dosnt bother me much ;O